Here’s a great article I’m asking all my journalism students and all my lit-crit students to read.
Words do more than just describe the world. They literally define it. They shape and frame it.
“Most people don’t understand this,” says linguist George Lakoff of the University of California, Berkeley. “Most people think that words just refer to things in the world and that they’re neutral. And that’s just not true.”
Lakoff has written many books about this idea. “English does not just fit the world. English fits the way you understand the world via your frames,” he says. “And in politics they are morally based frames.” —Loaded Words: How Language Shapes The Gun Debate : Its All Politics : NPR.
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Excellent point about language. I think the clearest example of this is in the terms pro-life and pro-choice. Though politically these two phrases represent opposites, in the terms of language they aren’t even related. No one claims to be pro-death or anti-choice. In fact, it reveals that the issues at the core of each side’s belief are totally different.
While language can shape reactions to issues, it can also lose it’s meaning as a result of being overused. Pro-choice, as a literal phrase is cryptic, to say the least. What sort of choices is it talking about? Is it a group of people who really like Choice Hotels? Pro-life is equally meaningless. Few truly embrace death. The majority of humans prefer to avoid it. But at this point, when any of us hear those phrases our brain corrects for it and we hear “pro-abortion or anti-abortion,” or possibly “people who agree with me and idiots” (obviously, the order can be switched to whichever makes it applicable to you).