Language and Critical Thinking

1. LANGUAGE & CRITICAL THINKING
By Erik Tatulbekyan

2. FOUR WAYS LANGUAGE EFFECTS CRITICAL THINKING
1. Language is related to audience attention
and comprehension.
2. Language is related to audience
acceptance and rejection of an argument.
3. Language affects arguer credibility.
4. Language determines how people
interpret their environment.

3. FOUR AREAS OF LANGUAGE USE THAT ARE
IMPORTANT FOR CRITICAL THINKING
1. Word Choice
- Words affect the way an audience reacts to an argument.
- The English language contains roughly 500,000 usable words, 500 common
words, and 14,000 different meanings. Which means that there is no guarantee that
the sender and receiver will always understand each other.
- Word choices allow people to indirectly express their feelings about events,
people, and other things.
- The Whorf-Sapir hypothesis maintains that the words of a particular language help
to determine the way people interpret events that occur.

4. 2. Ambiguity
- “A word, phrase, or sentence is ambiguous if it has more than one meaning.”
(Kent Bach, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Ambiguity)
- Ambiguous language can cause confusion.
- Ambiguous language can lead to bypassing, stereotyping, and over generalizing.

5. HOW TO PREVENT AMBIGUITY
• Pronounce words clearly.
• Define a word or a phrase if necessary.
• Use type of words that the audience can understand.

6. 3. Definition
- Main function of definition is to get sender and receiver on the
same semantic wavelength.
- It is used to indicate the sense in which you use a familiar
term.

7. 2 TYPES OF MEANINGS
1. Denotative meaning
- The way a word is used or the meaning the people most
frequently attach to a word.
2. Connotative meaning
- The way a person emotionally responds to it.

9. 4. Intensity of Language
- Intensity of a language refers to the use of words and phrases that often
negatively raise the emotional level of communication encounter.
- The language that is considered vulgar, coarse, offensive, and vulgar.

10. 3 AREAS WHERE INTENSITY OF
LANGUAGE CAN BE FOUND
1. Negative Evaluative Words
• Examples: weird, ugly, fat, strange, stupid.
2. Strong Emotive Words
• Examples: liar, rude, lazy, friendly, beautiful, talented.
3. Abusive Language
• Examples: swearing, insults, name calling, obscenity.

11. CONCLUSION
• Language choice depends on the person, time, place, and
occasion.
• Using the proper and correct language can enhance
credibility.
• Improper use of language can result in rejection of the
position being advanced.

12. THANK YOU

13. REFERENCES
Marteney, Jim, and Jack Sterk. Communicating Critical Thinking. Agoura Hills, CA:
Leadership Communication, 1990. Print.