Newsletter and Grammar Coach

”Word choice and sentence structure can reveal a lot about an individual or an organization. To a careful observer, style of expression can divulge insecurities. Someone attempting to blend in to new surroundings by using unfamiliar terminology may wonder “Does that word make me sound incompetent?”

Fifty years ago, American linguist William Labov explored a phenomenon that has come to be known as “linguistic insecurity.” That term describes anxiety that prompts an individual or organization to shift their natural speaking and writing patterns to conform to the style that others use. They could be trying to emulate the linguistic patterns of co-workers, administrators or prospective customers.

In the process, novices or newcomers may overcorrect, inadvertently revealing a lack of self-confidence. Exaggerated pronunciation, mispronunciation or misuse as they step beyond their area of familiarity can reveal the limitations of their vocabulary — precisely what they were trying to avoid. An article that the Association for Psychological Science published in June 2014 observed that “marginal members of established groups are more apt to use words that emphasize their membership, compared to confident, quintessential members of the group.” That is, people who are new to or at the fringes of a group overcompensate linguistically in their attempts to blend in.

This phenomenon was observed as long as seven decades ago. In his 1951 book White Collar: The American Middle Classes, Columbia University sociologist C. Wright Mills wrote that when people interact with higher status or more influential people, they may be inclined to — in his words — “borrow prestige” from them by emulating their overall demeanor, including how they express themselves in speech and in writing.

Recently hired employees or students who are newly enrolled in a school can experience language insecurity when encountering uncustomary word usage in the company of co-workers, fellow students or faculty members. In this new environment, standard words they have used for years suddenly seem inadequate.

The newcomer discovers that inflation no longer impairs or diminishes the company’s earnings, but rather it negatively impacts earnings. Rather than discussing ways to motivate customers, marketing personnel seek ways to incentivize them. Administrators speak not of their company’s specialties, but rather its core competencies.

In academic environments, students may be surprised to find that they don’t merely learn something by discovery; their professors are likely to refer to engaging in a heuristic process. They also may encounter hegemony, normative, pedagogical, semiotics, verisimilitude, contextualize, dialectic and other energy-sapping academic jargon that infests instructional materials as well as scholarly journal articles.

Such pretentious terminology is self-defeating because it can inhibit learning.

An article that The Hetchinger Report educational journal published in June 2019 stated, “University administrators and officials across the country continue to produce instructions and forms — from handbooks and guides to syllabuses, websites and policies about everything from academic honesty to sexual harassment — that are puzzles of almost comically complex words and pedantic phrases."

The article, which was headlined “One surprising barrier to college success: Dense higher education lingo,” added, “Self-absorbed academic lingo has long been the subject of parody. There’s even a ‘jargon generator,’ a tongue-in-cheek guide for academics to insert such words into their work as ‘actionable,’ ‘blended learning,’ ‘stackable credentials’ and ‘assessment-driven,’ and a game, EduBabble Bingo, in which players ‘win’ when they find enough of these words or terms to fill a row.”

People in business, government and educational organizations may embrace jargon terms and arcane acronyms not only as shortcuts but also as a means to envelop themselves in a metaphoric security blanket. Their use of terminology that others outside their circle may not understand elevates their sense of self-importance.

A skilled communicator may consciously shift communication styles to better relate to the people in the room or to the readership. In response to an article about “linguistic insecurity” posted online, a reader acknowledged deliberately applying what she called “code switching” —adapting her speech patterns to different audiences. She commented, “I see my code switching as a strength that allows me flexibility in conversation in a variety of contexts, and I am very proud of my ability to employ this strategy.”

Similarly, people whose accent differs from others in attendance may artificially alter their pronunciation to divert attention. “People from the Southern portion of the U.S. have come to realize they are occasionally judged by their business peers from other states because of their Southern drawl,” Illinois licensed speech-language pathologist John Atchley wrote.

“For instance, people from Northern states may ridicule how a Southern accent adds or subtracts syllables from specific words in comparison to how they are pronounced in the so called ‘proper’ standard American English dialect,” he continued. “Thus, many Southerners try to hide their accent when speaking to a room full of people with neutral-sounding accents, a phenomenon referred to by linguists as ‘linguistic insecurity.’ Were a Southerner at a business function in a room full of individuals who spoke with an accent similar to their own, however, they would be more apt to emphasize the unique pronunciations found in their dialect, in an effort to build camaraderie with another person.”

Although the urge to blend in is understandable, individuality and self-respect do not have to collapse under the weight of intellectual snobbery. If the goal is to communicate clearly to readers or to exchange information effectively in a meeting, participants should do all they can to avoid creating an atmosphere that makes anyone feel linguistically insecure.

Louisiana primary and secondary school educator Kathy Brown understood that one of the biggest obstacles that children confront in learning to read and developing comprehension is lack of automaticity — the skill to identify letters, letter-sound correspondences, and isolated words quickly and accurately.

Her desire to help children learn to read and improve their comprehension prompted her to write two books, beginning with Hilda and the Cup Babies: I Am Not Afraid to Read. That story book, published in August 2021 with the assistance of EditPros’ BookPrep service, engages children with a richly illustrated story that guides them in learning how to visually decode the tricky words that cause problems for many young readers. Children who have not formed automaticity in decoding by certain intellectual timelines are at risk for reading failure.

Hilda and the Cup Babies: I Am Not Afraid to Read contains a thoughtfully composed inventory of foundation words, word families, vowel teams, vowel combinations, digraphs, blends, trigraphs, and alphabet sounds that are instrumental in helping kindergarten through second-grade youngsters develop and strengthen reading skills upon which they can build.

Kathy teamed again with her illustrator, Zachary Roberson, to create a companion coloring book, Hilda and the Cup Babies: Rise Early Story Coloring Book, which was published with the help of BookPrep this August. The developing “Hilda and the Cup Babies” series consists of stories rooted in educational and social lessons and centered on heartwarming family engagement principles. These fictional stories, based on nonfictional topics, are intended to strengthen academic capabilities while supporting moral, ethical and social sensitivities.

Both books are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers. Hilda and the Cup Babies: Rise Early Story Coloring Book is the 43rd book that Book Prep has produced for authors during the past six years. As part of the Book Prep package, EditPros professionally formatted the cover and interior pages of both books and readied them for print publication.

With BookPrep, authors retain all rights to their books, and collect 100 percent of sales royalties.

We invite you to LEARN MORE about the EditPros BookPrep service.

Valerie M. wrote:

The grammar coach replies:

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