| Volume 23 ● November 2018 |
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EMOJI WARFARE by Beeple (aka Mike Winkelmann) |
Volume 23 - November 2018
Language = Power
This month we are exploring the nature of language and its power. We use language to connect and communicate across all domains -- personal, socioeconomic, technical, political, professional, religious. It all comes down to our words that form the connections between us. The proverb, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” is embodied each time someone’s feelings are hurt or elevated because of something written or said. Language matters. Saying “actions speak louder than words,” recalibrates our priorities and primes us for said action, but it starts with the words.
And if you can vote in the US, please vote, your words matter.
We jump off with some words of wisdom from Ursula Le Guin:
“Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.”
How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think?
Essay by Lera Boroditsky - June 11, 2009
If language does indeed influence our thoughts, then what comes out of our mouths is more important than we think.
When the Language of Politics Becomes a Minefield
Essay by Liz Spayd - December 3, 2016
An outsized component of political polarization is the drift of political language--and by extension of people--toward the extremes, towards non-disputable binary states of good and evil, black and white. This is a language of convenience: bite-sized pre-digested consumption. We as a public have arguably outsourced the analysis and formation of our own opinions to outside experts and have come to rely on labels as vehicles for communicating allegiances to one another. Lack of convenient labels is frustrating because it exposes us to a landscape where we have to form our own opinions and that is scary.
Politics and the English Language
Essay by George Orwell - 1946
Complicated vocabulary can be used to clarify meaning or to obfuscate reality. The correct word can convey meaning with precision, but it can be hijacked to be used to create intellectual boundaries, or to put up an illusion of complexity or uncertainty that does not exist. These transgressions can be deliberate or they can sneak in unnoticed into our usage. This calls into question a tension between accepting the way a language evolves over time and being more intentional about our use of it, despite current trends. To resist or to go with the flow?
Is Coding the New Second Language?
Essay by Peg Tyre - May 23, 2013
Coding is a fundamentally different form of language because its purpose is to enable human-to-machine communication versus human-to-human. Moreover, as it stands today, it is communication in which humans also encode the ways in which a machine talks back to us. In this context, it is a language as much as any professional technical jargon. However, we will eventually achieve the ability to use our natural language to communicate with machines. So how important is it really to include ‘coding’ as we know it in general education because ultimately, isn’t the goal to communicate intent in order to achieve a particular result, and not ‘to code’?
Are Emojis the Hieroglyphics of the 21st Century?
Essay by Julia Deathridge - November 7, 2017
Pictorial in nature, emojis have an easier time traveling across cultures and this quality imbues them with a certain universality. However, their carrying capacity is limited by the fact that they are direct representations of simple emotions, objects, and actions, lacking an ability to express degrees or nuance. Conversely, their simplicity allows them to act as empty containers ready to take on a contextually relevant meaning and to shed it when done. They are a shorthand augmentation layer necessitated by rapid text-based communication. This makes for an interesting landscape to watch and to participate in as our languages evolve.
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We wish you a happy and prosperous November!
This newsletter is curated by neurotransmitters.network.
© 2018 Neurotransmitters
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