Out of the Sentence, Out of Mind
How grammar makes perpetrators invisible and turns victims into a problem
Lees je liever de Nederlandse versie?
Recently I have become increasingly aware of the possible effects of word choice and language use. Partly through my interest in how journalism shapes the way we experience the news. But also because years of working as a mindfulness and resilience trainer have taught me a great deal about the impact of language on what someone learns—or what insight arises—during a training day. And writing articles, which I have been practicing for some years now, has been its own teacher.
Even so, one of the most formative experiences of the past few years was an article I read about how perpetrators and victims are ‘handled’ in news reporting—and how this has a profound effect on the way society treats victims.
When I recently watched a TED talk about how the language you speak influences how you describe a bridge, I decided the time had come for an article about language and grammar. So here we go.
Guilt or Accident
Imagine you witness an…
