Critical Thinking about Language

Let's look at an example from Blue Feed, Red Feed to practice critical thinking about language. The images below on this page show a liberal/blue feed post on the left and a conservative/red feed one on the right, both about immigration.

  1. First, let's think about language and word choice. When a writer wants to persuade their readers, they often change the language or words they use in order to affect how the readers feel about a topic. They may use loaded language, which is language meant to cause an emotional response in the reader. If we haven't done this type of critical thinking about language before, it will help to find examples of loaded language by searching the web for pages like this RationalWiki site Links to an external site.. To see some examples of loaded language, we can scroll down on that page to see lists of snarl words (derogatory labels) and glittering generalities (generalized terms meant to appeal to patriotism, decency, etc.).
  2. Now, let's look at the sample Facebook posts from Blue Feed, Red Feed to see how the language is intended to influence the readers. The highlighted words in the images below show some examples of loaded language, which is detailed below the posts.

 

Image of immigrant father and daughter drowned trying to enter the U.S. Image of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Left side = Liberal/Blue Feed

  • Bernie Sanders (a liberal, Social Democrat U.S. Senator running for President in 2020) made this post in which he says we have "a cruel and broken immigration system." Both the words cruel and broken appeal directly to liberal points-of-view about how they see President Trump's policy toward immigration.
  • Sanders also states that immigrants aren't "criminals" and shouldn't be demonized.
    • Note the use of the quotation marks around the word criminals in the post above. That's because Sanders is quoting President Trump who claims that many of the Mexican immigrants are criminals, and he's directly contradicting what the President claims. Again, this is an appeal to liberals because they want to see liberals challenging the President.
    • The word demonized is definitely loaded. It implies that conservatives are treating immigrants like demons, or evil beings. This statement would probably make liberals think "Yes, that's right!" while conservatives reading this same post might think this is an insult to the President and it might reinforce for them that Mexican immigrants are criminals and evil.

 

Right side = Conservative/Red Feed

Again, let's give some context to this post. It's from The Conservative Tribune, a conservative political opinion web site, and it's is about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (often referred to as AOC, she's a liberal, Democratic Socialist U.S. Representative from New York). Conservatives are often opposed to Socialist ideas, often comparing Socialism Links to an external site. to Communism Links to an external site..

  • The use of the phrase "blind hatred" is meant to appeal to conservatives' feelings about Ocasio-Cortez. Blind hatred implies that someone hates something without really knowing anything about it, and hatred is seen as a negative emotion.
  • The use of the phrase "her self-proclaimed concern" is meant to be sarcastic, implying that she says she's concerned, but she's not really.
    • This is meant to imply that she's lying or manufacturing a concern that she doesn't really have to appeal to her liberal supporters. In effect, the Tribune writer is pointing out an emotional appeal while also making an emotional appeal to his own audience. Making an emotional appeal is a technique often used by both liberal and conservative writers when trying to persuade their readers.
  • The clickbait headline is meant to get the reader to click on the article in this post that leads to The Conservative Tribune web site. The full title from the web site is AOC Wants to Deprive Immigrant Children of Beds So She Can Stick it to Trump.
    • The phrase "stick it to Trump" means to treat someone harshly or severely, and it appeals to conservatives who feel that the President is doing a great job and that liberals are out to get him no matter what he does.
    • The writer knows that the headline will appeal to conservatives, but it also might get some liberals to click on it because it goes against what liberals believe about Ocasio-Cortez -that she is sympathetic to the immigrants, not against them.
    • The clickbait title is misleading, which we can see if we read the article. Ocasio-Cortez doesn't really want to keep the immigrant children from having beds. She was commenting on how employees at the Wayfair company were walking out of work to protest the fact that they were making beds that are being used for the immigrant children being held in detention centers.