Michael Reid: English-Language Privilege – Episode 166

Content Strategy Insights

Michael Reid Michael Reid is a consultant who helps organizations with their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. A linguist by training, he is extremely attuned to the role of language in his work, which led to his explorations of the privilege given to English-language speakers in our modern, hyper-connected world. His discoveries can help content professionals of all kinds identify and address the dynamics and biases that arise from the pivotal role that the English language plays in modern digital business. We talked about: his background in linguistics, interpreting, higher education, and the nonprofit world and how they led to his current work in DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) the concept of a "pivot language" - a language that serves as an intermediary between two other languages how business and social dynamics can turn a pivot language like English into a mechanism of privilege how English language privilege can affect the quality of localization how the dominance of English on the web affects the training data that the LLMs that inform AI agents like ChatGPT how actively working to disable the systems that privilege you can help you and your colleagues do better work his hope that you'll reflect on how we got to the current situation and think about how you can improve it Michael's bio Michael Reid (he) is a linguistic and cultural equity consultant, facilitator, linguist, writer, and educator in Athens, Greece with more than 24 years of experience. He leads workshops and consults for a broad variety of groups and stakeholders on diversity, cross-cultural communication, linguistic equality, and race issues, and has chaired and sat on the board of multiple organizations working for diversity and inclusion. He has working proficiency in six languages (English, Greek, Japanese, Spanish, French, and Portuguese), was born in the United States, and has studied there as well as France and Japan. Michael firmly believes that diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) work must be culturally responsive if it’s to be relevant to the audience at hand and, crucially, if it’s to adhere to the principles of equity and inclusion. Experiences of discrimination, injustice, and inequity are informed by the history, culture, and conditions of the people that experience them and the context in which they take place; we can’t ignore these factors and expect our DEIJ efforts to be effective. In fact, when we ignore these factors, we find ourselves in danger of reproducing the very same inequitable power structures we’re working to dismantle. Before moving into consulting and workshop facilitation full time, he worked in higher education as a language professor and director of international recruitment. He specializes in diversity issues in the US, European, and Asian, specifically Japanese, context, and is passionate about using his linguistic and cultural skills to facilitate communication and true understanding between different groups of people, across a wide variety of differences. Connect with Michael online: LinkedIn aliftoomega.com michael at aliftoomega dot com Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/3d1VfpkyM1c Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 166. Most of the folks who listen to this show work on products and publications that reach audiences around the world. That global reach is one of the many benefits of the technical and social infrastructure that we call the World Wide Web. For a variety of reasons, the main language on the web is English, even when content is localized for different regions. Michael Reid has thought a lot about the privilege bestowed upon native English speakers in this situation. Interview transcript Larry: Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 166 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast.