CLEAR LANGUAGE ACTIVITIES

JARGON

Objective:

To identify language that is not clear.

Materials:

List of words on paper (list below), pencils

Time:

20 minutes

Activity:

The facilitator will read out each word or phrase. Ask the participants what they think the word or phrase means. Encourage the group to come up with a general definition in Clear Language.

Write the Clear Language word or phrase beside the original word or phrase.

Translate the following into Clear Language:

• theoreticians
• streams of consciousness
• radical activism
• international stage
• significant compilation
• consumer-based change activity
• participatory action research
• moratorium on the equality rights provision
• unidentified nature of the disability collective
• social fabric
• highly psychologized society
• iatrogenic side-effect
• range of values promulgated by a given interest group
• incentive to invent interventions that are more socially appropriate...motor solutions currently in place
• an increasing proportion of the electorate favours outsiders rather than insiders who are perceived as too wedded to well-heeled interests
• a dichotomy that roughly parallels the two wings of the IL Movement
• a favourite social policy vehicle for more conservative elements because it reduces bureaucracy and greater consumer choice, an important hallmark of free market thinking
• ...undue participation of professionals who are often imbued with the trappings of the medical model
• the new alternative applies the principals of consumer choice, environmental modification and self-help in a customized alternative for a group of persons, considered by many, to be too high a risk because of their complex conditions.

Wrap-up:

Ask the participants if they can think of other words or phrases that are commonly used in the workplace that are not clear. A future activity would be to write the Clear Language definition for each word or phrase.