Between 耻辱, Shame, and Honte: Listening To What Shame Does

Abstract

This paper explores how the meaning and function of shame shift across Mandarin, English, and French, and how moving between these languages has shaped the way I listen and communicate in healthcare settings. Drawing on a family conversation in which my parents describe substance use through the Mandarin concept of 耻辱 (chǐrǔ), I examine shame as a relational force tied to reputation, morality, and protection. I then contrast this with my harm reduction work with NaloxHome, where I emphasize that shaming language can push people increase the risk of drug poisonings. Finally, I turn to a TEC4HOME hypertension research study enrollment with a Congolese French-speaking refugee who expresses « honte », revealing shame not as condemnation or a word to eliminate, but as an embodied signal of feeling unseen within an English-dominant healthcare system. Across these vignettes, I argue that trilingualism is not only a communication skill but a way of navigating competing cultural logics of responsibility and care. By tracing shame through three languages, the paper shows how language can assign blame, prevent harm, or make space for recognition, and it reflects on what it means to build care that responds to the moral weight inside patients’ words rather than translating them into clinical categories alone.