Jargon and Defining Terms

This is a response to a discussion post and response in the Research Colloquium course. The focus of the conversation was on the use of jargon in the writing of dissertations and research papers. My first response focused on the use of jargon as a paradox and the second response added a bit of humour that had me thinking about media production options for my open research publication platform and how terms and concepts could be defined – thinking video explanations to support text based descriptions.

FIRST RESPONSE:

Your mention of the use of jargon caught my attention. You mention this as reflected in the Russell reading with the caution to explain concepts clearly and explicitly. This got me thinking more about the paradox of using jargon in our writing. On the one hand we want to be recognized for our knowledge in the field and jargon allows us to demonstrate our understanding of concepts and phenomena within our field of study, but on the other hand we alienate readers who are on the outside of our field who don’t recognize or understand this specialist language.

Using this specialist language in our writing helps us as PhD students to “make meaning and engage with disciplinary knowledge” (Woodward-Kron, 2008, p. 246). I didn’t think I’d ever understand concepts like ontology or epistemology until I started using them in my writing. Now I can accurately integrate and throw around terms like pedagogy and heutagogy without thinking. But if I’m using these specialist terms, and the field of education is rife with them, and the audience for my writing has no previous knowledge or experience with my specific ‘genre’ of writing, I will need to explain or clarify terms as I write. This is seen explicitly in Brant’s thesis with a section defining terms from her unique perspective. The other consideration is to use fewer specialist terms depending on the audience.

I think the challenge lies in balancing within this paradox when we write our dissertation or for academic publication. When our PhD documents are open and accessible to anyone from anywhere, knowing that many readers won’t have semiotic understanding of the specialist language we use, heightens the need to  explain and define terms with clarity, as well as establish or position in relation to those conceptualizations. (more 3 minute thesis watching!)

DeWaard, 2019, D2L discussion forum response

SECOND RESPONSE:

I see a PhD version of this article about ‘edubabble’ in your futures – defining all those words we can’t understand but can’t talk or write without!

I looked for some humourous videos but only found this series of definitions with video recordings in the Collins Online Dictionary and thought that this could be a model for how researchers should explain terms and concepts in their dissertation. Media and writing in new and different ways! 

DeWaard (2019), D2L discussion forum response

References

Woodward-Kron, R. (2008). More than just jargon – the nature and role of specialist language in learning disciplinary knowledge. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7, 234-249.