Where to jump in on this debate??
Oh well why not snip all the previos posts and just say my piece ??
This debate raises some interesting questions.
I think I am the sort of person who wants my bread buttered on both sides
(which is a nessy business you get the butter all over yur fingers)
In that I have been to conferences and herd all manner of socio/academic
jargon (as if socio/academic jargon were not an example in itself)
And I have read papers which in simple language I would call bull shit (and
there is calling a digging implement a bloody shovel for you)
I have also interupted speakers (a nasty habit of mine) and told them to
stop using fancy words from the sociologists dictionary
On the other hand anyone who has perused my posts would probably conclude
that I am quite a sesquipedalian myself.
In one sence the language we use is part of our long political and social
history in that the latinate terms came in, in several waves, firstly
religios and later scientific as science replaced religion as the new
kabbala. The reformation was fought about the democratisation of religion,
but too many of us are inheritors of the the latter esoterica from the halls
of academe.
Language is not only used to communicate it is used to exclude as any
technical elite will tell you, it is a way of both marking the membership of
a group and excluding the outsiders from knowing what you are talking about,
a sort of freemasonry if you like.
I for instance can speak fluent geek as well as PC, however if I were
addressing an audience of non digerate people (that means people who don't
get on with computers) I would have to moderate my language.
So it is really not a question of translating the often intranslatable but
using what is appropriate for an audience if yu are really determined to get
your message accross.
For instance if I were attending a congress on higher mathematics (God
forbid) or a seminar outlining the latest brain reserch, I would go there
expecting to be baffled and confused as these are thing I know nothing
about, and no point would be served in making it accessible to me at the
expence of those who had gone there knowing that they understood the
language.
It has to be realised in the world of diversity in which we inhabit that
making something more accessible to one gruop can be achieved at the expence
of others.
To take myself as an example. I have difficulties in understanding spoken
language, not because of the complexity of terms used, but for other
cognitive reasons, having limited auditory memory and attentional problems.
I also have the tendency to interpret everything in the first instance at a
literal level (even my own metaphors) so that subtle irony can pass me by.
Therefore to me it is important that the rate of speech is correct, with
pauses in the right places, and re-iteration of key points. If a
presentation is supported by visual aids and diagrams that is better for me,
however such a thing as a well constructed power point presentation (most
are not) would be exclusive to people who cannot access the visual medium.
The abscence of distracting background sounds such as noisy air conditioning
is also helpful.
I am not an expert in the field of develomental disabilities/lerning
difficulties (even the tansatlantic connection here needs some translation)
however I would guess that unapreciated cognitive difficulties may also be
represented by such a cross section of the population and that simplificatin
of terminology/translation may not in itself suffice.
Larry
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