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Introduction:
Suzanne Ghais, program manager at CDR Associates in Boulder,
Colorado, talks about modeling her language according to the terms used by her
clients. She suggests that language affects the way parties approach the mediation
process.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Language and Mediation
Suzanne Ghais
Program manager at CDR Associates, Boulder, Colorado
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Q: How important is language in what you do for your clients?
A: Very. A lot of facilitation and mediation is about language.
...
I just look at the language that they
use and I pick it up and I try to use it. It's kind of like learning a dialect.
Q: What about the word conflict? Do you use that term?
A: Only if the participants use it first. One reason that we are CDR and not
the Center for Dispute Resolution anymore is because people say, "Oh! I
don't want to hire a firm for dispute resolution." A lot of people don't
want to admit that they have conflict. And there are also different
understandings of the term. In the field of conflict resolution, we explain that
term very broadly as meaning any situation of opposing goals, whether explicit
or tacit. That's a very broad definition, much broader than the definition of
everyday language. Or it may mean violent warfare or it may mean sort of open
shouting and open arguing and battling verbally. So, I'm very sparing with how I
use that word. But if the parties say, "Yeah, we have conflict", then
yeah, I use it. But it doesn't matter what we call it you know what I mean. It's
the situation, we just work with what we got.
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