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Researchers define language in these kinds of studies somewhat differently from one another. Language can be written, spoken, or even just understood, as there are those people who understand someone speaking to them in a different language, but they are not fluent enough to carry on a conversation or to read the language in a book or newspaper. Because of that, it is very important for researchers to consider the issue of language carefully. Language fluctuates between different people and different cultures (Niemeier & Dirven, 2000). For most of the studies, though, researchers define language as the native language (both spoken and written) of the individual subject or study participant (Niemeier & Dirven, 2000). That way, the participants all know the language fluently and their thoughts are not influenced by their inability to come up with a word for an object.
Thought can influence language in some cases, instead of the other way around, though. For example, when people are learning a new language and starting to think in that...
In that case, one language may have influenced the thought, but the thought then influenced the other language. While convoluted and a bit confusing, it shows that thoughts and language do not necessarily have to follow a specific pattern in order to provide a person with information. In addition, thought can influence language when the person has a thought that he or she has trouble putting into words. Often, the brain will work toward finding a word (or trying to create a word) for the concept behind the thought. Perhaps that is where some new words come from, which would truly be the highest example of thought influencing language - since it would be part of the creation of that language.
References
Deutscher, G. (2010). Does your language shape how you think? New York Times Magazine.
Niemeier, S, & Dirven, R. (Eds). (2000). Evidence for linguistic relativity, New York: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
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