Bureaucratic Language in Government and Business
eBook - PDF

Bureaucratic Language in Government and Business

  1. 208 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Bureaucratic Language in Government and Business

About this book

Plunging into the verbal quagmire of official language used by bureaucrats in both government and business, distinguished linguist Roger W. Shuy develops new techniques based on linguistic principles to improve their communication with the public.

Shuy presents nine case studies that reveal representative problems with bureaucratic language. He characterizes the traits of bureaucratic language candidly, though somewhat sympathetically, and he describes how linguists can provide bureaucrats with both the tools for communicating more clearly and also the authority to implement these changes.

Drawing on documents cited in class action lawsuits brought against the Social Security Administration and Medicare, Shuy offers a detailed linguistic analysis of these agencies’ problems with written and oral communication, and he outlines a training program he developed for government writers to solve them. Moving on to the private sector, Shuy analyzes examples of the ways that businesses such as car dealerships, real estate and insurance companies, and commercial manufacturers sometimes fail to communicate effectively. Although typically bureaucracies change their use of language only when a lawsuit threatens, Shuy argues that clarity in communication is a cost effective strategy for preventing or at least reducing litigation.

Bureaucratic Language in Government and Business explains why bureaucratic language can be so hard to understand and what can be done about it.

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Yes, you can access Bureaucratic Language in Government and Business by Roger W. Shuy in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Linguistics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Foreword
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Chapter 1 Trying to Do Conversation on Paper: A Case Study of a Medicare Benefits Notice
  6. Chapter 2 Training a Bureaucracy to Write Clearly: A Case Study of the Social Security Administration
  7. Chapter 3 A Bureaucracy's Struggle with Saying "No'': A Medicare Case Study
  8. Chapter 4 When Bureaucracies Clash: A Case Study of Physicians' Disability Report Forms
  9. Chapter 5 Bureaucratic Speech: Research on Telephone vs. In-Person Administrative Hearings
  10. Chapter 6 Facing the Bureaucratic Language of the Insurance Industry: A Case Study of a Consumers' Affairs Conference
  11. Chapter 7 Untangling the Bureaucratic Language of Real Estate: A Case Study of Commission Agreements
  12. Chapter 8 Attacking the Bureaucratic Language of Car Sales: A Case Study of a Car Sales Event
  13. Chapter 9 Bureaucratic Language and Product Warning Labels: Case Studies of the Requirements of FDA and OSHA
  14. Chapter 10 What Is Bureaucratic Language and What Can Be Done About It?
  15. Works Cited
  16. Index