When I walked into my first ever high school speech and debate practice, I noticed everyone had one thing in common. It wasn't a particularly strong passion for the subject or even resentment for the upcoming work of the season; instead it was a shared language, one that I didn't speak. Debate lingo, while not particularly vast or complicated to understand, can mean the difference between a novice feeling as though they are part of a community or feeling alienated through a lack of understanding. 

The Inefficient Way This Is Currently Combated 

With the vast array of resources available to many debaters,  it isn't hard to type “debate lingo” into the search bar and have many results appear. However, the problem comes not with the availability of websites but of the nature of information. NSDA itself actually provides a Speech and Debate Glossary, but with only four pages and 72, words it certainly doesn't encompass the entire range of lingo used in everyday conversations between competitors nor does it provide examples of how words can be used correctly in speeches or other types of communication,. This furthers the challenge of not only having to understand debate lingo — but also having to piece together appropriate usage.

While the NSDA Speech and Debate Glossary is not the only example of debate lingo explanations found online, the others , like the Oxford School District’s Debate Terms defined, and The Monash Association of Debaters’ Debating Lingo Page follow the same issues of not providing a larger range of content and little to no examples. 

The current solution to decoding common debate lingo is a lengthy search online which at times doesn't even provide the result that you may be looking for. Resources are provided for so many different aspects of learning debate yet this aspect seems to be neglected even with its negative effect on the novices that most teams are adamant to accept into their community. Sometimes they follow technocratic definitions of "flow", while excluding common slang that a modern understanding of debate requires. 

Why Does This Topic Matter So Much For Novices 

I'm sure almost everyone that has done debate has experienced the awkwardness/nervousness that comes with being a beginner. The Harvard Business Review notes that while learning may not be that hard, being a beginner at something, especially while in a group setting, can make learning exponentially more difficult along with creating a pressure to be seen as skilled and confident leading some beginners to even feel ashamed of their status. Novices in debate already have a hard time trying to improve enough in their events to be considered a reliable teammate, but the experience gets even worse when an entirely new language is added into the mix. 

Language has forever been used as a tool to unite some people, leaving those unfamiliar with it with a sense of being an outsider to a world they already have to struggle to become a part of. A research paper from the Australasian Medical Journal corroborates this with a quote: “Shared language is critical to collaboration, and collaboration is critical to business and education.” Collaboration is a core aspect of debate, from prepping with teammates to hanging out after tournaments, being part of your debate team can greatly determine your success in the subject. Where this goes wrong is when novices have to google the words being used by their teammates to even have a chance of understanding debate related conversations. 

Constantly looking up the words of the people who are supposed to be your closest allies can be extremely demotivating. I went through something similar myself and spent the majority of my novice year being too afraid to interact with people about an extracurricular I was extremely interested in simply because I didn't think I was good enough to understand what they were saying. 

The Simple Solution 

The solution to this problem isn't a lengthy codebreaker compiling all of the debate glossaries already available but instead, by using three simple methods, debate lingo can be easily shared to all and the community will be stronger for it. 

The first of these methods would be to create an interactive list of debate lingo, not just something from an organization but a list that can be added to the EIF website that anyone can contribute to. Through collaboration this list could contain most words used by the community along with providing examples when necessary of when to use certain words or how to fit them into everyday conversations about your event. 

The second method is something that individual teams will have to complete. I think it would be extremely beneficial for individual groups to create slideshows explaining basic terminology and lingo that people on the team like to use. While the existence of the previously mentioned list reduces the need for intensive explaining of every single word, the simple act of collaborative learning/teaching can bring a team much closer together. 

Finally I think an overall shift to more inclusive language can also help with this issue. The topic of making the community more inclusive has been discussed many times on the EIF blog by some amazing authors, and I think that their points also apply here. It can be extremely difficult to tell what you actually did wrong in your speech or performance when you're given feedback in a way that is completely new to you, and in some cases the lack of understanding can lead to rude remarks and snide comments without the person even realizing. Inclusionary language not only helps build a stronger community but also a smarter one. 

Conclusion

Your team is one of your most valuable assets in speech and debate and that asset is much harder to properly utilize when there is a communication barrier between teammates. In the present we have outdated methods of combating this issue, but the fix is simple. Three simple changes to our resources and the way we talk about debate can ultimately make the difference between a novice who exercises their full potential…and one that quits after feeling like an outsider.