The Power of Language to Create Culture - Pioneer Network
The Power of Language to Create Culture
Thank you to The Hulda B. and Maurice L.
Rothschild Foundation of Chicago, Illinois
for the generous funding that made this paper possible.
Carmen Bowman, MHS Judah Ronch, PhD
Galina Madjaroff, MA
Dedication To the beautiful people who live and work in long term care.
Let's create a beautiful language together.
1
Acknowledgements
The three authors want to thank Dr. Robert Mayer, President of the Rothschild Foundation, whose support for this paper went far beyond the financial resources that supported its preparation. Rob was essentially our fourth collaborator. His dedication to the project and what it could mean to how elders experience life in our care settings started with the many events supported by the Rothschild Foundation that led up to the idea to prepare this paper. These include the Creating Home I Symposium (2008) on the environment and subsequent creation of the Life Safety Task Force, the Creating Home II Symposium (2010) on food and dining and the subsequent Clinical Food and Dining Standards Task Force and the many other Rothschild Regulatory Task Forces and projects that led to this next step in finding where the lives of elders could be changed by changing practices. Rob got into the trenches of this work with us by reading each draft carefully and making countless insightful and pivotal suggestions about how to refine, focus, organize and otherwise maximize the impact of what we were trying to say. He was constantly vigilant about the requirement that if we were writing about language, we had to practice what we preached, and made innumerable wise suggestions that helped us do that.
He also made the wise suggestion that we ask a panel of experts to read the manuscript in draft form. Our thanks go to our dedicated reviewers: Maggie Calkins, IDEAS Institute; Peter Reed, Pioneer Network; Karen Schoeneman, formerly of CMS, now Karen Schoeneman Consulting; Heidi Gil, Planetree; Ingrid Fraley, AIA Design for Aging Community, and: Carol Ende, Eden Alternative. Their enthusiasm for the topic, practical experience and expertise added immeasurably to the scope of the paper. Despite all that help, projects like this one are never perfect, and all errors are the responsibility of the authors.
2
Executive Summary
Language plays a crucial role in shaping the culture of aging and aging services in our society. The words we use when talking to and about older persons denote how they are valued, what is expected of them, and where they stand with respect to the speaker. Any serious and lasting attempt to change the culture of aging services organizations must include an analysis of what is said, to whom and what that communication both denotes (says) and connotes (means at multiple levels).
Learning from other fields, we have seen how words matter and can be sources of both good and harm. What a person is called creates expectations about their behavior and sets the limits on how much growth and individual identity is deemed possible by those who serve them. Our analysis of the traditional terms that have characterized speech in the aging services work place reveals culturally embedded ways of talking that infantilize, subordinate, marginalize and otherwise dishonor elders. We present many examples of changed vocabularies that reflect the values of some of the new cultures developed to combat these tendencies. These cultures reflect new assumptions about elders and their roles in society, and as such replace dehumanizing language with language that communicates honor, inclusion, partnership and equality of elders and those who serve them.
The impact of new language is seen as a way of interacting that goes deeper into the core of peoples' lived experience than mere changes in the words people speak. We argue that the new language will have a positive effect on how elders feel about themselves, how they think, and how functionally able they can be in daily life.
Words do indeed make worlds. We conclude that cultures of care that honor those who live and work in them will find that changing culture and changing language are complementary processes.
3
Preface ? Why Language?
7
Judah Ronch, Galina Madjaroff
A note to our readers
9
Introduction ? Where we are with Language
13
Carmen Bowman
Learning from Other Fields ? Why words matter
16
Carmen Bowman
Language, Customer Service and the Culture of the Nursing Home Workplace
25
Judah Ronch, Galina Madjaroff
Language and the Maintenance of "Self"
29
Judah Ronch, Galina Madjaroff
The Status of Language in Long Term Care
35
Carmen Bowman
New Vocabularies
65
Carmen Bowman
Metaphors and Experience: Words into Action
74
Judah Ronch, Galina Madjaroff
Places, spaces and the language of relationships
82
Judah Ronch, Galina Madjaroff
What people are Saying about Language
85
Carmen Bowman
Learning from those who have Changed Language
87
Saying what we believe and believing what we say:
91
The hard work to change language
4
Judah Ronch, Galina Madjaroff
References
96
Glossary of Terms
103
About the Rothschild Foundation
108
About the Authors
109
5
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related download
- useful argumentative essay words and phrases
- essays book pdf the minimalists
- ap english language and composition 2018 frq 2 sample
- ap english language and composition 2016 scoring
- ap english language and composition
- challenges students face in learning essay writing
- ap english language and composition 2010 scoring
- the power of language to create culture pioneer network
- george orwell politics and the english language
Related searches
- the power of asking why
- the power of compounding
- the power of compounding worksheet
- the power of questions pdf
- the power of interest
- the power of compound interest
- the power of believing
- the power of compounding interest
- 10 to the power of negative 6
- quotes about the power of music
- to the power of calculator
- 2 to the power of 5