Pardon my Jargon

Once when I was a university student, one of our friends had a cobra encounter. That cobra has slithered into my friend’s veranda and occupied the place as it belongs to her.

No one at the house wanted to hurt the creature so took refuge of traditional methods to get rid of her. My friend’s grandma has suggested pleading the snake to go away without harming anyone saying ‘ane nayi haami karunaa karala wena thanakata yanna’ (Please can you go somewhere else Mr/Ms Cobra).

Most of us who heard that story were linguistics students, but there were students from other disciplines too. Once we, the linguistics students heard the story we started to tease our friend with our specialised linguistics jargon such as language acquisition, L1 and L2, error analysis and etc.

We mock her asking how a cobra acquired Sinhalese, what would be her L1 and L2 and asked her to do an error analysis of cobra language next time she meets the snake.

After few minutes, we realised that friends from other disciplines were surprisingly silent in the whole conversation. They could not actively involve because the jargon we used was alien to them.

A register is an occupational variety or style of language. A register is used in a domain. Some of the vocabulary and syntax of a register may be described as jargon, which is the specialist terminology of a register and its users. However the word “jargon” has a rather pejorative side to it, more often used by people who do not feel part of that group. Register is one of the many language variations that linguists can identify and classify.

While a dialect is based on a geographical area, a register is based on a job or an activity.

A group of people have a common interest or employment and use specialist language to describe their activity. Common choices of vocabulary and common expressions consolidate common understanding and reinforce the group. They also tend to keep out those for whom the register is unfamiliar, which again reinforces the unity of the group.

Anyone who has joined a group of chefs will hear about “julienne, ala carte, medium rare, blanche or choux pastry’’.

When I was a trainee journalist in Lake House nearly 17 years ago, the jargon of journalism was quite different to the way journalists talk nowadays. We talked of bromide paper, worked at ‘paste up’ and sent handmade pages to the ‘camera’.

An inability to understand or use this vocabulary sets someone apart from the group because they do not use this register.

This terminology may be described as jargon. Learning the register goes a long way towards making a person acceptable to a group.

It is possible to bluff your way into a group by adopting the register successfully.

However using a register at the wrong time or in an inappropriate situation stands out as being either peculiar or humorous.

Consider the Highway Code as spoken by a vicar, a rap spoken by the Head teacher, the school rules spoken as a rap. Combine a hymn, a doctor, a Shakespeare play, a policeman, the television news and a gangster and you may have the idea of what can be inappropriate and potentially funny.

In summary, a register is appropriate in a specialised situation or with a group of people having the same occupation. Builders, decorators, lawyers, teachers, athletes, policemen, gardeners, computer programmers, sailors ... all have their own registers, or use their own jargon, expressed in talk, magazines and periodicals, sales literature and instruction booklets. A register brings us together and sets us apart.