My long-departed brother Harvey, eleven years older than I, might be called a grammarian. His ear was attuned with perfection to the spoken and written word. Even as I write this I wonder where he might have edited my first sentence. But he was also sensitive to the understood meaning and sound of words, so his conversation was always attuned to the language of the person/people he was with. He knew that language conveyed much more than information, bearing the burden of expressing emotion, attitude, even judgment and elitism. In other words, his choice of words conveyed respect. I think of him often now as I read article after article suggesting reasons why the most recent elections went the way they did. I understand the accusation of elitism as I find myself wondering what such words as the following really mean: liberalism, neo-liberalism, populism, oligarchy, conservatism, progressivism, hegemony. I find myself asking why folks can’t use plain and simple language. And then I realize they think they are. Every one of those words, and others mentioned here, carries a slew of meaning – to the people using them. They’re jargon. Well defined meanings well understood within the circle that uses them
How do I know? Because I use psychological jargon. I talk about the jargon effect in my current hope-to-become-a-book manuscript. For example, try behavior, behaviorism, subject, stimulus, conditioned stimulus/response, unconditioned stimulus/response, generalization, discrimination, extinction, spontaneous recovery, control, conflict, depression. They sound like “real” words, but what do they mean when one of “us” uses them? Do others hear what I assume they mean?
Or what if I had gone on to major in English? Would I immediately understand words like global anglophone literature, fragmentation, discontinuity, narrative form, perspective, protagonist, realist, verisimilitude, syntax, core narrative assumption.
So here’s my plea, and my plan. I didn’t major in political science, or literature, or you name it. But I spent a lifetime learning and teaching psychological jargon. So let’s try to translate our language into clearly understood “real” words that won’t raise the “this is elitism” hackles of the listener.
monagustafsonaffinito 