Language and social inclusion. Anything more than (re)imagining education?

Abraham Nova
Academic Career of Differential Education
University of the Americas Concepción Campus

In 2016, the National Council for Culture and the Arts of the Government of Chile published the “Guide to Gender Inclusive Language”. In 2017 and along these same lines, the Ministry of Education, together with the Ministry for Women and Gender Equity, approved the manual “Let’s communicate for equality. Guidelines for the use of non-sexist and inclusive language”. Both documents created with the purpose of suggesting uses of language that guarantee gender equality, safeguarding the non-sexist use of terms and/or expressions.

Fair and inclusive purpose if language is considered, in its daily use, as a mirror of ways of thinking that underlie the social cognition of speech communities. A coherent purpose, moreover, with the document recently published by UNICEF “Reimagining our future together: a new social contract for education”, where it invites us to use technology in an inclusive manner and with a vision of education as a public project that incorporate everyone’s contribution, no exceptions. An idealistic and magnanimous representation, although necessary in an era where discrimination lacks acceptance or appreciation. Or not?

Although the detractors of inclusive language invoke arguments such as the distortion of the language or -with less originality- the authority of the RAE, the discussion on the segregation of groups, discrimination and the apology of hate speech must be seriously addressed in all dimensions of the social plane. Although the use of everyday forms or labels must have a minimum of criteria, the discussion should not stop at that, since ideas can be presented in many ways from the linguistic and non-linguistic point of view; Discrimination can take on many faces, such as euphemisms or metaphors in everyday language, to mention some uses by way of example.

And it is that although the relationship between the formal level (words) and ideas (contents) has broad theoretical support -such as the idea that language creates realities (Watzlawick), the relationship between language and thought (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis ) or the assumptions of cognitive linguistics (Lakoff and Johnson)-, it is not possible that we only discuss what or which form of expression should be used or suggested by educational communities to guarantee that no one is discriminated against and that everyone is included . The discussion is deeper and lies in the forms of thought that are reflected in gestures, attitudes or actions, and not only in the verbal.

And it is that there is nothing wrong with suggesting, as long as it does not mean an imposition. The RAE already knows about this, since it has had to incorporate into its dictionaries forms that were previously considered incorrect. The language is made by the speakers and not vice versa, and what is manifested in the form is nothing other than its corresponding mental representation. That is why the UNICEF document on reimagining education also invites to transform and reimagine, on this level, the social rights of members of educational communities.

The faculties of education have a lot of responsibility in this, since inclusion goes beyond the formal, it implies a new way of understanding and living education. How then to guarantee, from the initial training of teachers, an inclusive vision that reflects a way of thinking that is not a mere change in the way of language? Universities that train education professionals have an important role in achieving this purpose.