Language Exerts Hidden Power Essay

Language utilizes the hidden power to express, convince and influence human beings. Language can be used in different forms and styles, however, we are never fully aware of the importance of the hidden power that language can express. Language can be revealed in many different ways, which can cause different perspectives from people. In Text A, â€Å"Tversky and Kahneman (1981) demonstrated systematic reversals of preference when the same problem is presented in different ways†. It shows the effectiveness of euphemism and vagueness. The people did not appreciate the straight forward statement, it may be because of the harshness and the reality that shocks the reader. The difference in the preference of the programs shows how human beings are more likely to prefer the positive facts than the negatives; Program A had seventy-two percent preferences. This can show how language has the power to convey something disastrous, however, in a euphemism way, in which the reader will more likely to accept. However, the complicated statements, those with fractions instead of exact numbers, seem to favour the reader. This may be because the reader needs more time to process the factual information in their brains, which may have the same effect as ‘Lost in Translation’; the more your brain processes, the more details and facts are faded away. In addition, the fractions used can make the situation of the Asian disease problem seem less serious, because fractions appear to be less in number than the exact real numbers. In this particular text, power is revealed by the factual information. The difference in presenting the statement does not differ the meaning of the Asian disease problem. However, the power of manipulating and influencing the reader depend on the way the author chooses to present the factual information. The language chosen will be the power that controls the reader’s minds. Different presentations will lead to different interpretations from the readers. Therefore, writers usually use certain style of language to ensure that they can influence and convince the readers. This can represent how human beings are slightly unaware of the importance of language. We tend to ignore and skip through words easily, in which we only want to read what we believe and what we want to see. Similarly, Text B expresses that in our world we normally ignore the flaws and the little ‘holes’ in our communication in language, which also shows the lack of awareness of the importance in language. Slowly, we will tend to lose the ability to control the power that is hidden in language. The ‘Lost in Translation’ ties in with text B as well. When people start to learn a new language they normally translate the words back into their foreign language in order for them to understand the meaning of those words. However, during those translations, many details and little ‘holes’ in the language will disappear and fade away. Native language enables human beings to communicate freely and comfortably, however, it influences out thoughts when it comes to learning a new language. Those little ‘holes’ will be filled in by the influential thoughts from our native language. Therefore, though we are learning a new language, we will still be moved and differentiated by the influence of our native language. The hidden power of the influence of a certain language is strong, it ties with the culture and the tradition of the certain country. From these, we can see how ignorant human beings can be when it comes to realizing how much language influences our lives and how we interpret things. Nevertheless, the power in language can cause negative effects as well as those positives. There are so many languages spoken in our world, therefore, many people can speak more than one language. This means that those people have more than one choice of language to express themselves. This can be positive, however, negative, because there isn’t always the same ‘sayings’ in different languages. As human beings, we manage to experience many different emotions and incidents, where many of those are indescribable in language. Therefore, we can say language is powerful, however, not as powerful as our own minds. â€Å"Language should be a direct mirror of mind† though many thoughts cannot be put into words. In text C, it suggests that language plays an essential role in thinking and the interactions between people, in which the power hidden is the linguistics, philosophy and the psychology side of language. We communicate through language by expressing out what we think in our minds using words, phrases and sentences. Therefore, Noam Chenosky expresses that language is a direct mirror to our minds, which is true to some extent, however, many emotions and thoughts cannot be fully expressed by language. Language can be so powerful that it’s complicated, and those technical studies of language can contribute to an understanding of human intelligence. Human beings have not paid much attention on the hidden power of language, therefore, we only have a rare glimmerings of understanding. Though the understanding of language is limited, most people think and do things depending on what they know and what they believe, which ties in with text A strongly. When people prefer different presentations of the same statement, we can assume that they all have a different perspective, which means they have their own beliefs and knowledge over the statement. Overall, all three texts agree with Rita, Mae Brown’s statement of â€Å"Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides† to a reasonable extent. They all show the human science of language and how language is powerful in our minds. The power inside language is great, however, we have never noticed it. It influences the way we think and the way we judge certain things. Though, due to our lack of awareness of the importance of language, we do not see how it influences out perspectives and perception. However, the possible negative effect of the power in language is that due to the many different languages people may be able to speak, they may find it difficult to express their thoughts and emotions because there are so many choices.