Language and the Formulation of Ideas

  1. Kinds of Language

    1. Cognitive/Descriptive - conveys information  

    2. Normative/Emotive - expresses or evokes an emotional response; expresses a judgement or opinion  

    3. Performative - expresses human action (the locution does not describe or name something, the utterance points to itself)  

    Example:  performative and emotive locutions are neither true nor false because they do not represent something else, nor do they report about an event or experience, they are events and experiences.

  2. Cognitive Uses of Language  

    1. Concrete Language - associated with complex objects of perception

      1. descriptive - identifies the qualities of objective data (e.g., extension, appearance, duration, etc.)  

      2. creative - combines particular qualities together to describe some possible object (e.g., golden mountain)

    2. Abstract Language - qualities separated from particular objects of consciousness    

      1. conveys qualities abstracted from particular objects (e.g., 'triangularity' as opposed to 'red, right, triangle')   

      2. communicates values and qualities
       
  3. Emotive Uses of Language  

    1. Three Common Uses of Emotive Language:

      1. Propaganda  

      2. Advertising  

      3. Emotional Manipulation

    2. Two Common Types of Emotive Language  

      1. Cliche - over-used expressions  
           
        1. Have you been born again?
        2. Good men are few and far between.
           
      2. Slogans - identification phrases  

        1. Pepsi, for a new generation
        2. Coke is the real thing.

  4. The Nature of Terms:

    Definition: 'Term' - a word or phrase that serves as the subject of a proposition.   Terms are also symbols, but there are two different types of meaning which they can have:      

    1. Intension - the attributes or qualities connoted by a term  

    2. Extension - the members of the class which the term denotes  

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