COM 251

1
Social Construction of Language

1. Human societies organize and structure the world
   in particular ways.
2. In so doing they construct the world and they
   construct reality.
3. This reality tends to become normalized and
   naturalized so that it is taken for granted by
   the people in that society.
4. We tend to forget that reality has been
   constructed or that it could be organized
   differently.
5. We learn about the world primarily through
   language, and thus language is crucial in this
   construction and in the transmission of this
   construction to others.

COM 251
Schadenfreude
2
Social Construction of Language
The consequences of social construction of
language
COM 251
Captain James Cook (1728-1779)

3
Language shapes reality.
COM 251

1. Language is not natural.
2. Language is not neutral.
3. Language is changing site of power and struggle.

4
Social Construction of Language
COM 251
The language of media