Jargon In A Language Essay

When a person begins the challenge of learning a new language, he will have to spend hundreds of hours to gain any kind of proficiency, and perhaps years, to master cultural and linguistic details- slang, euphemisms, syntax. But what about when one knows the language being spoken, yet has little understanding of the conversation? This language within a language is called jargon, and it is often complicated and isolated within a population. It has the power to ostracize people within a culture or community from others of the same culture. On top of this, there are jargons across disciplines, communities, and vocations. This is demonstrated in academic and scientific journals, whose vocabulary is very field specific, and understanding the article

The sentences are lengthy, very specific, and to the average citizen, nearly unintelligible. As a result, the common man cannot easily understand the new tax reform without someone explaining its nuances. He asks his lawyer-cousin for help when negotiating a contract, and at best, he skims the Terms and Agreement and Privacy Policy for a new program or account that he obtains. This legal jargon very much separates people, and creates an “in” and an “out” group- those who actually know what is going on and those who don’t. How can a citizen be an informed citizen if he cannot even read and understand fully the laws he is governed by? Even so, Andrew Moore, a teacher from the UK and founding member of the Association of Teachers’ websites, makes a solid defense, or at least explanation for this jargon. For one, “some apparently obscure terms may have been coined precisely to express subtle or unusual meanings or distinctions”. He also points out that by updating legal terms to common terms, the term itself may lose its legal meaning and be associated with the common meaning, which is problematic if the two are different. While legal language and writing is lengthy, it needs to include all relevant possibilities, and finally, it is not meant to be entertaining (Moore). So, while this legal jargon is messy and complicated, the nature of the field necessitates and justifies its