Alex brings up a point about formality/ informality of language which reminded me of Economic Class based work done on the register of language. I think this is written up in a book by Ruby K Payne called "A Framework for Understanding Poverty."  Language, whether spoken or written, comes in five registers - Frozen ( think of the Lord's Prayer recited from the King James version); Formal ( the standard sentence syntax and word choice of work and school ( think standardized testing ); Consultative, another formal register which is not quite as direct as the formal; Casual ( think language between friends in conversation, where sentences are often incomplete or rambling, vocabulary limited to 400- 800 words, and a long-winded story-telling style is employed); and Intimate ( the language between lovers, twins, and those using language to sexually harass).  One can comfortably move between only two registers along the register scale in the continuum of the same conversational situation.  Class-wise, the ability to be flexible between these language registers is a Middle Class standard, not one of Poverty.   Typically, those in the Poverty Class are most conversant in the casual and intimate registers, which when involved in an interaction with a physician about a health care issue creates quite a disadvantage (the casual style does not "get to the point" quickly but engages in story-telling around it, and the Intimate register is completely inappropriate).   The reason I bring this Language register research up is two fold: to be aware of our own Class bias when developing and evaluating patient education resources, and (while in no way implying diminished Health Literacy is a reality limited to only one economic class, since it clearly is not) Class may well play a largely unacknowledged role in judgemental attitudes towards materials written in the limited vocabulary and story-telling form of the casual register.

Margaret Searing RN,BS
Inservice Education
Clinton County Health Department
133 Margaret St.
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
518 565-4848


-----Original Message-----
From: healthliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:healthliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of alex.friesen at sickkids.ca
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 12:50 PM
To: The Health and Literacy Discussion List
Subject: [HealthLiteracy 1994] Re: Wednesday Question: Writing how we talk: better or worse?

Hello good people of the list,

With regards to writing how we talk, that's a huge topic, and there's no
definitive black-and-white conclusion.

Using our examples, I would have no qualms about writing "Your dominant
hand is the one you write with," but using "their" as singular jolts me
like an unexpected speed bump.

Obviously, writing and speaking differ in many ways, and of course we all
speak and write differently in different situations.  For example, you talk
to your mother differently from how you talk in a job interview, and you
write a note to this list differently than you write a postcard to a loved
one.  (I'm rashly assuming.)

Still, I don't think that styles of writing and styles of speaking can
necessarily substitute for one another, meaning that a casual tone in
conversation still doesn't match that same casual tone in writing.  A big
part of the difference comes from the reality that a listener gets only one
chance to hear and interpret a spoken sentence, while a reader can peruse
the same text over and over.  If a listener wants to hear the sentence
again to increase understanding, it's extremely likely that the speaker
will rephrase it, or at least put stresses in different places.  With
writing, of course, we have the opportunity to think in great detail about
what we're typing, which, in the hands of a good writer, increases the
opportunity for clarity up front.

So I'm all for a casual tone in the type of writing we're discussing,
because I believe that formal writing styles are often somewhat stilted and
more difficult to understand*, but I think that writing in the same way we
speak is neither better nor worse: the two modes of communication are not
interchangeable, so writing-as-speaking does not necessarily lead to
increased intelligibility in low-literacy material.

     ...Alex...


* e.g., that sentence.






             "Julie McKinney"
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                                                                   Subject
                                       [HealthLiteracy 1990] Wednesday
             2008-05-15 11:57          Question: Writing how we talk:
                                       better or worse?

             Please respond to
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I agree with Kristina that writing "the way we talk" is usually clearer,
even if it is technically grammatically incorrect. It's an interesting
concept that well educated people talk in a certain way, which is
grammatically correct, but may be more confusing to people with literacy
or English challenges. And this way is usually how we are "supposed" to
write.

The gender question that we've been discussing is one example of that,
but there are many others. For example, the rule that no sentence can
end with a preposition. Which is clearer:

Your dominant hand is the one you write with.
or
Your dominant hand is the one with which you write.

(I know we could say ..."the one you use to write", but sometimes, the
sentence structures abobe seem to be the only choices.)

What do the plain language folks think about this? And others? Can we
write more colloquially, and is it clearer or not?

All the best,
Julie



Julie McKinney
Health Literacy List Moderator
World Education
jmckinney at worlded.org



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