The Hyperreal

This week I was intrigued by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard and his ideas of the hyperreal. I thought that examining those aspects of our lives that provide ideals of reality relates closely with what I am studying about language. Both have to do with instances of objects that are meaningful only because we give them meaning. 

"Baudrillard, following Barthes and others, argued that fashion, sports, the media, and other modes of signification also produced systems of meaning articulated by specific rules, codes, and logics."

"The realm of the hyperreal (e.g., media simulations of reality, Disneyland and amusement parks, malls and consumer fantasylands, TV sports, and other excursions into ideal worlds) is more real than real, whereby the models, images, and codes of the hyperreal come to control thought and behavior."

Baudrillard's theories made me think of language as something that could also be considered to be part of that hyperrealistic realm. These ideas relate to my own questions about the impact of language on thought. I wonder whether or not languages limit us just as much as they allow us to effectively express ourselves to other people. In order to navigate through our world, we attach meaning to the languages that help us communicate with each other. But does this mean that the truth language makes of reality becomes more "real" than what it actually is?