Let's Talk Inclusive Language: Tone Deaf

Here’s a question from a reader, who had used the phrase tone deaf in social media posts about last month’s topic, dehumanized women at a cybersecurity event:

“Given the recent ‘women as lamps’ debacle with Palo Alto Networks, someone told a few of us that using the term tone deaf was not inclusive language. I believe it is a musical term for not being able to hear the right pitch or tune, correct, and not a term steeped in any derogatory way to actual deaf/hearing impaired people.  Is it really a non-inclusive term? As you know, it’s meant to denote that someone is not reading the room/mood properly and cannot ‘hear’ what is going on.”

I’ve spent a lot of time working both in tech and with tech. As an administrative assistant, as a technical writer, as a Natural Language Processing and AI researcher, and as a consultant.

So it’s natural for me to think about optimizing your language to make it more inclusive as a system update.

Our apps, operating systems, and programs require periodic updates. Otherwise, they get less and less functional — filled with clunky, outdated components, and more likely to break down.

Well, language is also a system. And it also requires ongoing examination, debugging, redesign, and implementation of new features.

One especially stealthy and pervasive bug, an outdated component that leads to unwanted outcomes, is ableist language. It can be so subtle, so hard to connect the dots between a seemingly innocuous usage and a biased mental model, that it takes real work tease out what’s going on.

In an advice column on whether or not a reader’s friend should have sanity as part of her branding, I wrote this about ableist language:

“Ableist language presents disabled people as inherently problematic, incompetent, or simply having less value. It often dehumanizes or marginalizes disabled people… The scenarios invoked by ableist language cast disabled people in an inappropriately negative light.”

Let’s take at how this plays out with the phrase tone deaf.

Tone deafness is a neurological disability also known as congenital amusia.

And using the words deaf or deafness to invoke someone being insensitive or oblivious is considered ableist language.

My first principle of inclusive language is Reflect reality.

And ableist language doesn’t reflect reality.

Because ableist language suggests that certain problematic behaviors are linked to physical disabilities. When, in fact, there is no link.

For example, there is a lot of language that equates being blind or deaf with problematic behavior. But this is a distortion. Part of debugging the system is examining precisely what’s going on and making sure we’re reflecting reality.

Vision

You can be sighted and just not bother to think through consequences.

And you can be blind and thinking about consequences all the time.

So suggesting that when a person is blind, it’s the same as being oblivious, careless, impractical, or imprudent — that’s a distortion.

Hearing

You can be hearing and oblivious to how things are landing on people.

And you can be hearing impaired and super thoughtful and considerate when it comes to how things are landing on people.

Like with vision, suggesting that when a person is deaf or hearing impaired, it’s the same as being oblivious, unaware, unconcerned, or stubborn — that’s a distortion.

There are linguistic reasons why it is so common to use vision impairment and hearing impairment as a shortcut to describe problematic behavior.

This is because so much of our communication is based on conceptual metaphor. (Metaphor the way it’s described and studied by cognitive linguists following the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, not the English class way.)

Because of the ways most humans process the world around us, there is a widespread conception that seeing is understanding.

“I see what you mean.”

“It’s not clear to me.”

“I can’t visualize it.”

Similarly, language reflects the widespread conception that hearing is paying attention to or perceiving.

“Their words fell on deaf ears.”

“I don’t feel heard.”

“I need you to listen to me.”

So in English, and in most other languages, people reach for words of seeing and hearing when they want to express understanding and paying attention to.

Because the vast majority of humans are not deaf or blind (although where would many of us be without our glasses or contacts or laser surgery?), these metaphors keep on chugging along. And, honestly, I don’t think we’ll ever remove them.

But we certainly can pay attention to and replace language around vision and hearing that suggests — inaccurately — that being hearing impaired means not paying attention and that being vision impaired means not understanding.

Because phrases like tone deaf contribute to distorted mental models where physical disabilities are associated with thoughtless or bad behavior.

And we can be more precise, better reflect reality, and stop contributing to those harmful distortions.

Industry-leading inclusive language expert Suzanne Wertheim facilitates in-person and virtual inclusive language trainings, as well as offering empowering and educational inclusive language keynotes.

Let's Talk Inclusive Language: Tone Deaf

Vision

Hearing

HOMEABOUTSERVICESREAD, WATCH, LISTENCONTACT

HOME
ABOUT
SERVICES
READ, WATCH, LISTEN
CONTACT