Earlier today I was flipping through my notebook to look for a topic for today’s blog post. I found a cryptic shorthand note in a bubble from a presentation my former intern gave for his doctoral thesis. The note said something like ‘linguistic care’ in one bubble, with a line to another bubble that said ‘anti-ableist language’ in another, circled by place as a big bubble. It was a brilliant presentation that I won’t rehash because it was too brilliant for me to share correctly. What I will share are ways we should consider being more thoughtful with our language – a way of taking linguistic care.

Say What You Mean

The English language is filled with a lot of euphemisms, as I’m guessing many other languages are too. It is important for us with the privilege and power of being in the language majority to take care with our language and use it to create belonging, not use it to exclude people from understanding. Creating a culture of linguistic care means thinking about who is on the receiving end and how they understand language.

Over the years I’ve worked with interpreters and appreciate how hard a job it is. Interpreters have to take in what someone says, quickly make sense of it, then flip that information into another language. It takes a lot of quick thinking and skill to accurately interpret. A friend was telling me as a training exercise around spoken language she has people form a group of three, then asks one person to tell a story or answer a question to the second person, the third person has to listen and after the first person spoke for 30-seconds repeat the story back. Even doing this just in English without another language component is very hard.

In working with interpreters, I’ve learned how important it is to use care when speaking. Speak slowly and with breaks to give them time to catch up. Avoid idioms and euphemisms, or more plainly – say what I mean. The same goes for working with translators – say what you mean I remember a native Chinese speaker with good English skills, asked for help translating the term ‘light dinner’ for a school flier. I tried to help to untangle the very English term but failed miserably. Small dinner didn’t feel right, she wasn’t familiar with the term appetizers (another hard English word to figure out), and in the moment I didn’t think of saying something like small portions of dinner foods – literal but accurate.  

Some of this also applies to people with disabilities. A colleague was telling me how she worked with a client who mentioned needing language accommodations. He had a traumatic brain injury which resulted in his having an audio-processing disability. To make it easier for the client my colleague met with him over Zoom, turned on the audio-captioning, and recorded the conversation. After the meeting, she sent the recording to the client so he could review it. She also followed up with written next steps, making sure to bullet point the action items so the client could easily reference it. These steps didn’t cost any more money or much more time, but they were important steps to ensure the client could understand the language used in the meeting.

Inclusive Language

Other ways we to create inclusive language can include:

• Avoiding genderized terms – instead of boys and girls, use terms like friends; instead of brothers and sisters, try fellow XXX, instead of pregnant women – pregnant person
• Pronouns – Sharing your own pronouns, and being mindful of other people’s pronouns.
• Stop saying mental, crazy, dumb, special needs, OCD, derp – learn about disability justice
• Use first person language – instead of saying homeless, say the person without a house; instead of saying victim or survivor, say the person who was impacted by. For this point, please check with the person you are referring to. Some people and some communities do not like person first language and prefer being explicit with naming or sometimes reclaiming terminology.

There is so much more to explore around language. It is a topic we can continually refine, change, and adapt to. Please share with me or someone else how inclusive or exclusive language has shaped you and your relations. We can practice more linguistic care with each other, an important step to working for racial equity.

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