Humbug! Online
See the story above for an example of "academic English" at Griffiths University. Maybe its not the worst example ever, but its bad enough.
Do academics like this who have spent their lives creating or working in "academic English" (which is seemingly designed only to help promulgate work for academics) ever wake up at night with the sudden realisation "oh my God, all my work has been pointless. Worse than pointless - it has detracted from the advance of knowledge"? I hope it happens at least once in a while...
3 comments:
Steven
Is it really worse than law jargon? Or medical jargon?
Geoff
Yes. Firstly, there is the "plain English" movement for legal drafting. There are increasingly fewer legal documents around with paragraph long sentences. Plain english mortgages are particularly good examples, and nearly all banks use them now.
Doctors and engineers have their jargon, but I assume it usually has the practical purpose of shortening discourse within the profession (as does legal jargon; the only problem being that non-lawyers have to sign legal documents too). Also, these professions overall have practical aims and purposes.
You don't agree there are parts of the humanities academia that, especially under the (now lifting) postmodernist spell, have unnecessarily developed their own mystifying jargon to obscuring rather than clarifying effect? (I should try harder to shorten that sentence.)
Sure - but, as you say law has needed the plain English movement because, while some jargon is certainly abbreviated code, some is to exclude the lay from the discourse. (nonsense English term included on purpose!)
I think things have swung against the sort of stuff your fellow blogger found, because at the extreme it is as ridiculous as arcane legal and medical jargon. Robyn's recent English course on rhetotic was very strong on such things as grammar and clear expression. One of her current courses lecturer has given the class a list of mistakes in grammar and writing that he will not tolerate.
The positive aspect of the way English was done that is being sent up, was to identify that the prevailing critical point of view was not value free. My worry with the entirely legitimate reaction is that it often seems to smugly suggest that the previous hegemony (boy it comes easily) was valid.
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