Sometimes when professionals such
as medics, police people, financial specialists and others appear on TV or in
the newspapers, they use very complicated language specific to their profession
(jargon). Sometimes what they say is more of a “wooden language”. Virtually
no-one in the audience fully understands what they say since “normal” or “regular”
people don’t know the meaning of the words used. Now, it’s a bit paradoxical
since these professionals realize that when speaking on TV or giving a
statement in the newspapers they “talk” to people who are unaware of the
specific jargon for each profession. Moreover, the media wants such specialists,
who are credible sources, to explain to the masses. So the media is interested that
the audience actually understands what the specialists say.
I have to make a note. I’m not referring
to specialized spokes persons who appear often in the media, who are trained in
addressing the general public and know how to translate complicated words into
more digestible ones. I am referring to people who are professionals with
little PR training and who appear in the media seldom, usually invited as “experts”.
In order to understand the reason
behind this paradoxical behavior we should shift the perspective through which
we analyze this phenomenon. The current perspective is from the side of the
audience, namely “regular” people who have very little knowledge on specific jargon Regular people don’t understand word “expert” professionals say on TV
and they feel frustrated since they were expecting to get some high quality
information. However, if we shift the perspective and see things from the “expert’s”
point of view things change dramatically.
Such an “expert” professional
that gets a chance to appear on TV or give a statement in a high audience
newspaper, has different goals than just making the audience understand what
they are supposed to explain. As I said before these people don’t get too much
media attention and appear seldom in the eyes of the wide public. When they do,
the reason behind the media attention is their expertise and they are expected
to show it. And they do show it, but not to the audience that the newspaper or
TV station.
In order to better understand,
imagine yourself in the shoes of such an expert. You get to appear on TV and
millions of people will see you. Since you don’t appear frequently on TV this
is a special event in your life that will be the subject of discussion with
your friends, colleagues, family and even rivals. Adding to this people you
know both friends and rivals will talk about your TV appearance. Knowing this
would you be more likely to try and make a good impression on your social group
than try to explain to the old lady living 500 km away what is happening with
the stock market or with some patient you have. Anyhow she will not understand
too much of what you are saying anyway. Moreover, she doesn't know you and most
likely she will forget you even exist half an hour after your appearance on TV.
So it is in your best interest to
try and impress your social group. Now, if you are a professional in let’s say
the stock market, then most of the people you know (social group) know what you
are doing and know your level of expertise. Moreover, a considerable proportion
of people in your social group have similar education and occupations as you
have. It is very likely that at least some of your friends and rivals have jobs
related to the stock market. So in order to impress them you will get use all
your specific knowledge and skills in the field and show them on TV. In doing
so, you will completely ignore 99.99% of the people who will see you.
The reasons why professionals in
different fields use quite complicated jargon are various. One reason is that in
each field there are concepts, objects, processes that don’t exist in other
areas of activity. This way, there was a need to create words for them. Another
reason is that although there are (normal) words that describe the concepts,
object and processes, they are non-scientific terms and thus considered
inappropriate.
Focusing on the later situation,
here we have a typical case of “arms race”. Let’s make a thought exercise and
imagine that at point zero everybody speaks using regular words and these words
are sufficient for expressing all what is needed in a profession. In this case,
one professional would be perceived as more competent, smarter and more educated
if he or she would use one scientific, more complicated term. Since this person
would have an increase in social (professional) status, then all other
professionals in the field will have an incentive to use that work in order to
achieve parity, namely to be perceived as smart, competent and educated.
Moreover, each professional will have an incentive to use another (or more) pretentious
scientific complicated term(s). The cycle repeats itself and we assist to an “arms
race” where everyone wants to show how great he or she is by using a language
that is virtually unknown to normal regular people.
Now you realize that when being
on TV or making a statement in a newspaper, one would feel the need to use the
entire arsenal that is in his or her possession. And so the regular TV watchers
or newspaper readers fall (linguistic) victims of the status arms race of
professionals in various fields.
An additional explanation could
be that some people working in a certain profession master the specific jargon
and all people with whom they interact have the same vocabulary, thus having
the false impression that everybody understands these terms. Although this is
highly plausible, it fails to explain why people use these terms after being
made aware that the audience is a “general” one. Moreover, most of the appearances
on TV and statements in the newspapers are prepared in advance, thus giving
enough time for thought on who is in the audience.
So it is not that despite addressing
a general audience, professionals speak using complicated jargon.
It is in fact Because they have a chance to get in the media that addresses a
general audience they try to emphasize on their sophisticated knowledge,
skills, education etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment