Language shapes what we can think, say, and know. But how often do students of Language and Literature stop to examine the medium they are studying, and the medium they are using to study it?
30 For 30 TOK: IB Language and Literature is the first book in the 30 For 30 TOK series, which pairs thirty IB diploma subject with thirty searching questions about the nature of the knowledge it produces. This volume focuses on the IB Language A: Language and Literature course, the broadest and most epistemologically ambitious of the Group 1 options, asking questions that the syllabus raises but rarely has time to fully explore.
From the politics of standard language to the rhetoric of advertising, from the neutrality (or otherwise) of news journalism to the epistemological implications of AI-generated text, the thirty questions in this book press on the assumptions embedded in everything the course studies. Sample responses model what careful, nuanced thinking about language and knowledge looks like in practice.
Designed for IB students, Language and Literature teachers, TOK educators, and anyone who wants to read the world more critically.