{"id":149,"date":"2025-09-13T20:50:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/chapter\/6-3-elements-of-language-use\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T14:19:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:19:32","slug":"6-3-elements-of-language-use","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/chapter\/6-3-elements-of-language-use\/","title":{"raw":"6.3 Elements of Language Use","rendered":"6.3 Elements of Language Use"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"6.3-elements-of-language-use\">\n<h2>Four Elements of Language Use<\/h2>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"margin-left: 0pt; text-indent: 0.5pt;\">We offer four critical elements of language use. These include using concrete versus abstract language, constructive or positive versus negative language, active versus passive voice, and ways to reduce language bias (Figure 6.1). We discuss each element in detail, next.<\/p>\n&nbsp;\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_148\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"470\"]<img class=\"wp-image-148\" src=\"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/Picture1-300x156.jpg\" alt=\"A diagram showing the four elements of language use.\" width=\"470\" height=\"245\"> Figure 6.1 Four Elements of Language Use[\/caption]\n\nThis section is adapted from \"<a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/part\/effective-language-use\/\">Effective Language Use\"<\/a> <span style=\"text-align: initial; font-size: 1em;\">in <\/span><a style=\"text-align: initial; font-size: 1em;\" href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/\"><em>Communications for Professionals<\/em><\/a><span style=\"text-align: initial; font-size: 1em;\"> by Susan Oaks, licensed under<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\"> CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International<\/a>, except where otherwise noted.\n\n<\/span><\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"6.3-elements-of-language-use\">\n<h2>Four Elements of Language Use<\/h2>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"margin-left: 0pt; text-indent: 0.5pt;\">We offer four critical elements of language use. These include using concrete versus abstract language, constructive or positive versus negative language, active versus passive voice, and ways to reduce language bias (Figure 6.1). We discuss each element in detail, next.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_148\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-148\" style=\"width: 470px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-148\" src=\"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/Picture1-300x156.jpg\" alt=\"A diagram showing the four elements of language use.\" width=\"470\" height=\"245\" srcset=\"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/Picture1-300x156.jpg 300w, https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/Picture1-65x34.jpg 65w, https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/Picture1-225x117.jpg 225w, https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/Picture1-350x182.jpg 350w, https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2025\/09\/Picture1.jpg 535w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 470px) 100vw, 470px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-148\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 6.1 Four Elements of Language Use<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This section is adapted from &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/part\/effective-language-use\/\">Effective Language Use&#8221;<\/a> <span style=\"text-align: initial; font-size: 1em;\">in <\/span><a style=\"text-align: initial; font-size: 1em;\" href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-communicationforprofessionals\/\"><em>Communications for Professionals<\/em><\/a><span style=\"text-align: initial; font-size: 1em;\"> by Susan Oaks, licensed under<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\"> CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International<\/a>, except where otherwise noted.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-149","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":143,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/149\/revisions\/150"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/143"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/149\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}