BBI3436 CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING

1. BBI3436CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING Language and Critical Thinking

2. Language and Critical Thinking • Language is important to critical thinking. • Language determines how effective one’s argument will be. • Language choices can conceal the truth, confuse, mislead, or deceive us. • A good critical thinker uses language that meets the needs and expectations of the audience, and is appropriate to the time, place, person, and occasion.

3. Four areas of language: • Word choice • Ambiguity • Definition • Intensity

4. Word Choice • The words you choose: • Affect the way other react to the argument you present. • Allow you to indirectly express your “real” feelings about people, events and things in the environment. • Gives exactness to detail. • Helps the communicator paint a picture in the audience’s mind. • Reduce the chance of miscommunication.

5. Ambiguity • Words or expressions that can be understood in more than one way. • Euphemisms- use of a mild, neutral, evasive, or vague term in place of one considered taboo, offensive, blunt, or unpleasant (“chronologically challenged”, “pre-owned”) • Jargon - language of a professional, occupational, or other group, often meaningless to outsiders. (“cookies”, “bug”, LOL)

6. Ambiguity in Language When the meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence is unclear, we say that it is “ambiguous”. Interpreting the issue, conclusion, and reasons is much more difficult when ambiguous language is used.

7. Ambiguity in Language The nature of language is that it is flexible. Words and phrases can have different meanings in different contexts. Sometimes a speaker / writer is ambiguous due to being sloppy with language. Other times, the ambiguity may be intentional. In any case, we need to watch out for ambiguous language, and discern the correct meaning before we can decide if we agree with someone.

8. Ambiguous language • Interferes with the clear expression of thoughts. An ambiguous word is a word with more than one (1) meaning that is open to different interpretations. Examples: • He fed her dog biscuits • The duck is ready to eat • Flying planes can be dangerous • The shooting of the hunter disturbed him

9. Ambiguity deep can mean profundity (what you have said is very deep), Or it can be used to describe physical depth (this hole is very deep). young (inexperienced or young of age) bank (river bank or financial institution) • Ambiguous language can lead to over-generalization and stereotyping. • E.g. “Everyone thinks that democracy is a good thing.” “Young drivers are all alike, inconsiderate and dangerous.”

10. Ambiguity Resulting from Confusion of Different Meanings • Lexical ambiguity - when a word or phrase, in the context of a particular sentence, could refer to two or more properties or things. She put her glasses on the table. He’s gone to the bank. • It is sometimes clear from the context which meaning is intended, but not always. Pavarotti is a big opera star.

11. Ambiguity Resulting from Confusion of Different Meanings • Referential ambiguity – when the context does not make it clear what a pronoun or quantifier is referring to. Lizzy hit Paula and then she started bleeding – who is bleeding? The boys chased the girls, and they giggled a lot. • Grouping ambiguity - whenever we refer to a collection of individuals, we must clearly show whether the reference is to the collection as a group or as individuals Politicians are corrupt – generalisation

12. Syntactic Ambiguity • Ambiguity because of the structure of the sentence rather than a word or phrase - the words are not confusing but the word order is. • There is more than one way to interpret the grammatical structure. Example: He chased the girl in his car. What does this mean? Did he chase a girl already inside his car? Or did he chase a girl (perhaps in another car) with his car?

13. Vague language As the sun sets the surroundings become dark, but there is no sharp boundary when the surroundings suddenly switch from being bright to being dark. So “dark” and “bright” are vagueterms. Using words that are very imprecise and general. Vague words are words that lack a clear and distinct meaning. Examples: • I had a nice time yesterday • That is an interesting book • She is an old person • She is a beautiful girl

14. Examples of Vagueness • Men burn off 438 calories per hour gardening. • Doctor: The arrhythmia you are experiencing indicates that you should lay off jogging for awhile. • “Your satisfaction is guaranteed with our two-year limited guarantee.”

15. Analysing statements Does TV violence negatively affect children? What qualifies as “violence”? Define “negatively affect”? “Children” of what ages?

16. Identify Key Terms Which East – Asian countries have the most freedom? Which countries are part of East – Asia? China, Japan, Korea? Any others? Define freedom.

17. Ask yourself: “What does that mean?” “Could that word / phrase / sentence be interpreted in more than one way?” If the answer to the previous question is yes, ask: “Does the statement still support the conclusion?”

18. Definition • Avoid problems caused by ambiguity by defining the terms you are working with . • The definition get’s the sender and the receiver on the same page in order to avoid unnecessary confusion. • Words are not limited to one single meaning. • Most words have multiple meanings, which are categorized as either denotative or connotative .

19. Meaning as denotation • The literal, neutral, descriptive meaning of a word or phrase – the information content or data. • What a word denotes is the thing, person, characteristic, or action to which the word points or refers. ball blue mowing Prime Minister University

20. Meaning as connotation • Emotive meaning - is not necessarily very emotional, although it can be • This aspect of meaning expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval. It is thus evaluative. It conveys the feelings or associations connected to the thing named. • Often the connotations depend upon the experiences we have had with an object. • The connotative meanings of a word exist together with the denotative meanings. The connotations for the word snake could include evil or danger.

21. Connotation • Safari, Gravity, XS, Obsession, Curve • “bureaucrat” vs “government official” vs “public servant” • “discriminating” vs “distinguishing” vs “scoring” vs “sorting” vs “grading”

22. The connotative meaning: The denotative meaning: Refers to the way a word is generally used or the meaning that people usually attach to a word. In a dictionary, definition number one of a word is thought of as the denotative meaning of a word. • Refers to the way a person emotionally responds to it. • Connotative meanings are necessary for humans to express themselves emotionally, and to describe themselves fully. Meaning of a word

23. “There is an air of insatiable desire about Shalimar.... Shalimar, the most exquisitely voluptuous perfume on Earth”. • There is a funny odour about Pungent.....Pungent, the cheapest scent you can get in your local discount store

24. Intensity • Words or phrases that negatively raise the emotional level of communication. • Demonstrates irreverence, contempt or disrespect. • Words that considered coarse, vulgar, obscene or offensive. • Intensity of language can be found in three areas: • Negative evaluative words - Understood through a comparison with their opposite (ex:ugly, fat) • Strong emotive words - Describe something, but represent the person’s attitude toward what is being described. (Ex: he is such a loudmouth) • Abusive language - Obscenities, name calling, insults, swear words. ****Use of high intensity language= poor critical thinking****

25. Patterns of Organisation • See pg 59

26. USING GRAPHIC ORGANISER

27. A graphic organizer is a visual representation of knowledge. • Graphic organisers are ideal tools to support critical thinking. • They help you organise many different pieces of information into a few logical concepts or ideas.

28. Different types of graphic organisers have been created for different purposes • However, all graphic organisers show relationships among information, ideas and concepts. • You must choose the type of graphic organiser that will best help you accomplish your goals

29. Clustering Diagram

30. Problem-Solution Organiser