How to Speak Politely and Soften your Language

Have you ever noticed how politicians often skilfully avoid giving definitive answers?

Have you ever noticed how some people are so good at portraying a sense of softness and empathy?

While we very often put both of these abilities down to a person’s character, the good news is that they are in fact a skill that can be learned.

Flex for the context

Some circumstances call for soft, delicate, polite language. Sensitivity or care is required. For non-native speakers, it can be a tricky skill to master; while the nuances are subtle, the impact can be huge. Here’s one way to speak with more sensitivity today: Hedging.

What is hedging?

Hedging language is cautious, vague or ambiguous language. It is a linguistic device that avoids certainty, is indirect and evasive.

Is hedging bad? Does it not portray indecisiveness or hesitation?

Now don’t get me wrong – hedging itself is neither bad nor good – it is a tool that when used in the right context, it’s extremely useful.

Political Hedging

When used strategically to “hedge one’s bets”, it is a great tool to avoid giving a black and white answer. You’ll notice this type of language frequently used in the political world, as hedged claims are difficult to argue with.

“It appears that someone leaked information to the press.”

Trying to refute the above claim would be much more challenging than a more categorial claim such as “Someone leaked information to the press.” In fact, I often describe hedging as a “linguistic get out of jail card”, as it doesn’t lock you into one particular answer, and you can avoid being definitive.

Hedging to Soften

Equally, hedging is a great way to soften your language, speak politely and less directly. Rather than being forceful or direct with our choice of language, we can imply and infer.

Hedging examples

1. We can use introductory words like ‘appear, seem, suggest, tend to, indicate’.

2. We can give our opinion softly, by using certain lexical verbs such as ‘believe, suggest or assume’.

3. We can employ modal verbs respectively such as may, might could, and certainly, probably, possibly, perhaps, conceivably.

4. When commenting on a situation, prediction or forecast, we can employ ‘that clauses’ such as “it could be the case that”, “it might be suggested that”, “there is every hope that”, “figures would suggest that” and so on.

5. When commenting on likelihood, we can adopt expressions such as ‘assumption, possibility and probability.’

So what? Does it really matter?

As you can see, the sky is the limit with hedging. Linguistically speaking, it is simple to employ. In terms of communication, it can make a considerable difference to how your message is received, interpreted or refuted. Does it really matter? Consider the difference of receiving these two pieces of news:

It’s bad news – VERSUS – It seems to be bad news.

Which would you prefer to hear?

In this case, what separates the two sentences is... hope. The second sentence shows some glimmer of hope.

Now what?

Now, it’s over to you. Consider areas of your language where you want to soften.

On a scale of 1 – 10, how diplomatic, sensitive, indirect or evasive is your language when it needs to be?

What small change could you make to increase your score by one?

What one expression will you adopt today?

With whom, and in which conversations will you use it today?