Linguistic Relativity and Spatial Reference in Tiv and English: An Empirical Investigation in Benue State

This study empirically investigates linguistic relativity effects in spatial reference encoding across Tiv and English among bilingual speakers in Benue State, North Central Nigeria. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, particularly in its weak linguistic relativity formulation, posits that the structural properties of a language influence non-linguistic cognitive processes, yet cross-linguistic evidence from African language pairs remains scarce. The study adopts a cognitive linguistic experimental methodology drawing on Levinson's framework of spatial reference frames. Sixty bilingual Tiv-English participants were recruited and compared with 30 monolingual English speakers on a battery of spatial memory, rotation, and object placement tasks designed to distinguish between absolute and relative reference frame preferences. Results reveal a significant absolute reference frame preference among Tiv-dominant bilinguals compared to English-dominant participants, consistent with documented absolute spatial encoding in Tiv nominal morphology. English-dominant participants show a relative reference frame preference consistent with English spatial grammar. Bilinguals with high Tiv proficiency occupy an intermediate position, suggesting partial cognitive transfer. The study provides original empirical evidence for weak linguistic relativity from a Nigerian language pair context and contributes to the cognitive linguistics literature on language and thought in multilingual Africa. Keywords: linguistic relativity, spatial reference, Tiv, cognitive linguistics, Benue State.