Uses of Language — Emotive words — Emotively Neutral language — kinds of agreement

Call a person who broke a law to protest injustice a “freedom fighter” and you admire her. Call the very same person a “terrorist” and you condemn her — even though the facts you are describing have not changed at all. That gap between what a sentence states and what it makes you feel is the whole subject of this topic: how language argues without ever making an argument, and why two people can agree on every fact and still walk away thinking they disagree.

In two minutes

Language does more than state facts — it commands, it questions, it vents feeling — and confusing that emotional pull for a reason is where a great many bad arguments come from.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Logic – II on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.