Corporate English: keeping people out

Corporate English is used in business, government, academia and the school system. Even unions use corporate English in contracts and other legal affairs. It is language that can keep people out. When union staff use corporate English with workers, they mark themselves as one of "them" and not one of "us."

Corporate English can be used to reinforce control. Verbal overkill works to put people in their place.

Corporate English obscures reality by excluding people. Passive verbs are consistently used, and the subjects of actions are not identified (as in this sentence). Corporate English commonly portrays economic processes as if they just happen, independent of people. "Tuition fees are going up," instead of "The school is charging students more money for courses." Or, "Interest rates may climb again" instead of "The banks will charge you more for a loan."

In these ways writers can avoid saying who is responsible for actions.

This means no one can be called to account for them. The human experience and consequences are left out. An "escalating inflation rate" or "pension de-indexing" does not conjure up an image of people lining up at food banks.

So, corporate English can leave people out. But it also draws people in. Although it comes from dominant organizations, elements of it become part of everybody's language.

For example, when people use the word "restraint" to describe a government that's cutting social service budgets, they mouth the government's line, perhaps in spite of themselves. In this way, corporate English can come to control the content of our thought and speech.

- Source: Progressive Literacy Group, Writing on Our Side, Vancouver, 1986