S.Y.BLS.

LOGIC – II
UNIT IX USES OF LANGUAGE

Emotive words- Emotively Neutral Language - Kinds of Agreement and

Disagreement

Division of uses of language into three general categories:

1. The Informative
2. The Expressive
3. The Directive

• First uses of language- (The Informative) is to communicate information.

Accomplished by formulating and affirming (or denying) propositions; this serves the
informative function.

Eg.: "Logic is the study of correct reasoning," (Facts, reports)

• Second uses of language- (The Expressive) are not intended to communicate

information but to express emotions, feelings, or attitudes.

Expressive discourse as expressive is neither true nor false.

Eg.: "Friday afternoons are dreary," or yell "Ouch!" or Literally poems.

• Third uses of language- (The Directive) it is intended to cause or to prevent

overt action.

Eg: Commands, requests.

Eg: A parent commanding his/her child to wash the dinner plates, the language used in the
communication is intended to get the result or "Shut the door”.

Functions of Language

The formal patterns of correct reasoning can all be conveyed through ordinary language, but
then so can a lot of other things. In fact, we use language in many different ways, some of
which are irrelevant to any attempt to provide reasons for what we believe. It is helpful to
identify at least three distinct uses of language:

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 1. The informative use of language involves an effort to communicate some content.
When I tell a child, "The fifth of May is a Mexican holiday," or write to you that "Logic is
the study of correct reasoning," or jot a note to myself, "Jennifer—555-3769," I am using
language informatively. This kind of use presumes that the content of what is being
communicated is actually true, so it will be our central focus in the study of logic.
2. An expressive use of language, on the other hand, intends only to vent some feeling,
or perhaps to evoke some feeling from other people. When I say, "Friday afternoons are
dreary," or yell "Ouch!" I am using language expressively. Although such uses don't
convey any information, they do serve an important function in everyday life, since how
we feel sometimes matters as much as—or more than—what we hold to be true.
3. Finally, directive uses of language aim to cause or to prevent some overt action by a
human agent. When I say "Shut the door," or write "Read the textbook," or memo myself,
"Don't rely so heavily on the passive voice," I am using language directively. The point in
each of these cases is to make someone perform (or forswear) a particular action. This is a
significant linguistic function, too, but like the expressive use, it doesn't always relate
logically to the truth of our beliefs.
Notice that the intended use in a particular instance often depends more on the specific
context and tone of voice than it does on the grammatical form or vocabulary of what is said.
The simple declarative sentence, "I'm hungry," for example, could be used to report on a
physiological condition, or to express a feeling, or implicitly to request that someone feed
me. In fact, uses of two or more varieties may be mixed together in a single utterance; "Stop
that," for example, usually involves both expressive and directive functions jointly. In many
cases, however, it is possible to identify a single use of language that is probably intended to
be the primary function of a particular linguistic unit.
British philosopher J. L. Austin developed a similar, though much more detailed and
sophisticated, nomenclature for the variety of actions we commonly perform in employing
ordinary language. You're welcome to examine his theory of speech acts in association with
the discussion in your textbook. While the specifics may vary, some portion of the point
remains the same: since we do in fact employ language for many distinct purposes, we can
minimize confusion by keeping in mind what we're up to on any particular occasion.

Literal and Emotive Meaning

Even single words or short phrases can exhibit the distinction between purely informative and
partially expressive uses of language. Many of the most common words and phrases of any
language have both a literal or descriptive meaning that refers to the way things are and
an emotive meaning that expresses some (positive or negative) feeling about them. Thus, the
choice of which word to use in making a statement can be used in hopes of evoking a
particular emotional response.
This is a natural function of ordinary language, of course. We often do wish to convey some
portion of our feelings along with information. There is a good deal of poetry in everyday
communication, and poetry without emotive meaning is pretty dull. But when we are
primarily interested in establishing the truth—as we are when assessing the logical merits of

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an argument—the use of words laden with emotive meaning can easily distract us from our
purpose.
If a sentence is followed by an exclamation mark, then very likely it is used emotively. The
language of poetry also provides an example of language serving the expressive function
Emotive use is different from descriptive use of language. Emotive or expressive discourse is
neither true nor false. When language is used emotively, it cannot be characterized as true or
false. We can, however, respond to it by asking questions such as "Is the person sincere?" and
"How should I feel?" Expressive use of language is also different from directive use of
language.

Kinds of Agreement and Disagreement

An excessive reliance on emotively charged language can create the appearance of

disagreement between parties who do not differ on the facts at all, and it can just as easily
disguise substantive disputes under a veneer of emotive agreement. Since the degrees of
agreement in belief and attitude are independent of each other, there are four possible
combinations at work here:
1. Agreement in belief and agreement in attitude: There aren't any problems in this
instance, since both parties hold the same positions and have the same feelings
about them.
2. Agreement in belief but disagreement in attitude: This case, if unnoticed, may
become the cause of endless (but pointless) shouting between people whose
feelings differ sharply about some fact upon which they are in total agreement.
3. Disagreement in belief but agreement in attitude: In this situation, parties may
never recognize, much less resolve, their fundamental difference of opinion, since
they are lulled by their shared feelings into supposing themselves allied.
4. Disagreement in belief and disagreement in attitude: Here the parties have so little
in common that communication between them often breaks down entirely.
It is often valuable, then, to recognize the levels of agreement or disagreement at work in
any exchange of views. That won't always resolve the dispute between two parties, of
course, but it will ensure that they don't waste their time on an inappropriate method of
argument or persuasion.

Emotively Neutral Language

For our purposes in assessing the validity of deductive arguments and the reliability of
inductive reasoning, it will be most directly helpful to eliminate emotive meaning entirely
whenever we can. Although it isn't always easy to achieve emotively neutral language in
every instance, and the result often lacks the colorful character of our usual public discourse,
it is worth the trouble and insipidity because it makes it much easier to arrive at a settled
understanding of what is true.

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In many instances, the informal fallacies we will consider next result from an improper use of
emotionally charged language in the effort to persuade someone to accept a proposition at an
emotional level, without becoming convinced that there are legitimate grounds for believing
it to be true.
Emotive language relies on connotation, which refers to the implied meaning or significance
of a word or phrase beyond its definition. Connotation is that it allows for a variety of
interpretations depending on any number of contexts. Take, for example, the word 'hot,'
which, like 'cool,' lexically denotes a level of thermal energy. However, this same term can
take on a wide variety of connotations - from measures of attractiveness to identifying
something as stolen, popular, or even pushed to its limit.