[lg policy] Linguistic Hygiene in the UK: PC language police crackdown on staff

[Harold Schiffman]

PC language police crackdown on staff
6 August 2009

By Melanie Newman

Many universities are falling foul of do's and don'ts in their own
guidelines. Melanie Newman reports

Universities are trying - and failing - to prevent staff from using a
host of terms that they deem to be inappropriate, such as "mankind",
"affliction" and "OAP".
The terms are listed in a guide on non-discriminatory language by
University College London, which instead suggests terms such as
"humankind", "impairment" and "older person". It also disapproves of
words such as "chairman", "chairwoman", "homosexual" (preferring the
term "gay man") and "manpower". The guide urges staff to be "sensitive
to the risk of patronising, offending or excluding colleagues or
students".

Although staff have been told that the guidelines "must be reflected
in UCL communication", an internet search found 3,000 documents on the
institution's website that use the word "chairman", for example. UCL
is not the only university to issue and ignore advice on language.
Loughborough University's "inclusive language policy" advises staff to
use "older people" in preference to "the elderly", "pensioners" or
"senior citizens". "It is important to remember ageism can also be
used negatively against young people, for example assuming they lack
maturity," it says.

A Loughborough press release last year announcing the Olympic debut of
Heather Corrie, a PhD student and canoeist, failed to follow this
advice.
Noting that the 37-year-old had been competing internationally since
"the tender age of 14", it also includes a quote from her on her
research into preventing falls among older people, stating: "I've been
testing 93 senior citizens on a weekly basis." A conference at the
University of Sheffield last year, titled "Bearded Ladies: Hair and
Hairiness in Literature and Culture from the Middle Ages to the
Present", also breached a language guide.

The title should have been "bearded women" according to the
university's preferred language guide, which says that the term
"ladies" should not be used "except when in conjunction with
'gentlemen'?". Elsewhere, the University of Aberdeen's "considerate
language" page notes that "the word 'special' (eg special needs) when
referring to disabled people tends to either mean extraordinary or not
good enough, and is therefore ... patronising".

It also tells staff to avoid using the words "epileptic" or
"dyslexic", yet a section on its student-support page headed "What
support will I have being dyslexic?", explains that the support
available includes "making special-access arrangements or making
special arrangements for you to take exams elsewhere". Another
institution to fall foul of its own rules is Lancaster University,
where a postgraduate student handbook issued by the English and
creative writing department warns that "if an Arts and Humanities
Research Council-funded student does not complete within four years,
then the department is at risk of being blacklisted".

This is in spite of a language guide advising staff to "avoid terms
such as crippled, blacklist or black mark". A report published by the
Equality and Human Rights Commission on the "language of equality"
suggests that institutional guidelines may never have the desired
effect. It says: "It is by consent of the speakers, not at the
directives of higher authority, that language changes most
effectively."

melanie.newman at tsleducation.com.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=407669&c=1

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