"The power communication has over how meaning is created and transmitted in society is indisputable—language contributes to decisions we make, opinions we form, stories we believe, attributions we assign, and perceptions we internalize. Because of the substantial influence that language has on these areas of social life, it is essential to critically examine how language functions in the mass media in order to discuss possible implications communication has on audiences and the perceptions, opinions, and attributions they form about gender violence in our society. From a linguistic perspective, the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis illustrates that “human beings do not live in the objective world alone, [and] are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society….We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation” (Sapir, 1929). Here, Sapir defines language as a social medium of expression that influences our choices and interpretations of reality within given contexts. Whorf (1940) further describes our world as “a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.” Both of these conceptions relate to the influence language has in our given social structure to mold and shape the version of reality we perceive, illustrating the powerful impact language has on constructing individual ideas of social reality" Source: UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Paper Apr08_Schwartz.
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