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Dumbing Down

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Clarissa

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When translating medical compliance documents for Nordic countries, we are required to dumb down all terminology to the level where a 12-year-old would be able to understand it. There’s zero likelihood that any 12-year-old would read this kind of paperwork that is addressed only to medical professionals (not patients) but that’s what the local legislation requires.

I wonder how they will go about the understandability requirement with the increasing numbers of migrants.

And also, why is it not OK for professional fields to not be inclusive? Why does everybody need to understand what specialists within their fields say to each other? Every professional field has its jargon. I’m sure I wouldn’t understand what car mechanics or electrical engineers say to each other. So what? Yes, I’m excluded. But they are equally excluded from my chats with a colleague about how better to teach the Spanish subjunctive.

It’s getting so, I break out in hives when I hear the word “inclusive”.

9 responses to “Dumbing Down”

  1. overgrownhobbit Avatar
    overgrownhobbit

    It is a consequence of the med-sammy Experts attempting to run every aspect of every potential patient’s life, while gaslighting the public for status and profit.

    “A law in every heart or a policeman on every corner” was taken not as a dire warning, but a recommendation.

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    1. cliff arroyo Avatar
      cliff arroyo

      “med-sammy”

      Wil sha!

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      1. overgrownhobbit Avatar
        overgrownhobbit

        Em: zheláad!

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  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    …..and there’s never a clear, pragmatic explanation why this should be so.

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  3. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “dumb down all terminology to the level where a 12-year-old would be able to understand it”

    Plain language movements have always been big there. The idea is that you save time and effort by writing things that everyone can understand.
    In southern and eastern Europe the idea is more that an important topic needs important sounding language.
    Some years ago I was involved in a big multi-lingual project and one of the partners was from a nordic country. That version was mostly translated by a non-native speaker (with the approval of native speakers who thought that would ensure a suitably clear and simple style).

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  4. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “how they will go about the understandability requirement with the increasing numbers of migrants”

    A former semi-colleague (from the same nordic country as in my previous comment) said a big hurdle in the language integration of newcomers was the firm conviction that the same classroom should welcome all learners so a multi-lingual highly educated European had to be in the same class as newcomers who couldn’t even write in their own languages. Frustration on all sides was high but the sacred dogme couldn’t be challenged….

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      When I first came to Quebec, they paid immigrants a very decent wage to take French classes. I wanted to improve my spoken French but I dropped out after 2 classes precisely because of this. Not even the money they paid was worth such an extraordinary waste of time.

      It’s a good idea in principle, and the government put healthy amounts of money behind it but the only people who would remain in class were precisely those who had no chance to learn the language. The pull towards the lowest common denominator was too strong.

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    2. Avi Avatar
      Avi

      @cliff arroyo

      That’s what happened to me when I was living in Denmark. I was sent on the state-sponsored Danish language course and found myself with people who had difficulty forming the letters of the Roman alphabet… I stayed on because the course was made up of 15-day units (levels) and those who didn’t pass the end-of-unit test were held back and made to repeat it until they got it right. From the second level onwards there were only Europeans and Americans in each class. None of the teachers seemed to wonder why that should be the case.

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  5. Post Alley Crackpot Avatar
    Post Alley Crackpot

    “… zero likelihood that any 12-year-old would read this kind of paperwork that is addressed only to medical professionals …”

    12 year old me: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

    🙂

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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