Effect of Language in Critical Thinking

Running head: EFFECT OF LANGUAGE IN CRITICAL THINKING
EFFECT OF LANGUAGE IN CRITICAL THINKING
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1
EFFECT OF LANGUAGE IN CRITICAL THINKING
Introduction
Critical thinking is an important thing for the students in order to evaluate the
effectiveness of the learning. However, the ability of the critical thinking is dependent on the
understanding of the subject. The ability to understand the subject is dependent on the adaptation
of the knowledge by the students which is related to the understanding of the medium of
language for the study (Manalo & Sheppard, 2016). It has been seen that the ability of critical
thinking is dependent on the proficiency of the student in the language they are learning the
subject. The main objective of this paper is to review articles in order to find the aspects and
their effects regarding the language influence in critical thinking. In order to do this most of the
examples are taken from the experience of the students in western countries whose second
language is English.
Discussion
The selected paper to be reviewed discusses about the effect of the language on the
performance of critical thinking. In order to do this review the background of the research is
needed to be mentioned.
In order to evaluate then information and make the decision and conclusion based on the
evaluation of the information, critical thinking is an important factor. Critical thinking is
dependent on proficiency of the medium of language for communication of learning. There is a
argument about the dependency of the ability of critical thinking skills on appropriate methods
and individual and situational factors. One of the main concerns is the influence cultural
background in the critical thinking ability. In this paper the study has been conducted into two
parts. In the first part 110 Japanese students were given instructions in order to perform the
critical evaluation in Japanese language. In this case, no problem has occurred. The same task
has given to 43 first year students who have not received the same instructions. In that case, the
same pattern has been observed however, the quality of the work is low.
The research problem in this paper is to evaluate the ability of critical thinking with
respect to the proficiency of the medium of language. It has been observed that the cultural
background and the proficiency of the language are indicator regarding the skill of critical

2
EFFECT OF LANGUAGE IN CRITICAL THINKING
thinking. The main focus of this paper is on the Asian students in the western countries and the
international students in those countries where English is the medium of study (Stupple et
al.,2017). In some of the observation it has been seen that the English speaking students and
European students whose first language is English are performing better than the Asian students
in case of critical thinking.
The research problem is relevant as the structure of the language plays an important role
in understanding the situation and evaluation of the knowledge. The acceptance of the learning is
dependent on the evaluation of the knowledge (Lun, Fischer & Ward, 2014). It has been
observed that different languages have different structures. Sometimes students find it difficult to
understand the information due to the different structure of English from their first language.
This is the reason, the evaluation of the cultural background for understanding the skill for
critical thinking. However, there is no significant answer for the implementation of the
particular method for enhancing the critical thinking skill of the individual students.
It has been seen that the structure of the Asian language may become the constraint in the
thinking ability and the ease of expressing the opinion for the individuals (García & Wei, 2014).
This leads the difficulty in counterfactual thinking in Asian language rather than English. The
constraint in critical thinking due to the structure of the language is sometimes referred to as e
“SapirWhorf hypothesis” or the “linguistic relativity hypothesis”.
The ability of critical thinking is also dependent on epistemic belief of individuals.
Epistemic belief is defined by the definition of the knowledge and the presentation and
evaluation of the knowledge. Epistemic belief helps people to handle the knowledge and apply
the gained knowledge in different ways (Chan & Ku, 2014). The critical thinking can be defined
as the way of reflective thinking. So it can be said that critical thinking is also dependent on the
ability of handling knowledge of individuals, which is also referred as epistemic belief.
Critical thinking is considered as important education goal for most of the societies and is
regarded as an essential attribute for the professional and personal development of the individual.
There are several issues regarding critical thinking, however, three main important issues are
definition issue, measuring issue, theory issue (Heijltjesn et al.,2014). The definition issue
defines the critical thinking. Measuring issues are related to the measuring of the evaluation