Rossi-Landi’s text Ideologies of linguistic relativity is probably the most merciless critique ever made of Sapir-Whorf’s thesis, although it remains, perhaps for this very reason, the least known, discussed and developed among the scientific objections aroused against linguistic relativity. Rossi-Landi points out its idealistic and bourgeois basis, which brought its theorists to ideological deformations in their formulations, especially in their conception of the relationships between language and thought. Rossi-Landi demystifies them through his semiotics. He explains why what we call linguistic relativity could develop as a theory or a hypothesis through the study of American Indian languages. He shows a series of confusions and reifications it gave birth and suggests another way of considering the problems aroused by linguistic relativity: that one of a dialectical-materialist approach taking account of the alienated condition of speakers, of their material and linguistic exploitation through social models and programs, and of the possibilities of their emancipation.
