>> Hello, this is Mariel Nerrol, your disciplinary consultant for Social Sciences. And here is a small video that I prepared in response to some of the questions that some of you had about Social Sciences videos in general, and especially in response to the question of what would you like to see in addition to what we already have in terms of social sciences? What are issues about social sciences and writing? And, first of all, I would like to thank all of you for contributing to that thread. And here's actually how you are going to be able to see it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, if you can go to forums under General Discussion, I posted a thread called what do you want to see in a new video for Social Sciences. And many of you were so kind to leave comments and ask some questions about it. And also, even better, some of you actually helped to answer some of those questions. And I tried to respond to as many of the questions as possible in a broader term. So, I came up with this video for languages in social sciences because I noticed that one of the things that was mentioned the most in these threads were either questions about particular vocabulary or discussions about what is called political correctness. So I am going to now talk a little bit in this video about two main aspects of language use in social sciences. The first one is what we can broadly define as jargon, terminology, vocabulary. And the second is the politically correct language. By the way, before we move on further, especially with the jargon, terminology, vocabulary part, I would like to specially thank Eileen Frank for being so helpful with all of the information that she provided in the thread. If you are especially looking for sources about social work and political science please take a look at the thread. There's some really great glossary and resources. So, the question of vocabulary pertains to some specific questions, concepts or definitions that are used frequently, and is known and used by experts in the field. And, obviously, it is going to be different from one another, from one discipline of social sciences to another. And there are a couple of things that you can do. I know that people ask me advice about what we can do about that. And one of the things that you can do about learning this vocabulary is familiarizing yourself with the discussions in your discipline. And the way to do it, mainly, is by reading the literature, reading journal articles, reading books written in your field. Or, also, it would be useful to follow the conferences, follow some professional meetings, colloquia. And, obviously, the last one is getting a formal education in the field and taking some classes. I know that that is not available for all of you. But that's also one way to get into this jargon. There is also some specialized glossaries that you can find online and that you will find, as I said, some examples of in our thread. Now, I know that some of you who are not non-native speakers of English have a slight different concern which had more to do with the translations. And you may be an expert in your field, but you may not know the exact meanings of the terminology that you know of in your field when you're writing in English. So, some of the advice that I can give you about that is, so, you may want to find some professional dictionaries in your language. Sometimes there are these specialized type of dictionaries, if it's available, for your language in English. There are also glossaries, lists of important concepts in your field which, I just mentioned, is useful for native speakers as well. But, also, would give you the sense of what would be the corresponding word for some of the terminology. And also, similar to my previous advice, you may try to read some sources on your topic in English which, also, this is going to help your language skills as well. Now, the second category is what some of you called politically correct language. So, what we mean by this is the language used for politically charged terms. And when I say political here, what I mean is not just the strict definition of electoral politics or parliamentary politics, but anything that has to do with proper relations between people, between groups, and especially inequalities. And when it comes to dealing with those some sort of sensitive word, sensitive politically charged terminology, there are a couple of things I can tell you. One of the, is always they change over time. What was considered pretty common usage, politically neutral term, can be considered racist or sexist or homophobic several centuries later, which also, obviously, has to do with historical changes about how the relations between those, these human groups and Inequalities are dealt with. And the general concern, obviously this changes over time and sometimes it's different from one discipline to another, but the main idea is based on a concern for using respectful, inclusive and non-offensive language, especially with regards to referring to groups of people or with people who belong to historically offended or historically dominated group of people by some other group of people. So, in a sense, it is about letting people defined themselves in the language that they would prefer. I think what I mean is going to be a little bit clearer if I give you an example. So, this is a note about language use that was at the beginning of a chapter by Ann Foster Sterling who is talking about scientific discussions over Sarah Barton's body. And she is actually referring to some of the discussions that happened in the 19th century. And some of the words that she was going to use in the article that she was going to use in the chapter she was writing were things that weren't acceptable in today's views. So, she says, writing about nineteenth-century studies of race presents the modern writer with a problem. How to be faithful to the language user of earlier periods without offending contemporary sensibilities. In this chapter I have chosen to capitalize words designating a race or a people. At the same time, I will use the appellations of the period about which I write. Hence, I will render the French word Negre as negro. Some 19th century words, especially Hottentot, primitive, and savage contain meanings that we know today as deeply racist. I will use these words without quotation marks when it seems obvious that they refer to 19th rather than 20th century usage. So, here we see the author's meta-commentary on language use, especially using words that are not acceptable today because of racist meanings. As you can see, this issue of political correctness has a lot to do with history and historical changes. And sometimes when you are unsure about why you're using that word, or is it acceptable to use that particular word, one way to go around it is, again, look at some conventions. Try to learn what is the accepted practice in your discipline. And another is, also, to include a note like this writer, about explaining why you are using certain words in the way that they are used. This is pretty much all I have for you today about language use in Social Sciences. I hope you find this brief video useful. And thanks, again, for contributing to the thread. And I would like to also add, please, if you have further questions, feel free to go on contributing, asking additional questions in the thread and, obviously, in helping each other out if you know the answers to some of these questions. And I will see you in the next video. Bye.
