Inclusive language for your communication strategy
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You are all set up with your communication strategy for your next PR or marketing campaign. You have the objectives, outputs and outcomes laid out. You established the KPIs (key performance indicators). You have the plan. You’re proud of yourself and excited to start. What about the language? Have you given a thought about how inclusive and accessible your communication is?
Thinking about adopting inclusive language already starts when you outline your strategy. Not after.
In this article, I’ll explain how you can make more conscious and informed choices about inclusion and accessibility in your communication activities.
What is inclusive language?
Inclusive language makes people feel seen, represented and understood. It’s the language that doesn’t use stereotypes or discriminatory views or ideas about people. Practising inclusive language is an invitation to reflect on the words and expressions you use every day.
Wayne Modest, Head of the Research Center for Material Culture, the research institute of the National Museum of World Cultures in The Netherlands, says it better:
Paying attention to words means acknowledging that the language we use affects whether a person or a group feels excluded or included, whether they feel a sense of belonging to society. This is about representation, recognition and respect.
He speaks more about it in Words Matter, An Unfinished Guide to Word Choices in the Cultural Sector. This is a useful tool to get informed about and reflect on the importance of the words we use in everyday life and the workplace regardless of the industry you are working in.
The violence in language
Ocean Vuong is one of my favourite writers. He often talks about the power of words and he has always inspired me to look for more depth in my everyday language.
When you’re using language, you can create it, use it, to divide people and build walls, or you can turn it into something where we can see each other more clearly, as a bridge. And that notion that you are a participant in the future of language is something I think our American education failed us.
What happens if we alter our language? Where would our future be? Where will we grow towards, if we start to think differently about how the world is? “This is a battleground state.”
The quotes are from a conversation he had with Krista Tippett from OnBeing in 2020, that it’s worth listening to, in which he also touches on the violence of the American English lexicon. And while he refers here to American English only, we can all look more closely at our use of words and phrases in our language(s):
You have to articulate the world you want to live in, first. We pride ourselves, as a country that’s very technologically advanced — we have strong, good sciences; good schools; very advanced weaponry, for sure — but I think we’re still very primitive in the way we use language and speak, particularly in how we celebrate ourselves. “You’re killing it.”
We have to ask — I’m not saying it’s wrong, per se; I use it too, being a product of this country. But one has to wonder, what is it about a culture that can only value itself through the lexicon of death? I knocked it out of the park. I went in there, guns blazing. Go knock ‘em dead. Drop dead gorgeous. Slay — I slayed them. I slew them.” What happens to our imagination, when we can only celebrate ourselves through our very vanishing?
Words matter.
And languages evolve. We too -as communicators- need to keep up with the movements inside the language(s) we communicate in. And so, we need to continuously read, learn and reflect to be able to identify exclusion, silencing, discrimination or violence in language.
How do you get started with adopting inclusive language in your communications?
#1. Diversity in your thinking and your team
Before anything else, consider who is working on your next PR campaign. Can you make sure various perspectives that reflect your audience are brought to the table? Or views of unrepresented voices? Your team needs to include culturally and socially conscious members that can understand and implement an inclusive campaign.
If that is not in place yet or you’re running the show as a solo communicator, make sure you consult those communities that work in the specific area you are interested in. Why not running a co-design session with them and discuss the implications of language in your next campaign?
#2. Do you know who you talk to?
Don’t assume anything. Get to know the audience you want to include in your communications. You can tap into your available data. But you can also add focus groups or simply ask for help from your customer service colleagues (if the case) to better understand other characteristics, such as points of view or physical ability. Know enough, so you know to avoid discriminating against people who are part of your audience.
#3. Check your biases
Cognitive biases influence the way people process information and make decisions.
We all have biases and the sooner we acknowledge this reality the better we can work with it.
If you are curious to understand what they are all about, these two resources are a great place to start:
Buster Benson’s Cognitive bias cheat sheet. Buster Benson brought the Wikipedia List to an entirely new level and made it clearer to navigate and understand.
Wikipedia’s List groups 175 cognitive biases in various categories, such as decision-making biases, social biases, memory. The list has been a great reference for years and it’s still worth checking.
When we think about inclusive language in our communications, unconscious biases show up inevitably.
The best way to work with them is to learn to question them. Where do you hold certain prejudices? On what basis you create your first impressions and reactions to others?
Some tools can be handy. For example, Your.Bias.is and Yourlogicalfallacy.is recommended by Christopher Penn in an article about how to reduce bias in communication: a communicator’s responsibility which is full of valuable insights on the matter.
You may also want to have a look at Facebook’s Managing Unconscious Biases training created to eliminate unconscious bias both in the workplace and in their interfaces with customers: https://managingbias.fb.com
#4. Inclusive and accessible content creation
When it comes down to writing inclusive and accessible content, assumptions have no place. The ability to think critically is important. As well as building skills to help you make the right call in different contexts and avoid excluding your audiences.
Thankfully, many resources are available to keep you informed and help you make a more conscious choice. For example, the Associate Press Stylebook covers diversity-related topics and makes significant changes when the language evolves. See more resources below.
At the same time, as communicators, it is useful to create an internal style guide encompassing inclusive and accessible language guidelines that you, your team or your clients can go back to when in doubt of phrasing.
If you are communicating across several markets and languages, you may want to set a series of guidelines for global communications that include international style guides, as Microsoft did.
Style guides for the English language (a non-exhaustive list):
The Radical Copy Editor’s Style Guide for Writing about Transgender People
GLAAD’s Media Reference Guide and GLAAD’s An Ally’s Guide to Terminology: Talking about LGBT People & Equality
Anti-Racism Daily - not a style guide per se, but a valuable resource about race-related matters.
#5. Go beyond the text
Consider these basic questions to check if the variety of content formats you use, such as image, audio, and video, is inclusive and accessible:
Is your audience represented in the visuals you use across your communication?
Do you use alt-text for every digital image you publish?
Do you use captions for all videos you create?
Do you include transcripts for audio and video interviews?
Do you include audio or video for the long texts you produce?
Do you use camel case in your hashtags #SomethingLikeThis to make it accessible to readers who use screen readers?
In my next blog post, I’ll show you ten simple tips you can use to make your communication strategy more accessible.
What other steps do you take to adopt inclusive language in your communication strategy, and what additional resources do you use? What challenges do you encounter to make your communication more inclusive and accessible? Leave a comment below or/and get in touch.
