What is Plain English?

Plain English (sometimes referred to as plain language) is a style of writting that is simple and direct. It “emphasise clarity, brevity and the avoidance of technical language”.

Why Plain English?

“Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any other document (or any part thereof)…”

All documents in plain English should be easy to read and use. Gobbledygook, jargon and legalese can be hard to understand, as it does not have the general audience in mind. It can also be time consuming and cost you money if you don’t understand what you’re reading -or signing.

Using Plain English

There are numerous government and non-government organizations that works to improve public communication by caimpaining in favor of plain English in public communication. These organizations believe that everyone should have access to clear and concise information.

In the late 1990s, President Bill Clinton made Plain Language a major initiative of his administration. In a presidential memorandum he formalized the requirement that all new rules and regulations of his government be written in this style.

The U.S. goverment has a Plain Language Website which aims at improving communication from the Federal Government to the public.

Plain Language in Spanish

Plain Language is not limited to the English language. The plain language campaign can also be found in Latin America.

Argentina

Since the mid 2000s, Argentina implemented a project entitled Comunicación en Lenguaje Claro, which is included in the technical assistance program in order to strengthening the National Public Investment System (FOSIP). It aims to follow guidelines similar to the Plain Language Movement. In its first stage, the project has focused on internal govermental communication; later it will regulate the communication between the government and the public.

Chile

In August 2004 the President of the Senate of Chile opened the seminar Transparency, language rights for citizen, in which academic leaders were involved. The seminar analized challenge of communicating legislative work to the public through clear language. The senate now face the challenge of transferring their work in a language that ordinary citizens understand.

Mexico

On October 5, 2004, President Vicente Fox launched the inniciative Citizen Language to begin to simplify the language used by the government. Its purpose is to communicate government messages in a simple, clear and precise way, to achieve full understanding and to prevent complex and obscure communication.

Plain Language in Translation

Using Plain Language means more customers can access the information and services you offer. When readers understand the material, they are more likely to respond favorably, make fewer errors filling out your forms, and comply more accuratly and quickly with requirments. And they need less support over the phone, online or in person.

Plain Language documents make foreign language translations easier and more cost effective. If your English documents are easy to read, use and understand, so will your translations. A Plain Language document typically can have up to 40% fewer words than the original. As translations are billed per word, translation costs will be lower.

For more information, visit Spanish Translation Solutions

In a post in Revista Ñ from March 18, the author notes that “few things say more about human beings, their progress and their barbaric and inevitable mutations, as changes in language and speech. Each linguistic interpretation holds a way of seeing the world, of understanding politics.” On the same note, the secretary of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, José Ignacio Covarrubias, ponders with the president of another language academy about this “laboratory”, the most important one in Spanish and for the future of the language. Both scholars believe that much of the future of the Spanish language will be shaped in America.

The article summarizes the history of Spanish. Born in a small area of the Peninsula, it expanded throughout Spain, became the official language, and spread in America with the Spanish colonization. By the time the country achieved political independence they were irreversibly bound to Spanish. They are declarations of independence, constitutions and laws written in Spanish, which is now by spoken almost half a billion people. In the U.S., the Hispanic community surpasses in size the African-Americans community and is the first minority with more Spanish speakers than Spain. In other words, you can travel from Tierra del Fuego to Canada without changing language.

In the Obama administration, the  is the reference point for Spanish in the U.S. government. In addition to regulating Spanish publications in the official government website, the Academy broadcasts television messages regarding the correct usage of language in their attempt to determine “the rules of correct Spanish.” It also seeks to “guide Spanish speakers on how to speak correctly” and “promote bilingualism, so that people learn properly both languages.” Although the Academy also tried to ensure that none of the Spanish variants override the each other, Mexican idioms are well established along the southern border and other forms, such as Cuban and Dominican, have also gained ground.

Spanglish is growing among the immigration population, and just as we did in this blog, the author of the article asks: “Is it a setback, a sign of vitality, an inevitable process?” Covarrubias says: “It is a clash of two languages. Spanish is the first language after English. There is an inevitable clash, such as in Portuñol, the Franglais, and we have the Spanglish. Experts define it as a Spanish dialect, sometimes it is due to ignorance, sometimes it is done for convenience.” Covarrubias also specifies the task of the Academy: “We play a normative role; we only make suggestions because nobody owns the language. We have to accept the rules imposed by usage.”

These scholars do not seem to be concerned about the language distortions made by young people who are influenced by new technologies, abbreviations, usual chat phrases, and other, since they are considered to be slightly different from educational deterioration. Rather than describing a reality, educators worry that young people are able to integrate into society and are able to say what they want with precision and firmness, which is essential in a democracy.

According to the 2000 census, over 21 million people in the United States have limited English proficiency (LEP). Nearly 28 percent of all Spanish speakers in the United State fall into this category. This language barrier can be a serious disadvantage in providing quality health care. It can affect an LEP patient’s access to services, their ability to give informed consent for medical treatment, and their compliance with drug regimens and follow-up. Patients who speak little or no English may be at greater risk of medical error or misdiagnosis if they are not provided with an interpreter, are less likely to use preventive care services, and more likely to use emergency rooms than English speakers. They also need more diagnostic tests, are less satisfied with the medical care they receive, and are often dissatisfied with the quality of the translated material they are given.

Addressing these concerns, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health has issued a number of guidelines which are primarily directed at health care organizations with the goal of providing meaningful access to LEP patients; however, individual providers are also encouraged to use the standards to make their practices more culturally and linguistically accessible. These guidelines are detailed in the Department’s National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care (CLAS). Most relevant for this article is Standard 7, which states that “an effective language assistance program ensures that written materials that are routinely provided in English to applicants, patients/consumers, and the public are available in commonly encountered languages other than English. It is important to translate materials that are essential to patients/consumers accessing and making educated decisions about health care”.

These guidelines discuss in great detail the importance of using qualified translators and the need for establishing procedures that will assure the quality of the translated materials given to the public:

The section ends with the injunction to “avoid ‘wildcat’ translations (e.g., the doctor’s sister who took Spanish in collage), however tempting the financial advantages”.

Spanish Translation US has teams of life science expert Spanish translators that can work on all life science related documentation from complex pharmaceutical manual to patient customer care documentation and forms.

For more information, visit: Spanish Life Science Translation

For more information about CLAS standards, visit:

Related News:

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) voted in favor of President Obama’s health care reform proposal. They belive it will greatly improve the quality of life for millions of Latinos. The measure is expected to expand coverage to 8.8 million Latinos, or 60%of the currently uninsured Hispanic community.

“This bill is important for all Americans, but it is particularly critical to our Latino communities which have the highest uninsured rate of any racial or ethnic group in the country. The bill provides access to affordable health care to the millions of uninsured Latinos in this country through Medicaid expansion, access to health insurance exchanges, and subsidies to help low and moderate income families,” said Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), the Chair of the CHC Task Force on Health.

A press release from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus:

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Calls for Passage of Health Care Reform