What does it mean that language encodes schemas?

The words you habitually use reveal and reinforce the schemas you operate from.

Example: A company calls its employees 'resources.' That single word encodes a schema: people are fungible inputs to a production function, allocated and deallocated like memory in a program. Now the same company calls them 'team members.' Different word, different schema: people are collaborators with agency, belonging to a shared mission. Neither label is neutral. Each one installs a way of seeing that shapes every policy, meeting, and performance review that follows.

Try this: Pick a domain you think about frequently — your career, a relationship, a technical system, your health. Write down the five words or phrases you use most when discussing it. For each one, ask: what does this word assume? What does it make easy to say, and what does it make hard to say? Identify at least one word that encodes a schema you've never consciously chosen.