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Language as a Tool Creating and Dividing Communities. Dangerous use of Asymmetric Counterconcepts Cover

Language as a Tool Creating and Dividing Communities. Dangerous use of Asymmetric Counterconcepts

Open Access
|May 2014

Abstract

The paper discusses the role of language in shaping social and political reality. Referring to the theory of the sociology of knowledge, symbolic interactionism and theory related to sociolinguistics, the author makes the assumption that language understood as a tool that assigns meaning and defines reality has a decisive influence on individual awareness and knowledge about reality, and simultaneously also on activities undertaken by individuals. Moreover, in the opinion of many theoreticians who represent the above disciplines of knowledge, the knowledge about reality transferred by means of language creates cognitive schemes in awareness through which an individual perceives and defines reality. In this sense it may be said that manipulation of images of reality through language is also a manipulation of social reality

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/plc-2014-0002 | Journal eISSN: 2083-8506 | Journal ISSN: 1234-2238
Language: English
Page range: 22 - 40
Published on: May 2, 2014
Published by: Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

© 2014 Iwona Jakubowska-Branicka, published by Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.