Ferdinand de Saussure, the father of modern linguistics, contended that knowledge of how the meaning of a sign is produced cannot be acquired if we examine the sign in isolation from a system of signs. For example, the English language has several different words for stones - e.g. stone, pebble, rock, boulder, etc. - and that they acquire their meaning through existing in a state of contrast with one another. Polish, on the other hand, only has one word for stones, so it has to stand for everything all the English words represent. For this reason, and for the fact that it stands in contrast with nothing, its meaning is not as precise or meaningful as the English word stone.

I have several questions to encourage a discourse with, then. First, is this position still held by any of the schools of thought in modern linguistics? Second, if it stands correct, to what extent does it follow from this theory that our ideas are determined by language? Certainly, we can probably produce the contrasts in Polish, we would only have to take a lot more time and write out long descriptions, but then aren’t there some fundamental words within the language we cannot step outside of, so to speak? And thirdly, if it does not stand, to what extent do you consider our ideas to be determined by the language we speak?

do you differentiate between thoughts in the brain and in the mind?

It's a chicken and egg situation.

The eskimos have several different words for snow, depending on the time of year it falls, the texture of the snow, etc. For us there is just snow. Here we can assume that in their environment differentiating between snow is important to them and thus created words for language. Thus thought influenced language.
To a certain tribe of Australian aboriginals, communicating dreams is important enough that they have words that specifically describe dreams. I wish I remembered the name of the tribe to look them up.

Then there's the opposite going on. Take the amazonian Piraha:
The Pirahã language challenges simplistic application of Hockett's (1960) nearly universally-accepted 'design features of human language', by showing that some of these design features (interchangeability, displacement, and productivity) may be culturally constrained. In particular Pirahã culture constrains communication to non-abstract subjects which fall within the immediate experience of interlocutors.

This constraint explains several very surprising features of Pirahã grammar and culture:
(i) the absence of creation myths and fiction;
(ii) the simplest kinship system yet documented;

(iii) the absence of numbers of any kind or a concept of counting;

(iv) the absence of color terms;

(v) the absence of embedding in the grammar;

(vi) the absence of 'relative tenses';

(vii) the borrowing of its entire pronoun inventory from Tupi;

(vi) the fact that the Pirahã are monolingual after more than 200 years of regular contact with Brazilians and the Tupi-Guarani-speaking Kawahiva;

(vii) the absence of any individual or collective memory of more than two generations past;

(viii) the absence of drawing or other art and one of the simplest material cultures yet documented;

(ix) the absence of any terms for quantification, e.g. 'all', 'each', 'every', 'most', 'some', etc.

on the basis of tones, the Pirahã can generate specific modes of communication: by means of cries, whistles, and ‘eating-speech.’ Cries enable communication over a large distance and are generally used to converse while they are navigating in one or more canoes on the river. Communication by means of whistles occurs during expeditions in the forest or on rivers, when voiced speech could risk undermining the expedition’s objective. Everett (1983) documented that the whistles follow tones and not a standardized tonality that establishes a meaning. In this way, the Pirahã are capable of providing words and even phrases through the recourse to whistles. ‘Eating-speech’ is a third possibility for establishing communication by means of tones: they can continue talking while chewing on food.
These are fully functioning humans with no mental defects that can't form numbers or things of the sort due to their language inhibiting their thoughts. I'd say this is a pretty extreme example of the extent to which language influences thought. There are countless examples of indigenous tribes all over the world that either have less words for colors(and can't express between say, red, magenta, brick red, etc.) or more words for colors.

If you've read George Orwell's piece on doublespeak, it sounds very doable. Omit words, get rid of " useless" synonyms, and eventually have people's range limited from "ungood" to "doubleplusgood" after generations.

The eskimos have several different words for snow, depending on the time of year it falls, the texture of the snow, etc.
as far as I know it´s a myth. they got two words, "snow that falls" and "snow that rests".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow

To a certain tribe of Australian aboriginals, communicating dreams is important enough that they have words that specifically describe dreams. I wish I remembered the name of the tribe to look them up.
the malaysian tribe of the senoi has widely cultivated proficiency in dream control.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senoi

Well, it does determine thought, that's for sure. If you look at cases where a person was raised without being exposed to a first language, their mental abilities don't, and never can fully develop.

As to what extent it determines it...I think it's impossible to say. I mean, it's been shown that many people from Asian countries have different psychological patterns than people from Western countries, but how could someone know whether that's due to language, or culture, or both, to varying degrees? Then there's also the question of why languages have formed in different ways. In Zulu, they use clicking sounds for some words. In Chinese, intonation can change the meaning of a word entirely. In Russian, the ь (soft sign) can be the difference between "out" and "smell", or "mother" and "swear". In English, we have hardly any inflection (ie. we have simple grammar). Did different innate thought patterns produce these differences? The environment (ie. perhaps clicking sounds were used by humans to imitate the sounds that certain African animals made)? Random chance?

Interesting topic....

If you've read George Orwell's piece on doublespeak, it sounds very doable. Omit words, get rid of " useless" synonyms, and eventually have people's range limited from "ungood" to "doubleplusgood" after generations.

Kinda makes you wonder if the opposite is also true; add words to a language and the society as a whole becomes more intelligent. It would make sense, and hell maybe that's what every society could use, just a few more words to make everyone a bit more articulate.

Damn, Zay beat me to 1984.

Anyway, Noam Chomsky and other linguists whose name I can't remember argue that by limiting a person's "conceptual metaphors" (which I take means the number of words that mean a concept that's not physically tangible) to create a hegemonic society. Which I guess is why Orwell used it.

If someone can't construct or understand a logical argument against being controlled, because the terms are too abstract for them, then they'll just go ahead and be controlled, because they don't know any better, is what they're getting at. (I think)