Ways of Knowing: Language

What is language?

Language is:-

rule-governed

intended

creative and open-ended

What is the purpose of language?

What gives language meaning?

• Definition theory

• Denotation theory

• Image theory

Newspaper Headlines

Child’s Stool Great for Use in Garden

Stud Tires Out

Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funerals

Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case

Iraqi Head Seeks Arms

Queen Mary Having Bottom Scraped

Where does language come from?

• innate?

• learned?

Can animals use language?

Does language shape thought?

Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence through them

- Lev Vygotsky

Language at War

Warspeak Real meaning

security assistance arms salesNeutralise killfriendly fire accidentally firing on your own troopsinoperative combat personnel dead soldiersPacification bombingcollateral damage killing of civiliansreporting guidelines censorshippre-emptive unprovokedLiberate invadeethnic cleansing genocide

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

The ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached…We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. -Edward Sapir

Does language assist or limit our search for knowledge and truth?

“the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”

-2 Corinthians 3.6

Group discussion topic

Do u h8 txt msgs?:

Is texting wrecking our language?