The Six Languages of Social Work

This article describes the six languages that scientifically minded and practice-competent social workers need to be fluent in: the lay language of the client, the abstract language of the theorist, the empirical and often quantitative language of the researcher, the categorical language of the information scientist, the technical terminology or jargon used by helping professionals, and the preferential language that conveys values. It is the thesis of this article that social workers need multilingual and translingual proficiency in moving rapidly back and forth among these languages for maximum effectiveness and humane service.