Finally, as he or she goes to express which type of furniture he or she means to buy, he or she uses "couch" to denote an informal piece of furniture and "sofa" to denote a formal one. If others have different interpretations of these two words, then they will have trouble understanding what this buyer wants to purchase. Thus, language and the diversity of language greatly impact the critical thinking process. People assign linguistic terms to objects, ideas, and abstractions, which impacts how they are characterized in a person's mind. In addition, these characterizations affect the expression of one's thoughts, limiting that expression. These expressions are limited because no two people have the exact same understanding of different words and phrases. Each word or phrase has, for each individual person, a repertoire of childhood memories, connotations, associations, etc. Thus, it is never possible to be sure that what you are expressing is what others perceive. The best example of the importance of this issue is derived using idea words, such as racism and sexism. For one person, racism may bring up memories of class history books, documentaries, and a one-time accusation of being racist. Another person might have a closer relationship with the word, a person who has many times been a victim of racism. Thus, when these two people discuss racism, they discuss different things. Their expressions are limited because they are not able to fully explain to another what they mean, as each and every word has different connotations, and even denotations, for different people. This is even...
One person may think "sofa" is the less formal of the two words because her mother always called the less elegant pieces of furniture "sofas." When this person's friend refers to a "sofa" in her aunt's newly furnished parlor, her expression is limited as her friend does not quite understand what a "sofa" is.
Most anthropologists consider human language to be one of the most essential mechanisms behind the evolution of primitive human ancestors into Homo Sapiens (Wenke & Olzewski 2007), as well as behind the development of early human cooperative societies. By definition, therefore, wherever language differences exist between individuals who wish to communicate, their ability to bridge the language gap will determine whether or not they will be successful. Society is becoming
Language and Critical Thinking Language and language diversity has a significant effect in influencing critical thinking because it shapes the individual's worldview or his/her perceptions of the realities that s/he experiences everyday. One of the most often used comparisons in order to illustrate the influence of language diversity in critical thinking is the differences in worldviews of the Eastern and Western cultures. Looking into the basic differences in their language, Eastern societies
Language and Thinking Language is the one aspect, which distinguishes human beings from lower species of life (Faccone et al. 2000). Sternberg (1999 as qtd in Faccone et al.) lists its properties as including communication, arbitrary symbolism, regular structure, structure at multiple levels, generation and production and dynamism. Sternberg assumes that language is most likely acquired naturally from the environment where a person is raised as an infant. The stages seem
Critical Thinking and Society Exercise: Critical thinking is a process that is used by individuals on a daily basis though many people use it without realizing it. Critical thinking can basically be defined as the process of exercising or involving skilled observation or judgment. This process requires the use of a variety of cognitive skills and intellectual capabilities to evaluate arguments, overcome personal biases and prejudices, and make intelligent and reasonable
In today's global society, such understanding has become vital to communicating effectively in both the social and business worlds. Critical thinking and language can therefore not exist without each other. Critical thinking helps the participants in a conversation to understand the possible meanings in language, while language helps participants to gain clarity regarding these meanings. Language serves both an empowering and limiting function in expressing thought. The expression "there are no
G., the "march" toward "freedom") was occurring as he said. One cannot have critical thinking without language, and most language at least invites critical thinking (even if critical thinking does not take place). 2) How does language empower or limit the expression of our thoughts? Language springs from a combination of our thoughts and the context in which language is used. Language (depending, on how we choose to, or feel we must
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