BBI3436
CRITICAL AND CREATIVE
THINKING
Language and Critical
Thinking
Language and Critical Thinking
Language is important to critical thinking.
 Language determines how effective one’s
argument will be.
 Language choices can conceal the truth, confuse,
mislead, or deceive us.
 A good critical thinker uses language that meets
the needs and expectations of the audience, and
is appropriate to the time, place, person, and
occasion.

Four areas of language:
Word choice
 Ambiguity
 Definition
 Intensity

Word Choice

The words you choose:
◦ Affect the way other react to the argument you
present.
◦ Allow you to indirectly express your “real”
feelings about people, events and things in the
environment.
◦ Gives exactness to detail.
◦ Helps the communicator paint a picture in the
audience’s mind.
◦ Reduce the chance of miscommunication.
Ambiguity
◦ Words or expressions that can be understood in more
than one way.
◦ Euphemisms- use of a mild, neutral, evasive, or vague
term in place of one considered taboo, offensive, blunt, or
unpleasant (“chronologically challenged”, “pre-owned”)
◦ Jargon - language of a professional, occupational, or
other group, often meaningless to outsiders. (“cookies”,
“bug”, LOL)
Ambiguity in Language
When the meaning of a word, phrase, or
sentence is unclear, we say that it is
“ambiguous”.
Interpreting the issue, conclusion, and
reasons is much more difficult when
ambiguous language is used.
Ambiguity in Language
The nature of language is that it is flexible. Words
and phrases can have different meanings in different
contexts.
Sometimes a speaker / writer is ambiguous due to
being sloppy with language.
Other times, the ambiguity may be intentional.
In any case, we need to watch out for ambiguous
language, and discern the correct meaning before we
can decide if we agree with someone.
Ambiguous language
•
Interferes with the clear expression of thoughts.
An ambiguous word is a word with more than one
(1) meaning that is open to different
interpretations.
Examples:
He fed her dog biscuits
The duck is ready to eat
Flying planes can be dangerous
The shooting of the hunter disturbed him
Ambiguity
deep can mean profundity (what you have said is very deep),
Or it can be used to describe physical depth (this hole is very
deep).
young (inexperienced or young of age)
bank (river bank or financial institution)
Ambiguous language can lead to over-generalization and
stereotyping.
E.g. “Everyone thinks that democracy is a good thing.”
“Young drivers are all alike, inconsiderate and
dangerous.”
Ambiguity Resulting from Confusion of
Different Meanings
•
Lexical ambiguity - when a word or phrase, in
the context of a particular sentence, could refer
to two or more properties or things.
She put her glasses on the table.
He’s gone to the bank.
•
It is sometimes clear from the context which
meaning is intended, but not always.
Pavarotti is a big opera star.
Ambiguity Resulting from Confusion of
Different Meanings
•
Referential ambiguity – when the context does not
make it clear what a pronoun or quantifier is referring
to.
Lizzy hit Paula and then she started bleeding – who is
bleeding?
The boys chased the girls, and they giggled a lot.
•
Grouping ambiguity - whenever we refer to a collection
of individuals, we must clearly show whether the
reference is to the collection as a group or as
individuals
Politicians are corrupt – generalisation
Syntactic Ambiguity


Ambiguity because of the structure of the sentence
rather than a word or phrase - the words are not
confusing but the word order is.
There is more than one way to interpret the
grammatical structure.
Example:
He chased the girl in his car.
What does this mean? Did he chase a girl already inside
his car? Or did he chase a girl (perhaps in another car)
with his car?
Vague language
As the sun sets the surroundings
become dark, but there is no sharp
boundary when the surroundings
suddenly switch from being bright to
being dark.
So “dark” and “bright” are vague
terms.
Using words that are very imprecise and general.Vague
words are words that lack a clear and distinct meaning.
Examples:
I had a nice time yesterday
That is an interesting book
She is an old person
She is a beautiful girl
Examples of Vagueness
Men burn off 438 calories per hour
gardening.
 Doctor: The arrhythmia you are
experiencing indicates that you should lay
off jogging for awhile.
 “Your satisfaction is guaranteed with our
two-year limited guarantee.”

Analysing statements
Does TV violence negatively affect children?
What qualifies as “violence”?
Define “negatively affect”?
“Children” of what ages?
Identify Key Terms
Which East – Asian countries have the most
freedom?
Which countries are part of East – Asia?
China, Japan, Korea? Any others?
Define freedom.
Ask yourself:
“What does that mean?”
“Could that word / phrase / sentence
be interpreted in more than one way?”
If the answer to the previous question is yes, ask:
“Does the statement still support the conclusion?”
Definition
Avoid problems caused by ambiguity by defining
the terms you are working with .
 The definition get’s the sender and the receiver
on the same page in order to avoid unnecessary
confusion.
 Words are not limited to one single meaning.
 Most words have multiple meanings, which are
categorized as either denotative or connotative
.

Meaning as denotation
The literal, neutral, descriptive meaning of a
word or phrase – the information content or
data.
 What a word denotes is the thing, person,
characteristic, or action to which the word
points or refers.

ball
Prime Minister
blue
University
mowing
Meaning as connotation
Emotive meaning - is not necessarily very
emotional, although it can be
 This aspect of meaning expresses an attitude
of approval or disapproval. It is thus evaluative.
It conveys the feelings or associations
connected to the thing named.
 Often the connotations depend upon the
experiences we have had with an object.
 The connotative meanings of a word exist
together with the denotative meanings. The
connotations for the word snake could include
evil or danger.

Connotation
Safari, Gravity, XS, Obsession, Curve
 “bureaucrat” vs “government official” vs
“public servant”
 “discriminating” vs “distinguishing” vs
“scoring” vs “sorting” vs “grading”

Meaning of a word
The denotative meaning:


Refers to the way a word is
generally used or the
meaning that people usually
attach to a word.
In a dictionary, definition
number one of a word is
thought of as the
denotative meaning of a
word.
The connotative meaning:


Refers to the way a person
emotionally responds to it.
Connotative meanings are
necessary for humans to
express themselves
emotionally, and to describe
themselves fully.
• “There is an air of insatiable
desire about Shalimar....
Shalimar, the most exquisitely
voluptuous perfume on
Earth”.

There is a funny odour about
Pungent.....Pungent, the cheapest
scent you can get in your local
discount store
Intensity
◦ Words or phrases that negatively raise the emotional
level of communication.
◦ Demonstrates irreverence, contempt or disrespect.
◦ Words that considered coarse, vulgar, obscene or
offensive.
◦ Intensity of language can be found in three areas:
1.
2.
3.
Negative evaluative words - Understood through a comparison
with their opposite (ex:ugly, fat)
Strong emotive words - Describe something, but represent the
person’s attitude toward what is being described. (Ex: he is such a
loudmouth)
Abusive language - Obscenities, name calling, insults, swear words.
****Use of high intensity language= poor
critical thinking****
Patterns of Organisation

See pg 59
USING GRAPHIC ORGANISER
►A
graphic organizer is a visual representation
of knowledge.
►Graphic
organisers are ideal tools to support
critical thinking.
►They
help you organise many different pieces
of information into a few logical concepts or
ideas.
►Different
types of graphic organisers have been
created for different purposes
►However, all
graphic organisers show
relationships among information, ideas and
concepts.
►You
must choose the type of graphic organiser
that will best help you accomplish your goals
Clustering
Diagram
Problem-Solution
Organiser