The famous Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde once said that language was ‘the parent, and not the child, of thought’. Thus, according to Wilde, knowledge is not possible without language.
Is this claim true?
The extent to which Wilde was correct or incorrect will be a large focus of this subtopic. You will also investigate and analyse the ways in which language influences, expands and articulates knowledge.
Consider all the knowledge that you have acquired in your life. What percentage of that knowledge would you estimate was gained via language?
The focus of this section will be to analyze the ways in which language affects our knowledge and cognition as well as analyze the ways in which governments and society utilize language to exert that influence.
Language and Ethics: Analyzing the role of language in persuasion and obfuscation