The linguistic turn was coined in 1953 by Gustav Bergmann and popularized by Richard Rorty's anthology of the same name in 1967. In the early teens of the 20th century, there was a growing belief that language didn't just describe or reflect the world, but was an active participant in forming it. This may have started with Nietzsche's idea of language as an army of metaphors. Or it may go back to Locke, or even further back to William of Occam.