This document discusses language and communication in several ways: 1) It explores how language can be ambiguous and how the same words can have different meanings to different people or cultures, providing examples. 2) It examines how euphemisms and ambiguous or unclear language can obscure meaning and create miscommunication. 3) It analyzes how the definitions and connotations of words can shape how people interpret events and each other. 4) It emphasizes the importance of clear definition and word choice in effective communication and avoiding misunderstandings.

1.  How do you say “language”?
 Spanish : lengua
 Russian : язык
 Japanese : 言語
 Greek : γλώσσα
 Dutch : taal
 Korean :언어
 French : langue
“Therefore it‟s name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the
language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the
face of all the earth.” (Genesis 11:1-9)

2. The English language contains roughly 500,000 usable words, and the 500
most common words in the English language have a combined total of
more than 14,000 different meanings. Thus, there is no guaranty that sender
and receiver will be on this same semantic wave length.
The Whorf-Sapir hypothesis maintains that the word of a particular
language help to determine the way that people interpret events that occur.
To a Japanese the word “mokusatsu” may mean either “to ignore”, or “to
refrain from comments.” Unfortunately the translation broadcast to the
world said that Japan had decided to “ignore” the Potsdam Declaration
demanding Japan surrenders. To the Allies, this meant a rejection of the
terms for surrender and they decided to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But for this tragic misuse of language, Japan might have been spared the
atomic attack
According to Whorf and Sapir our word choices allow us to indirectly
express our “real” feelings about the people, events and things in our
environment. Meaning is in the mind and not in the symbols (words).The
language goal of the critical thinker is to select the appropriate words to
match the time, place, occasion and person.

3.  Euphemism is used to soften the impact of a word to make it more
audience-acceptable.
 Compare:
 torture-enhanced interrogation technique
 Shooting at one‟s own troops-friendly fire
 abortion- termination of pregnancy
 fire someone: let somebody go
 unemployed-between jobs
 Euphemisms should be used sparingly and with extreme care,
because they increase the ambiguity level in all areas of
communication including argumentation.

4. Doublespeak “makes the bad seem good, the
negative appear positive, the unpleasant
appear attractive or at least tolerable. It is a
language that conceals or prevents thought”
according to William Lutz.
Another kind of doublespeak is language which is clear
and accurate but implies something which is false.
Lutz identifies several kinds of doublespeak used to mislead,
deceive listeners about ugly reality or embarrassing situation, or
to give an air of prestige, profundity or authority to one‟s speech.
It is a tricky problem to find the particular calibration in timing that would
be appropriate to stem the acceleration in risk premiums created by falling
incomes without prematurely aborting the decline in the inflation-
generated risk premiums (Alan Greenspan).

5. The use of more ambiguous language by an arguer can create three distinct
problems for the critical thinker.
•Confusion.
Advertisers use phrases like “New and Improved,”or “Faster
Acting “ to purposely create ambiguity in their audience. This allows
individuals to independently interpret such phrases as the needs of the
different audiences warrant.
•Over-generalizing and stereotyping.
Thinking in ambiguous terms tend to lead to categorizing
large group of people, events, and things under one label.
The greater the ambiguity, the more likely one is to ignore
individual differences and classify all members of the
group as being this same.
• Bypassing.
“I don‟t know why I got sick, I only had „a little‟ to
drink.” Bypassing occurs when people unintentionally
use the same word to mean different things or use
different words to represent the same thing.

6. The denotative meaning of a word refers to
the way a word is generally used or the meaning that
people most frequently attach to a word. When a word
has multiple meanings, definition one in the dictionary is
usually thought of as the denotative meaning of the
word.
New definitions are added to existing words to reflect current usage
and expression.
The connotative meaning of a word refers to the way a
person emotionally responds to it.
The word “ mother “has a common denotative meaning
to most people, but each person may react differently to
the word. For some, “mother” conjures up thoughts of
kindness and love. For others evokes thoughts of
depression, fear and hate.

7. The primary function of definition is to get sender and
receiver on same semantic wavelength in order to avoid
unnecessary semantic hurdles.
•Dictionary definition.. The most common form for clarifying what word
means.
•Operational definition. Most useful to define word by its function or operation.
•Definition by example. The method is the attempt to define word or phrase by
citing specific instances of that word or phrase. For example, the Infiniti 135, and
Toyota Camry are “good cars.”
•Definition by negation. This form of definition tells us what a word or phrase is
not . A “good husband” is not one who cheats on his wife.
•Definition by etymology. This is defining a word or phrase by citing its
historical roots or point of origination (what is the word or phrase‟s
Latin or Greek origin).
•Special definitions. Our everyday conversations may contain an in-
• formal quality that comes from our use of slang and colloquialisms.

8. Negative evaluation words are words that can only
be understood through comparison with their opposite
(ugly, fat, weird, stupid). They can also be used to
indicate the force or strength of another word (always,
never, absolutely).
Strong emotive words are words which are used to
describe something, but really presents the person attitude
towards what is being described. The goal is to get an
emotional response from whomever the language is directed
towards. Being cautious is called being coward, or being
eccentric is being crazy.
Abusive language is the use of obscenity, name
calling, insults, swear words, , and of-color remarks which are
usually of a racial or sexual nature. Abusive language
generally leads to a defensive communication environment
and produces very little chance for constructive conflict
resolution.

9. Language and persuasion are related in four ways.
•Language is related to audience attention and comprehension.
Kenneth Anderson says, In the attention process, language should be
used to select and direct attention toward desired elements. Critical
thinkers need to keep two questions in mind:
What language will your audience accept, and What language will they
reject?”
Language is related to audience acceptance and rejection of an
argument. “To the degree that the attention and comprehension of an
audience contribute to an argument acceptance, language that
maximizes these processes increases the potential for acceptance.
Language affects arguer credibility. Word choice and selection,
along with usage, is viewed by the audience as a function of class and
education.
Language determines how people interpret their environment.
“ Language is a guide to „social reality.‟ Language powerfully conditions
all our thinking about social problems and processes.”

10. •Jack Sterk, Jim Marteney:: Communicating critical thinking
•”
•Doublespeak website.
•Lutz, William. The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What
Anyone's Saying Anymore. New York: Harper, 1996.
•Yahoo! Babel fish website