What We Talk About When We Talk About (Our) Language
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00:00
Computer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:10
Okay, hi, welcome to my talk. My name is Eloiza Guerrero, or I go as EL Guerrero, and I changed the name of my talk because it was very self-referential and kind of inception in
00:25
a way. But what I want to talk about is what we talk about when we talk about our language. And what I mean by that is what we're actually saying when we say things, and what are the implications of the language we use day to day. So what
00:43
are we talking about? Our language has a long history of oppression, and this isn't just in publishing or in tech, but in daily life. And it's a problem that impacts the people we work with, and even our friends, our families, our colleagues. So this isn't just strictly just for technology or all these
01:07
terminologies used in science and academic publishing. So what can we do about it? I'm going to frame it within tech and scholarly publishing just to be, just to scope it just a bit more. But let's also be mindful of how we use
01:23
language outside of work. So who am I and why this talk? I'm a software developer at PKP, and I've always questioned the language that we've inherited and how we've internalized all this racism, ableism, sexism, all sorts
01:42
of isms in our daily lives. And I have a lot to learn, and I want to talk about this with you so we can begin to make things better, not just for ourselves, but for the people who are affected by the way we use our language, the way we've been so used to using these words that are actually very
02:00
harmful. So what's the problem? For example, I come from the Philippines, and in the Philippines, ironically, we were colonized by Spain for 300 years. So in the Philippines during that time, they use Spanish to determine
02:25
societal status. If you were a colonizer, you would speak Spanish. If you were the colonized, you would speak our own indigenous language. And for those Filipinos who knew how to speak Spanish, it was a very much
02:41
upper tier social class for them. And we were also required to change our names to Spanish, hence my Spanish name. So there was a lot of, there's a long history of this colonization and oppression using language, and it applies the same to the terminologies that we've been handed down, and so
03:06
much so that it's become normal for us to use these terms. In Canada, indigenous people's culture and language is in danger of being taken away from them. So it's not just something that's been handed down, but
03:21
it's something that constantly happens in the world, all around the world today. So it's not only historical. We use language as a tool, and knowingly or unknowingly, we negatively impact marginalized people. And we shouldn't use the excuse, just because we've always said X is this way, then we should just
03:41
keep it. No, I don't think that we should follow these historical oppressive languages, and I think that we should question and make things better for people, because it definitely will impact people in ways that we may not
04:00
know, because we all have different lived experiences. So I want to show some real-world examples where we can see this in tech and scholarly publishing. So here's a screenshot of a site that's asking me to
04:25
whitelist their site or disable my ad blocking software. The terms blacklist and whitelist have always been used in technology, but they have very racist connotations, because we're often using black to denote
04:41
something as bad and white as something that is good. And anti-black racism is still very pervasive, and they are subtle terms that perpetuate that black is always good. Even black sheep or any other term that uses black to say it's something that's bad. And this cycles back into our
05:02
daily lives. Again, we think that they are very harmless words, but they actually carry a lot of weight, a lot of historical oppressive weight. And again, it's not just in the past few centuries, it's still happening today.
05:24
Here's another term, master-slave, definitely problematic, but also definitely being used in so many contexts. Most of the time, it just means a primary device controlling secondary devices. And why can't we
05:43
just use that instead? It's no matter how appropriate we may think that these terminologies apply to whatever we're trying to do, it doesn't make it okay to use them. And so modern slavery is still
06:02
happening. All these languages, all these terminologies that we've been using, knowingly or unknowingly, are harmful because even with the long history, it's still happening. Here's an academic essay, the importance of stupidity in scientific research. Was there really a need to say
06:24
stupidity? Obviously, the author was just trying to grab your attention, but what he was actually referring to was the ignorance of, was the person's ignorance. But that doesn't mean it's okay also to make fun of people's
06:41
intelligence, which is ableist, just as a side note. And when we use these words, these eye-catching, they're easy terms, they're low-hanging fruit, we should consider our intent rather than the probable negative impact that our words may have. So again, he could not have used stupidity in
07:06
this sense, but it was low-hanging fruit for him, you know, it was easy. And even in OJS, not to put OJS on the spot, but I mean this sort of language
07:21
is used in academic and scholarly publishing, double-blind, blind reviews, and this is problematic because it's ableist in nature because we kind of equate blindness with ignorance, and that's something that we should question
07:41
and definitely change. I wonder if anyone else has any other examples that they like to share, if you have any. Anybody? No? Okay, I'll continue. So why is it harmful? The internet is global, it's a global communal context,
08:06
and we're living in a globalized context where people of different lived experiences and histories are joining the conversation. And we should make our
08:20
spaces safer and more inclusive regardless of disability, race, religion, gender identity, gender expression. There's nothing wrong with being politically correct. There's nothing wrong with trying to make our language
08:41
and our spaces more inclusive and diverse because these people will be joining our teams, they'll be the ones who we go to see the doctor to, or, you know, they will be everywhere and we have to consider the impact that our language has on them. And if we want, we're always talking about
09:05
diversity and inclusion in our workplaces. And if we want to include these people, we have to make sure our language affects them positively and not alienate them or disempower them. Even from a design perspective, we should be catering
09:24
to more than the white, able-bodied person and how this leaves other people out in the cold. So, yes, so we talk about inclusivity.
09:40
There's a lot of talk about, oh, let's make our company more inclusive, more diverse. And oftentimes, it's just a checkbox to be checked off. But if you want to walk the talk, we can start with our language. And it's a long road, but language is definitely a huge part of making sure
10:04
that our workspaces, our friends, our colleagues, our family are all included in our language, in our conversations. So, what can we do?
10:24
We all have different lived experiences. I have my own experiences with racism, microaggressions, and stuff like that. But we should think about also what power we hold and that we are able to say certain terms or words.
10:46
And maybe that's something that we can start with ourselves, thinking about how come I can say this and let it not affect me, but it may affect other people. And it's good to reflect,
11:02
to take a hard look at our privilege and realize that the choice of our words matter. So, again, we focus on our intent instead of eye-catching or easy, low-hanging fruit words to use just because it's easy, just because we've always done it this way, just because it sounds like it has
11:24
more impact. We should focus more on our intent and be more sincere and be more inclusive of our language. So, I've got a few websites I'd like
11:44
to check out that people have done. One of them is called self-defined.app, which is a modern dictionary project by Tatiana Mack. And I will click on it. So, this is the dictionary that she
12:13
has developed, and it's something that anybody can submit contributions to. And it basically outlines all the problematic terminologies that's been used
12:29
everywhere, not just in technology, not just in design, not just in academia, but anything that you may have thought was not problematic
12:42
could be problematic. And this is a good way to go through and check ourselves before we do or say anything that could be damaging to other people. So, it's a really good reference for language and redefining our vocabularies.
13:06
And the other link is a Google document. I am not entirely sure who started this document, but it's a document for alternatives and substitutes for appropriative and problematic language. Black English or African-American
13:26
vernacular English is a huge problem. They have a lot of alternatives and the context by which it is being used, and they have examples to show how we can reframe the way we say things or how we mean things so that it's not
13:46
oppressing or undermining other people. So, this is quite a long list. So, they have ableist language as well, which is really important because we often take for granted...because as able-bodied people, we take for granted
14:04
the language that we use, and it alienates people who are disabled and may not enjoy the same privileges as we do, especially with language where we constantly use stupid or, again, in OJS, double-blind, blind reviews.
14:23
And, yeah, so it's good to re-evaluate our terms. So, going back to... So, what's been done? People are already or have always been talking about this,
14:45
and I'm definitely not the first, but I think it's important to share this with all of you so that we can continue this conversation with our teams, our people, our friends, family, colleagues, become more aware of the
15:00
language that we use and how it impacts people. An example on Twitter, Andre Stoltz recommended to change blacklist to denialist, which makes more sense. He gives all these alternatives to terms that we've always used to things that make more sense, honestly. We don't need to use
15:24
blacklist, but we can say denialist, whitelist to allowlist, and master and slave to primary and replica, which makes sense. Ruby on Rails, which is a programming framework, is also replacing the use
15:40
of whitelist and blacklist. Python, a popular programming language, is removing the master and slave terminology, which is great. Here's a tweet from someone in scholarly publishing, change double-blind or blind reviews to mutually anonymous peer review. It's a mouthful, but it's way better than what we currently have,
16:02
and it makes more sense. And also, it's more user-friendly for people who are not familiar with these scholarly terms. In Node.js, we've opened an issue to remove blind from review types. So, we're taking the steps to get there, and we're trying to be more friendly,
16:25
and not just to people who may be affected by it, but people who may not be familiar with what a double-blind or a blind review means. So, cool people talking about this. Again, Tatiana Mack, who made self-defined.app. I want to talk about a group
16:43
in Toronto that I'm a part of called Intersect.io, and we're a bunch of people who are black, indigenous, people of color, trying to uplift these marginalized voices in the Toronto tech space, because there's a lot of problematic issues with that tech space. Actually, not just in Toronto,
17:04
but everywhere. But I'm from Toronto, so that's why I wanted to give them a shout-out. And there are a lot more smart people with lived experience who are BIPOC, who are disabled, queer, trans, talking about this. And some final notes. We've walked through all these examples
17:22
in technology and scholarly language, and it's definitely relevant for us working as developers, designers, or anyone who works in tech and scholarly publishing. But it's also relevant to our daily lives, and that we should be cognizant of it in our teams, whether we are in tech and design or scholarly publishing.
17:44
And you may know someone who has a visible or an invisible disability, and it might be harming them. And it really doesn't harm ourselves to be using more inclusive language, and you never know. They might be people in your teams, and we just don't know about it.
18:02
So there's nothing wrong with being politically correct. And we have the alternative vocabulary. We just have to be mindful and do a bit of reprogramming, and that doesn't hurt either. And I wanted to close
18:21
with what Tatiana Mack says. We define our words, but they don't define us. We've been passed this language from generation to generation, but with the internet, with globalization, we can redefine our words and redefine our vocabulary to make sure that we can include everyone
18:44
in the conversation and learn how to better relate with one another. And these are my sources. I'll be sending the slides to Marissa, I think, so we can go through the sources. And that's it. Thank you.
19:01
I'd like to thank Lorraine Chun from Toronto, Julia Nguyen from the Bay Area, Sophie Uch, who is a colleague of mine at PKP for helping me with these slides, because this is my first talk, and I was very nervous. But thank you so much, and yeah, let's do better. Yeah.