NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/alt/postmode/2162

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-21 | 6.6 KB

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From: [e-mail] (adolphson)
Newsgroups: alt.postmodern
Subject: Re: jargon
Date: 21 Jul 1992 18:02:05 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
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In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (James Alexander Chokey) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>
>[e-mail] (adolphson) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
>>(kevin brooks) proves himself incapable of making sense
>>of what he reads.  Perhaps a synopsis of the action
>>to date is in order.
>
>Hmm.  Starting off with an ad hominum attack.  A good way to convince
>people of the intellectual rigor of the upcoming arguments. (Subtitle provided
>for the sarcastically-impaired: Imagine a big "NOT!!!" after the last
>sentence.)

I take my cues from my surroundings.  Kevin Brooks began the
article I was responding to with the snide question:

> please tell me about your area of expertise? -- if you have one.

What charmed me about that is the insinuation that even though I
probably know nothing, Kevin does have an area of expertise.  And
of course there was his suggestion later in the article:

> sometime when you have the time open a book and read it.

So, I was responding to someone who began by questioning my
intelligence and ended by suggesting that someday I might want
to take the time to open a book and read it.  Actually, Kevin
suggested I not read a book, but rather use it as a springboard
for speculations as to the nature of literacy.  (Gosh, what a
great idea!  Language really *is* mysterious, and here I've
always taken it for granted!  I won't make that mistake any
longer.)

[deletions]
>Chokey (i.e. me) was responding to Christopher's whole article, the
>remainder of which you left out.  _Immediately_ after the passage that you
>did quote, Christopher went on to complain about how academics so frequently
>make up "new words," rather than use existing ones.  The fact that he showed
>surprise that someone would use these words (remember the "(kevin brooks)
>actually uses..." line," seemed to indicate that he thought these words were
>not legitimate or recognized English words. I was merely pointing out that
>these were, in fact, recognized and perfectly legitimate words.

Yes, Christopher did display a certain unfamiliarity with standard
English vocabulary.  My purpose here, in any case, was to point out
that perfectly ordinary words can be jargon.  I took you to be saying
that "problematization" and "popularization" couldn't possibly be
considered jargon because the words have been in the English language
for centuries.

>The remainder of my article, which you also did not bother to quote,
>was, furthermore, a defense of the "invention" of new words--  an assertion
>that English contains a treasure trove of suffixes and prefixes that allow
>us to create new words, the meanings of which should be perfectly apparent.
>One does not, after all, need to think too hard in order to figure out
>what words like "popularization" and "problematiziation" mean in order to
>figure them out, even if one has never seen them before.

I didn't quote the remainder of your article because I wasn't
concerned with neologisms, nor was I concerned with how difficult
or easy it might be to figure out what an unfamiliar word means.
I was concerned with jargon.

>>> ...  But isn't it possible for
>>> a word to be jargony in some contexts but not others?
>
>Sure.  One poster--  perhaps it was you?--  gave the wonderful example
>of the use of the word "gaze" in Lacanian psychoanalyis.  I wouldn't dream of

Yes, I brought up "gaze" and "other".

>coming up with such an outlandish assertion-- that "jargon" constitutes some
>sort of absolute category-- and I don't really know what made you think I did.

I guess what made me think that you thought "jargon" constitutes
some sort of absolute category was your comment that "[t]hese
[i.e., "popularization" and "problematization"] don't strike me
as being at all jargony. 'Popularization' is a very common word."
Forgive me for misreading you.

> ...   (I still
>think, however, that it would be pretty difficult to read the article as a
>whole (as opposed to picking out one or two sentences from it), and not
>realize just what it was that I was addressing.

Of course I realized that your focus was the legitimacy of the
two words in question in particular and of the invention of new
words in general.  What I was responding to, however, was what
I mistakenly understood to be your belief that "recognized and
perfectly legitimate words" can't be jargon because they *are*
"recognized" and "legitimate".

>>"Jargon" is a pejorative (read: subjective) term used to
>>_characterize_ an objective reality.  "Problematization"
>>is a fairly uncommon word except among some litcrit types,
>>but they overuse it with a vengeance.  If one is contemptuous
>>of the the discourse shared by these litcritters, then it
>>follows that one might wish to characterize their shared
>>language as jargon.  And that's precisely what I did:
>
>Sorry to burst your bubble, but "problematization" is used among
>academics from a whole host of fields--  not just "a few lit-crit types."
>(Nice try, though.)

I come across the word only in litcrit, but I'll defer to you
on its popularity elsewhere.  Would it be fair to say that
"problematization", especially when used as it was in Kevin's
sentence, betrays heavy French influence?  That, in any case,
is my impression.

>                     You're certainly entitled to call it jargon if you
>so desire.  If I were making a list of overused jargony words and phrases,
>however, I think "problematization" and "popularization" would be a lot lower
>on the list than things like "discursivity," "always already overdetermined,"
>"construction," and "slippage".

I didn't deal with "popularization" because it's in common
usage and appears to be uniform.  Christopher's unfamiliarity
with it is bizarre.  Of course there are any number of words
that I'd place higher on the jargon list than "problematization" --
and I'd put "text" at the very top -- but jargon is jargon.

>Of course, all of this is really beside the point, since neither
>Christopher nor I were not talking about what one is/is not "entitled" to call
>"jargon."

Again, I took to you be making such a claim.  I'm happy to
see that you weren't.

Arne