What Role Does Language and Language Diversity Play in the Critical Thinking Process

Language and Critical Thinking

Language and language diversity has a significant effect in influencing critical thinking because it shapes the individual's worldview or his/her perceptions of the realities that s/he experiences everyday. One of the most often used comparisons in order to illustrate the influence of language diversity in critical thinking is the differences in worldviews of the Eastern and Western cultures.

Looking into the basic differences in their language, Eastern societies and cultures have greater symbols representing various and subjective meanings in it. Chinese language, for instance, has many symbols or characters for every meaning or interpretation generated by the speaker/writer. This kind of language, in turn, makes the Chinese worldview subjective and varied also. Meanings in Chinese culture are embedded in language, and not explicitly expressed, thereby necessitating the individual to think about the meaning of an utterance in the context of the culture of the speaker.

As opposed to the implicit meanings inherent in Chinese language, the Western culture, through the American language example, meanwhile, adopts a more direct and explicit way of expressing their thoughts and meanings through language. Unlike the Chinese, Americans' worldview is not multilateral, but rather, unidimensional or straightforward, where a word uttered is taken to mean for its true, literal meaning.

From these examples between Chinese and American cultures, it becomes evident how their differences develops an individual's critical thinking skills in different, yet both challenging, manner. The implicit nature of Chinese language allows the individual to critically assess his/her realities deeper than expected of him/her, while the American language enables the individual to take meaning directly from his/her social experiences.

Language has the power to empower, and at the same time, limit the expression of an individual's thoughts. This is because ideas and thoughts take shape or develop progressively by letting these ideas materialize, first in the form of language, which later spurs the communicator to act upon the said utterance. Because spoken and written language has the power to make thoughts materialize or to shift from being abstract to concrete, the individual thus acquires the ability to go beyond his/her thoughts by realizing what s/he can do after these thoughts have been expressed (either through oral or written form).

Take as an example the experience of nations formerly associated with the U.S.S.R., whose years of Communist education had brought about not learning, but merely transmission of information from the source (government) to the civil society. Inhibited by the right to speak out their opinions, the civil society in formerly-USSR nations have failed to progress not only economically, but also intellectually. Because the people are not given sufficient avenues to explore their limits and capabilities through their freedom of speech, they are also 'crippled' in doing activities that would benefit them or develop their personal growth (Stern, 2002). At present, efforts to introduce critical thinking exercises in school are found to be effective ways in which individual not only express their opinions freely, but make sound judgments on what actions they should take when confronted with a challenging or difficult situations in everyday life. In this example, the freedom to speak out one's thoughts, and hence, the freedom to act according to one's own will, evidently leads to the transformation of a healthy individual and an efficient and productive civil society for the material and intellectual progress of the society.

The issue pertaining to the role of critical thinking in persuasion is a timely debate in today's Information Age, where access to information about almost everything is possible and accessible through the Internet technology. With the great amount of information present in the Internet, people are presented and given information that may or may not be considered useful for the use or individual (Dilenschneider, 2001). This scenario presents a dilemma to the modern-day individual: with the influx of information through the Internet, what role does critical thinking play in persuasion -- that is, how does the exercise of critical thinking lead to the creation of an effective or ineffective persuasion?