Plain Language Movement

The Plain Language Movement is an effort to eliminate supposedly overly complex language from academia, government, law, and business.^[1]

International and national organizations in the movement include:

• Plain Language Association International (PLAIN) was formed in 1993 as the Plain Language Network. Its membership is international; it was incorporated as a non-profit organization in Canada in 2008.^[2][3]
• Clarity is an international association promoting plain legal language.^[4] The organization publishes a journal.^[5]
• The Plain Language Information and Action Network (also known as PLAIN) is a group of volunteer US federal employees working to improve communications from the federal government to the public.^[6]
• The Center for Plain Language is a US-based nonprofit organization promoting the use of plain language in the public and private sectors.^[7] The organization hosts annual symposia in Washington DC.^[8]

Organizations that have endorsed plain language include the Legal Writing Institute, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Canadian Bankers Association.^[9]

Aims

The movement focuses attention on the information needs and the reading abilities of the reader and opposes writer-based prose, which is the tendency to use long sentences, jargon, and a formal style as a way to acquire authority, power, and credibility.

William Lutz, an American linguist specialising in doublespeak and the use of plain language, asserts that

"language is power, period. The lesson of Nineteen Eighty-Four is that those who rule the language, rule... The language of the lawyers, of the politicians, of the intelligentsia, is supposed to make [others] feel inferior."^{[citation needed]}

Lutz cites also the inability of Three Mile Island and Challenger decision makers to comprehend warnings in vague engineering jargon using odd acronyms.

References

See also

• Plain English Campaign
• Plain English
• Plain language
• Legal writing

External links

• Plain English Campaign, UK
• Revisiting Plain Language, Beth Mazur
• Plain language: gone underground?, Christine Mowat
• Plain language around the world, Michele Asprey
• PLAIN Plain Language Association International
• Essay: Why not "Plain English"?
• Clarity
• The European Commission Translation Service Fight the Fog Campaign
• The American Plain Language Action and Information Network
• Center for Plain Language
• The Swedish Government's Plain Swedish office
• "Global Shred". http://www.global-shred.com/. Retrieved on 2008-02-05.