Chapter 3
Ways of knowing – Language
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Language
• Language is one of the four ways of knowing:
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Perception
Language
Emotion
Reason
• It enables us to tap into the collective experience of
the community.
• Language is:
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governed by arbitrary rules of grammar
expressed orally as sounds linking to objects or concepts
intended
used creatively to communicate vast numbers of ideas.
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Problems with language
• deceit
• manipulation (e.g. propaganda)
• misunderstanding
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The problem of meaning
• We need to understand the meaning of language
before its truth can be assessed.
• Theories of meaning:
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definition theory
denotation theory
image theory
know-how
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Definition theory
• Words can be defined using other words.
• Problems of meaning:
– May not adequately express deeper meaning.
– May just raise more problems of interpretation of the words
used in the definition.
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Denotation theory
• Meaningful words stand for something.
• Problems of meaning:
– Abstract words do not stand for any thing in the world, e.g.
multiplication, wisdom.
– People’s names would be meaningless after they are dead.
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Image theory
• The meaning of a word is the mental image it stands
for.
• Problems of meaning:
– Different people may unknowingly have different mental
images.
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Know-how
• You know the meaning of a word when you know
how to use it.
• Problems of meaning:
– Different people know how to use the same words in
different ways.
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Problematic meaning
• We sometimes do not say exactly what we mean.
• Problematic meaning types:
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vagueness
ambiguity
secondary meaning
metaphor
irony
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Vagueness
• Many words, such as ‘fast’ or ‘slow’, are vague;
their meaning depends on context.
• Problems of meaning:
– People may have different ideas of what a vague word
implies.
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Ambiguity
• Either: words with two different meanings
or: phrases that can be read in two ways.
• Note: All the following problematic meaning types
may be considered to be different forms of ambiguity.
• Problems of meaning:
– Can be used to amuse or mislead.
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Secondary meaning
• Also known as connotation.
• Note: primary meaning = denotation.
• Problems of meaning:
– A word may have a number of associations linked to it,
varying from person to person, e.g. ‘school’.
– We may use euphemisms to avoid nasty ideas, e.g.
‘passed away’.
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Metaphor
• The literal meaning of a word or phrase is not the
intended meaning, e.g. ‘He has his head in the
clouds.’
• Problems of meaning:
– It can be difficult to determine where literal meaning ends
and metaphorical meaning begins.
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Irony
• Saying one thing but meaning the opposite.
• Problems of meaning:
– Can be confusing.
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Why care about the meaning of words?
• The difference between murder and manslaughter
can mean a life or death sentence for the accused.
• To reduce unemployment or poverty, the authorities
may redefine the words, thus changing statistics.
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Language and translation
• Translations should be:
– faithful to the original text
– comprehensible
– back-translatable with consistency.
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Problems with translation
• Different languages divide the world up in different
ways.
• Word-for-word translations often don’t make sense.
• Different choices of words can cause subtle
differences in meaning.
• Context can change the meaning of a word.
• Some words are untranslatable.
• Meaning can be lost in translation.
• Idioms: some expressions/sayings have a meaning
other than the direct word meaning, e.g. ‘I was over
the moon.’
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Labels and stereotypes
• Language affects the way we think and hence the
judgements we make.
• Use of labels (words) to classify things, e.g. apples,
sand:
– can be efficient
– may reflect natural classifications or cultural impositions on
the world.
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Labels and stereotypes: problems
• Differences that are not immediately apparent may
be overlooked.
• Adjectives paint inefficient verbal portraits.
• Labels may harden into stereotypes, e.g.
assumptions about members of groups of people.
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Language and thought
• To what extent does language influence our thinking?
• The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (linguistic
determinism):
– Edward Sapir (1884–1939), Benjamin Whorf (1879–1941)
– Language determines our experience of reality, so our
perception is limited by language. (However, it can be
argued that reality determines language.)
– Examples:
• The Inuit have many words for snow, so they see snow-covered
landscapes differently from other people.
• The North American Hopi Indians have no words for present,
past, future. Whorf came to the conclusion that they have no
concept of abstract time.
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Testing the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
(For)
• Peter Farb (1929–80) interviewed Japanese wives of
Americans living in the USA in Japanese and English.
Their responses to the same questions asked and
answered in Japanese/English were different.
• Multiplication would be mentally impossible using
Roman numerals: a symbol for zero and positional
notation are needed to be able to do it.
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Testing the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
(Against)
• Babies and animals can think without language.
• Some people claim to think in images (which may be
an effort to put into words).
• If language determines thought, new words could not
arise.
• A weaker form of the hypothesis could be: language
influences thought.
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Language and values
Using language to influence and persuade:
• Emotionally laden language (some words can have
negative or positive connotations).
• Weasel words (words added to a sentence to protect
accuracy), e.g. ‘most dogs bark’.
• Use of passive sentence constructions to protect the
speaker, e.g. ‘We bombed the village’ / ‘The village
was bombed’.
• Revealing and concealing, e.g. ‘I have invited a
blonde/cellist/athlete/lesbian to the party’ → affects
the way others may view the person in question.
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Language at war
• Soldiers are more likely to kill enemies who are
dehumanised, e.g. ‘turkey shoot’, ‘Gooks’.
• Alternative words are used to make war more
acceptable.
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Language is power
• Hence the use of ‘spin doctors’.
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