Wor(l)ds in Common: How Language Shapes News, Bias, and Reality

“In the beginning was the Word…” This line from John 1:1 captures the origins of human civilization. What we see around us would have been inconceivable without language as the means to imagine our world first, before building it. Language provides humans with the primary, if not only, way that we come to know and understand—or misunderstand—the world. Many people assume that words are just part of a system for naming various objects, things and beings we encounter. But no two words have the same meaning; some can provoke strong feelings or even incite violence. Thus, it is critical to understand how words make meanings to prepare us to resist manipulation by others, and to recognize that meanings do shift as contexts shift; some communities adopt or adapt words in ways that are different to dictionary or commonly understood meanings. The use of figures of speech, tropes or “conceptual metaphors” have been particularly helpful for enabling abstract thought on one hand, and yet enabling the manipulation of people on the other. In this talk, I will focus closely on “news” and how it remains one of the primary means of communication through which most of us come to know the world. Through our examination of the language of news, we will see how words shape our biases and our “reality”. As the opening talk for this series, “Wor(l)ds in Common” will introduce you to how language uses us even as we use it.