Scientific and technical jargon—specialized vocabulary, usually Latinate—plays a vital role in scientific and technical communication. But its proper use continues to be a point of discussion because of our concern with audience adaptation, rhetorical exigence, rhetorical purpose, and ethics. We've focused on teaching students—and on convincing scientists, engineers, and other writers/speakers—to gear their specialized language to the recipients of their communication, to the occasion calling for their communication, to what they wish to accomplish through their communication, and to the ethical goals of safety, helpfulness, empowerment, and truth. These are exactly the sorts of things we should be doing. My contribution to this conversation is a reinforce ment and, I hope, an extension of the argument that we should also be teaching and convincing students and professionals: 1) to fully appreciate what makes jargon either good or bad; 2) to carefully distinguish jargon usage from other aspects of scientific and technical style; and 3) to recognize that in every context, even in communication among experts, jargon should be used judiciously—that is, in the most helpful, least taxing way.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
WilkinsonA. M., Jargon and the Passive Voice: Prescriptions and Proscriptions for Scientific Writing, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 22, pp. 319–325, 1992.
2.
RickardT. A., Technical Writing, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1920.
3.
NashW., Jargon: Its Uses and Abuses, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1993.
4.
LanhamR., Style: An Anti-Textbook, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1974.
5.
LighterJ. E. (ed.), Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Vol. 5, Random House, New York, pp. 1–3, 1994, 1997, 2003.
6.
Oxford University Press, The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. 1, Oxford, 1971.
RowanK. E., Moving Beyond the What to the Why: Differences in Professional and Popular Science Writing, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 19, pp. 161–179, 1989.
9.
KillingsworthJ. M., Guest Editorial: Thingishness and Objectivity in Technical Style, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 17, pp. 105–113, 1987.
10.
SchindlerG. E.Jr., Why Engineers and Scientists Write As They Do: Twelve Characteristics of Their Prose, IEEE Transactions On Professional Communication, PC-18, pp. 5–10, 1975.
11.
TebeauxE., What Makes Bad Technical Writing Bad? A Historical Analysis, IEEE Transactions On Professional Communication, PC-23, pp. 71–76, 1980.
12.
RookF., Slaying the English Jargon, STC Press, Arlington, Virginia, 1983.
13.
SnowC. P., The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1959.
14.
SteinbergE. R. (ed.), Plain Language: Principles and Practice, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1991.
15.
BowenB. A.DuffyT. M., and SteinbergE. R., Analyzing the Various Approaches of Plain Language Laws, in Plain Language: Principles and Practice, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, pp. 19–29, 1991.
16.
ThrushE., Plain English? A Study of Plain English Vocabulary and International Audiences, Technical Communication, 48, pp. 289–296, 2001.
17.
Quiller-CouchA.LectureV.Sir— Interlude: On Jargon, On the Art of Writing: Lectures Delivered in the University of Cambridge, 1913–1914, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1921.
18.
OrwellG., Politics and the English Language, Collected Essays, Secker & Warburg, London, pp. 353–367, 1961.
19.
MuellerD., Put Clarity in Your Writing, IEEE Transactions On Professional Communication, PC-23, pp. 173–178, 1980.
20.
LanhamR., Revising Business Prose (3rd Edition), Macmillan, New York, 1992.
21.
GowersE.Sir, Plain Words: Their ABC, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1954.
22.
CowardR., Coward's Stand: Not So Rio Grand, The Ecologist, 31, pp. 9–10, 2001.
23.
AdamsD. C.Di BitettiM. S.JansonC. H.SlobodkinL. B., and ValenzuelaN., An “Audience Effect” for Ecological Terminology: Use and Misuse of Jargon, OIKOS, 80, pp. 632–636, 1997.
24.
FloodW. E., Scientific Words, Their Structure and Meaning, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1960.
25.
RickardT. A., A Guide to Technical Writing, Mining and Scientific Press, San Francisco, 1908.
26.
FowlerH. W. and FowlerF. G., The King's English (3rd Edition), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1930.
27.
SpratT., History of the Royal Society (1667), edited with critical apparatus by CopeJ. and JonesH., Washington University Studies, St. Louis, 1958.
28.
KaiserJ. (ed.), Canadian Scientists Told to Cut the Jargon, Science, 273, p. 1327, 1996.
29.
WhitburnM. D., The Plain Style in Scientific and Technical Communication, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 8, pp. 349–357, 1978.
30.
HemmingF. (ed.), Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Family-Group Names, International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, London, 1958.
31.
HemmingF. (ed.), Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Generic Names, International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, London, 1958.
32.
ChinaW. E. (ed.), Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Specific Names in Zoology, International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, London, 1966.
33.
HemmingF. (ed.), Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Works in Zoological Nomenclature, International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature, London, 1966.
34.
NybakkenO. E., Greek and Latin in Scientific Terminology, Iowa State College Press, Ames, Iowa, 1959.
35.
JeffreyC., Biological Nomenclature, Edward Arnold, London, 1973.
36.
DavidsonM., Motions of Classical Charged Tachyons, Physics Essays, 14, pp. 66–74, 2001.
37.
KimJ. J.KimS. J., and TazakiK., Mineralogical Characterization of Microbial Ferrihydrite and Schwertmannite, and Non-Biogenic Al-Sulfate Precipitates from Acid Mine Drainage in the Donghae Mine Area, Korea, Environmental Geology, 42, pp. 19–31, 2002.
38.
HoughJ. N., Scientific Terminology, Rinehart and Company, New York, 1953.
39.
MandellA., The Language of Science, National Science Teachers Association, Washington, D.C., 1974.
40.
SavoryT. H., The Language of Science, Andre Deutsch, London, 1967.
41.
BlanshardB., On Philosophical Style, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1954.
42.
DentonG. B., Herbert Spencer and the Rhetoricians, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 34, pp. 89–111, 1919.
43.
DentonG. B., Origin and Development of Herbert Spencer's Principle of Economy, The Fred Newton Scott Anniversary Papers, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1929.
44.
SpencerH., The Philosophy of Style (first published by The Westminster Review, 1852), Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Vol. II, Williams and Norgate, London, 1901.
45.
HirschE. D., The Philosophy of Composition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1977.
46.
CampbellG., The Philosophy of Rhetoric, BitzerL. (ed.), Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1988.
47.
MerrittT., Taste, Opinion, and Theory in the Rise of Victorian Prose Stylism, LevineG. and MaddenW. (eds.), The Art of Victorian Prose, Oxford University Press, London, pp. 3–38, 1968.
48.
RenwickR., Herbert Spencer: Linguistic Efficiency Expert, ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 16, pp. 434–444, 1959.
