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Articles

Knowledge & Language

Mary Gregg considers how our language influences us to think about knowledge.

I want to draw your attention to the way language shapes our interaction with knowledge. Since my goal is not to show what knowledge is but how it is perceived, ‘knowledge’ will be simply taken to mean knowledge of ideas and facts as well as of people and things. I will focus on the ‘possession vs relationship’ dynamics employed in language and its implications, and will use English and French to illustrate the point. First I will consider the use of possessive pronouns in each language, as each indicates a type of relationship to or with an idea. Then I will cover the role of types of knowledge, since each type demands a special treatment, and therefore understanding, of knowledge.

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