The relationship between language and thought

Question: Why is the ruthless totalitarian regime, described in Orwell’s novel purging Oldspeak and imposing Newspeak? What assumptions are being made about the relationship between language and thought?

Answer: In Orwell’s novel, the people whom are supportive towards the idea of the imposition of Newspeak clearly state that the thought and language walk together 'hand in hand', and believe that destroying the oldspeak, would be more of an efficient way of communication. They serve the idea that in order to be able to understand a certain concept of a word the need of knowing its defintion/explanation is the only way in which we will be able to understand it or even bring it in our daily life or in other words, how can use something that does not exist?
For instance, in our minds we think in typical a language, we use different adjectives to describe our feelings, meaning that if these specific words to how we feel did not exist we would feel this way or basically be limited in our thoughts or even expressing our emotions. A great example is when the Spanish colony had took over South America in the 15th century. They claim that, when the people who have seen the Spanish ships heading towards their coast could not protect themselves since they did not know what they were standing against, they did not know all the concept of 'sailing' or what were 'Ships' therefore they could not THINK of it as danger, or in other words they were just staring at an unknown object coming towards them. This just shows that in order to think of something and have an opinion about it, knowing its concept is a must to really and fully understand it.

The affect of word choice

Question: In the example of foreign policy, how does word choice have an impact on the message conveyed?

Answer: To begin with, many politicians do not write their own speeches and that is because the importance of word choice. Each word symbolizes a different thing and could be interpreted in a variety of ways. Each word we speak or hear illustrates an image in our mind and our brain associates
this word with other words and images. For example, when we hear the word 'peace' or 'love', we immediately imagine calmness or think about the people we care about. However, the best example I could give is what I just wrote, that is because when my intention was only to write 'peace' the word love came up to my mind, proving how our diction has an affect to the feelings we experience and thethoughts we think about. In the case of foreign policy, each politician has chosen their words carefully in way to create a greater impact on our thoughts and making us think what they want us to think, just like in the case of Adolf Hitler where his excellent speaking has affected a whole nation. When Obama has used the term 'Slam-dunk' referring to the chaos in Syria, was in order to create an image of violence, or in the case of 'red-line' where we associate 'red' with 'danger' or even 'blood' or at least in my case. Therefore when the message conveyed is needed to be powerful or catchy enough to be stuck in our minds the play of word choice has a great impact on how we sympathize or not sypathize with specific occasions and how we link this words with our emotions and imagination.

Identifying a KQ from real life situation:

RLS: A survey that has been taken in the US shows the 51% of the Americans do not support an attack on Syria due to its use of chemical weapons.

KQ: To what degree of certainty do our emotions affect our ability to decide what is good and bad?

Creating a TOK Question - Using the ladder of abstraction.

1.Knowledge Claim: "Mr. Moussay's grandfather's says the fruits on his trees are ripening earlier and earlier in the year, and this must be due to global warming."

2. Topic: Global warming.

3. Implicit question about the situation: How does global warming cause the fruits to ripen?

4. Open-ended question about knowledge in the context of the real life situation: How does Mr. Moussay's grandfather can stop the fruits from ripening from global warning?

5. explicit open-ended question about knowledge using TOK concepts: To what extent, has Mr. Moussay's grandfather has used 'Memory', 'Experience' and 'Natural sciences' to identify the cause of the fruits ripening?

MY FIRST TOK ASSIGNEMNT!!

As my first TOK assignment I have to rank my IB subjects from the ones in which in my opinion are the most important as knowledge providers and has affected my knowledge the most. As much as it sounds easy, I have tried to think what subjects are the most important in life. Now, I bet most people would jump immediately to a conclusion and claim Math or English, and that is totally understandable. However, that is not necessarily the subjects that has mostly affected my point of view in life. So in order to do this assignment I had to take another step backward and try to look at the greater picture and first try to figure out who am I. 

1. Hebrew: I have chosen Hebrew as the 1st subject in which as provided me in my opinion with the most knowledge since I have met a conclusion that our first language we speak, mostly defines the type of person we would be. Each language has it's own unique way of speaking and communicating and as we all know communication is the key factor for understanding and respecting people's thoughts and ideas. Each language is affected by a different cultural background and each culture believes in a different keys of respect and beliefs. Therefore in my opinion Hebrew is the most important subject that has affected my knowledge in life.

2. English: My 2nd choice is English for almost the exact reasons I have chosen Hebrew as my 1st. Since English is my second language, it taught me to look at life from another prospective like people from another places around the globe. It gave me clearer idea of a different culture and different people and taught me to respect people's different cultural views in which I think I wouldn't gain if my only speaking language stayed Hebrew.

3. Spanish: Even though I have never learned Spanish in my life I have decided to place in my 3rd rank. That's because it shares the same reasons with Hebrew and English and will allow me to meet a different culture which I have never got the chance to be familiar with.

4. Math: Math being only my 4th rank is because that although it is involved in every topic in life and holds the world, I tend to believe that it does not necessary teach me anything about living with other people. For instance, if math did not exist, yes it is true, we would have been stuck in the same position for 2000 years. However it does not mean we wouldn't be able to live in peace with each other and overall what we don't know does not hurt right?

5. ITGS: My 5th rank is ITGS since many people believe that the world we live in depends a lot on how technology will affect our life in the long term. Therefore I believe that this particular subject could benefit me in the future, although not as much as the subjects I have chosen above.

6. Physics: My last rank is Physics not because I think this particular subject will not

 provide me with any important knowledge in life. I just believe that it has the least relation with how I would act and interact with the people around me.