Méthode formelle. Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its respective speakers conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view, or otherwise influences their cognitive processes.
Popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined to include two versions: Strong version: that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categoriesWeak version: that linguistic categories and usage influence thought and certain kinds of non-linguistic behaviour. The term "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis" is a misnomer, because Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf never co-authored anything, and never stated their ideas in terms of a hypothesis. The significance of the meta-circular interpreter. The significance of the meta-circular interpreterA self-interpreter is a “programming language interpreter written in the language it interprets.”
A meta-circular interpreter is a special case of a self-interpreter that applies only to programs where the primary representation of the program is a primitive data type in the language itself (this property is called homoiconicity). Lisp is such a language because Lisp programs are lists of symbols and other lists. XSLT is such a language because XSLT programs are written in XML. (If you have ever written an XSLT that transforms other XSLTs, then you immediately grasp the advantage of a meta-circular interpreter over an ‘ordinary’ self-interpreter: it is not just possible, but it is easy to write programs that write programs, because you don't have to fiddle with transforming each program into an abstract data structure (typically a tree) that can be manipulated by your program.)