Does Language Play Roles of Equal Importance in Different Areas of Knowledge? Essay Example

teacher is writing on the board, you catch someone’s eye across the room and make a yawning gesture by putting your hand to your mouth.

Or you are trying to look interested in what someone says and to your horror find yourself starting to yawn. The difference between these two examples is that one is intended, and the other is not. Thirdly, language is creative and open-ended. By this, it is meant that by the huge amount of vocabulary, combined with grammar, one can put any set of words in a grammatically correct order and it will result with a sentence that is valid. Now that the understanding of what language is exactly, one can further consider the equal importance of language in the areas of knowledge such as history, athematics, and the arts. The study of historic information is simplified due to written or spoken information about the past, because without it, historians could only suggest ideas and hypothesis about what happened rather than knowing exactly what was actually happening. Consider the ancient Egyptian culture as an example. Much writing about stories, events, ideas, laws and the culture was written down on papyrus, a sort of paper the ancient Egyptians used, as well as on stone. Historians have been able to discover much information by learning the language, hieroglyphs.

This way, the study of history is made clearer, as well as more truthful, because historians can read what was actually happening rather than suggestions of what may have happened. If the ancient Egyptians had not written about their lives, historians would have a major difficulty in figuring out accurate information. The study of historic events is

possible to understand, once information through language, in this case written language would be more reliable, is available. History could not exist without language,because language allows you to pass on information.

Language is not only necessary for the study of history, but it is also a big part why history is what it is. For example, if Adolf Hitler had not been able to give such great speeches and utilize language so well, would he have been able to build such an empire? How would the understanding of the sciences be today, if Leonardo Da Vinci hadn’t written up his discoveries? Due to the fact that people were able communicate ideas and findings, allowed other people to build up on that information. Language is important in history, because it allows development.

As mentioned in the above, one vital part of language is that it has some sort of structure. In this case mathematics could be considered a sort of language, because it has laws for mathematical formulas and processes of calculation. It is well known that any number cannot be divided by zero (0) or another example, that multiplication and division comes before addition and subtraction. Mathematicians can be seen as a language with numbers and rules for calculation instead of words and grammar. Mathematics also fits the criteria of being creative and open-ended, because t is possible to combine any set of numbers and one will know how big this number exactly is. One could come up with any set of numbers, for example 25566855665416546813213513156112, and it is unlikely for one to have already seen the exact number before. This is possible, because the number scale

is infinite. Mathematics can only be intended. This is possible, because each number has a definite size, or amount, and equations are very logical. It is difficult to have unintended math, because there is no possible way for math to be unintended.

To explain this further, calculation in math can either be correct, or false. There is no possible way to misinterpret the steps in, for example, a mathematical calculation. Language is important for mathematics, because mathematic itself is a sort of language. The importance of language in ethics, the study involving right or wrong, what way one should live and one’s justification of moral judgments made, is that without language, the discussion of ethics would not be possible. One’s beliefs in ethics are closely related to one’s possible religious beliefs.

Language is quite important in a religious aspect, because it is necessary to describe and communicate the morals and values of a religion, in order that other people will be able to understand the viewpoint and reasoning. For example, the Christian belief is explained through the Bible, language used to communicate stories, morals, values and justifications for their belief to others. Or in the Buddhist belief, language in form of prayers, is used to communicate the views on morals.

Ethics is not merely about religion, but it is about how people convey their opinions on what is right and what is wrong. Language allows people to express themselves and exchange their views of the world. Through language one can try and convince, or even manipulate others into doing the “right thing”. Language has importance in the area of knowledge of ethics, because it is the main way

to communicated how people view the world, and what is seen as right and wrong. Language undoubtedly is used in all areas of knowledge that have been discussed.

It is arguable whether the importance is equal, or whether in some area of knowledge, language plays a much more important role. History, mathematic and ethics all use language in some sort. Knowing about history is mainly possible by conveying information through ancient writing or storytelling. On the other hand, mathematics itself can be seen as a language that has exact structure and an infinite amount of “words”, in this case, numbers. One would not be able to understand and know about another person’s moral judgment, values, and distinctions between right and wrong without language.

Thus one can say that language plays a role of equal importance in these three areas of knowledge depending on what way language is used in that area of knowledge.

Citation

1. Book Source: Van De Lagemaat, Richard. "Chapter 3 Language. " Theory of Knowledge. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005. 48-50. Print.
2. "Areas of Knowledge. " XMLprod1. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://xmltwo. ibo. org/dp2006-03/dp_x_tokxx_guu_0603_1_e/9>.
3. Fisogni, Vera. "Ethics and Language in Wittgenstein. " Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://serbal. pntic. mec. es/~cmunoz11/vera28. pdf>.
4. Review of Basic Mathematics. " Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://www. maths. mq. edu. au/numeracy/reviewbasicmaths. pdf>.
5. "BBC - History: Egyptians. " BBC - Homepage. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://www. bbc. co. uk/history/ancient/egyptians/>.
6. "What Is Language ? " Science 2. 0 - ® The World's Best Scientists, the Internet's Smartest Readers. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://www. science20. com/chatter_box/blog/what_language>.
7. "Enduring Voices Project, Endangered Languages, Map, Facts, Photos, Videos -- National Geographic. " Travel & Cultures -- National Geographic. Web.
   

29 Nov. 011. <http://travel. nationalgeographic. com/travel/enduring-voices/>.