ABSTRACT

Explaining is a standard feature of everyday casual talk as well as forming the substance of more formal addresses to large gatherings attending lectures or public presentations. It is also a crucial part of skilled professional practice in areas such as education, health, medicine, technology, architecture, business and law (Brown, 2006). The importance of teachers being able to put across material in such a way that pupils readily grasp it is obvious and has long been an abiding concern of educationalists (Thyne, 1963). But patients too have a need for information about diagnosis, prognosis, condition or treatment to be delivered in ways that they can understand. Hajek et al. (2007) produced evidence linking patients’ judgements of doctors’ ability to explain matters in language familiar to them with patients’ estimates of their likelihood of subsequently complying with received medical advice. Likewise in the world of law, advice and instruction that may be couched in arcane (indeed archaic) language has to be communicated clearly if recipients are not to be disadvantaged.