With the pressing need to keep up to date with an influx of social issues, informative activism graphics have become the new hype to share on social media platforms.
These graphic posts are clear, concise, aesthetically pleasing and most importantly, accessible. The creators research information and simplify it so that everyone can understand.
However, they’ve been criticized for being a replacement for actual research, potentially spreading misinformation and reducing harsh realities to a pretty picture.
These are all reasonable criticisms, but these posts are also crucial in the fight against jargon.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines jargon as “words and phrases used by particular groups of people, [especially] in their work, that are not generally understood.” It’s tiring enough to remain socially conscious, but having to untangle convoluted details makes the idea of researching all the more unappealing.
In other words, jargon is a barrier.
In academia and in our studies as students, we are expected to write in a certain code ourselves. Our papers, presentations and pitches all must cater to a certain level of “intellectualism.” When we research, we come across academic journals filled with obscure words, phrases that just don’t make sense and long sentences that span a full paragraph.
I mean, what’s your response when you come across a paper littered with words and phrases you don’t understand? Do you spend an hour trying to parse through the meaning, dictionary in hand, looking up entire concepts? Or, do you just give up?
We have, in some sense, been brainwashed into believing that there is a superiority in knowing how to take something simple and twist it into something incomprehensible. If you speak colloquially — aka: normally or informally — it’s considered unprofessional or to be a “dumbed-down” version.
This is a dangerous line of thinking. Using jargon upholds the same standards of “acceptable” English that have systematically discriminated against African-American Vernacular English.
Indeed, the pretentious mindset that birthed jargon also brands AAVE speakers as “uneducated” or “rude.” While AAVE is welcomed into slang culture, it’s never tolerated in professional settings.
Many workplaces inherently require AAVE speakers to code-switch simply because AAVE doesn’t follow the same grammatical rules that “proper” English speakers follow, and AAVE speakers may face negative bias in various fields as a result of their dialect.
Jargon is useful only if you’re communicating with your peers in a specialized context — shorthand terms within your field can help bypass lengthy explanations.
In college admissions, a “holistic” review means applicants will be examined as a whole, and not just on their test scores. In journalism,“burying the lede” is the failure to include the most important or newsworthy part in the opening of an article.
Scientific fields get even more technical and obscure — for the most part, it is necessary and unavoidable. But, it gets a bit more iffy when it’s not necessary to use such complex vocabulary. Writing to impress instead of to express defeats the purpose.
When communicating to the general public, lay off on the jargon and lay it down in simple language.
By definition, jargon is designed to exclude others. It obstructs those who didn’t or don’t have access to particular educational resources or opportunities, including those who don’t speak English as their first language. In other words, it puts even more barriers in place for those who are already disadvantaged.
Perhaps one of the most harmful examples of jargon is medical language. Resolving a health issue means facing obstacle after obstacle. From understanding your health care insurance to the risks of a medical procedure to what a diagnosis means — every step of the way can be made worse when professionals use jargon.
For the average Joe, how are you supposed to know what “Hashimoto’s thyroiditis” is or that dieting doesn’t necessarily equal weight loss? These miscommunications can be deathly, and it only goes downhill when a patient is too prideful to ask for clarification or suffers from an additional language barrier.
The damage occurs not only on an individual level, but also a societal one. What better way to keep information from the public than by using industrial jargon to discourage people from reading in the first place? After all, you can’t think for yourself and form your own opinions if you can’t even digest the information. And you certainly can’t change the system if you can’t understand how the system works.
Government writing should be transparent in every way. The public deserves to know what’s going on. Some examples of political jargon: bailout, greenwashing, quintile and hypothecation.
Add in frequent, long and rambling sentences, and any average reader will have a hard time understanding official statements, government websites, political speeches, Supreme Court decisions or important policies — all of which directly impact them.
The 2010 Plain Writing Act was created to address this exact problem and make government information more accessible to the public. Unfortunately, the implementation of the act seems to fall short.
So, besides a few circumstances, jargon is ultimately a tool that oppresses those without power and makes it harder for people to create a more equitable system and escape this cycle.
