Morilanguage

Morilanguage is a theoretical framework for analyzing the way moral content is encoded, expressed, and interpreted in language across speech and text. It encompasses semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and cognitive science to study how people talk about right and wrong, duties and virtues, and social norms.

The term emerged in contemporary discussions of language and ethics to distinguish moral discourse from general persuasion, affect, or policy argumentation. It treats moral statements as speech acts that prescribe, condemn, or endorse conduct, and it considers how deontic modals (must, should), evaluative adjectives, and moral predicates function within discourse.

Core components include moral vocabulary, discourse strategies for justifying claims, and the cultural scripts that shape interpretation. Researchers examine cross-linguistic variation in moral vocabularies, how politeness and face-saving interact with moral claims, and how context, audience, and authority influence interpretation.

Applications include linguistics and anthropology, where Morilanguage informs analysis of how communities negotiate norms; in AI ethics and natural language processing, where it guides the development of systems capable of recognizing, generating, or evaluating moral content, while highlighting the challenge of culturally situated judgments; and in media studies, where it helps trace how moral framing shapes public perception.

Criticism notes that Morilanguage risks overgeneralization, essentializing cultures, or embedding normative biases. Methodological issues include operationalizing moral judgment and distinguishing moral language from rhetoric. Proponents argue that a careful, context-aware approach can illuminate how language mediates social values.