Professional language: understanding and being understood

Abstract

Language is a vital means of communication and education plays a key role in developing both our general language capabilities but also our use of ‘Professional language’. Learning a professional language is like being inducted into the profession through the shared use of arcane and often obscure words and terminology. What makes sense to a ‘Professional’ could well be gobbledygook/meaningless/nonsense to anyone else. This CPD activity is designed to encourage us to think about how we speak and communicate. In a multicultural country, we have to be aware of both how we communicate and also how colleagues and patients are communicating.

Keywords:

• Professional
• language
• CPD
• communication