February 7, 2003

Jargon examples

Note that there are both similarities and differences between jargons from different kinds of groups and institutions. What are some of the different style features found in these examples?

From the UCSB office of student affairs website

The mission of the Division of Student Affairs is to anticipate, plan for, and respond to the needs of a diverse and changing student body by providing services and programs that promote physical and emotional well-being and foster intellectual and personal development. Divisional efforts to meet student needs are intended to create a supportive and challenging learning environment and a sense of community essential to advancing the University's goals of excellence in education, research and public service.

From Ellen Contini-Morava, Noun Classification in Swahili

Among systems of linguistic categorization, noun class systems (including systems of grammatical gender, as in German or Arabic) are usually defined as follows:

(a) all nouns in the language are divided into a small and closed set of classes, signalled by inflectional morphology;

(b) the class of a noun is obligatorily co-referenced on other elements in the sentence via grammatical agreement (see e.g. Dixon 1982; Craig 1986).

The phenomenon of noun classification has long been of interest to linguists and anthropologists because understanding the basis for grouping nouns together as members of a class hints at a system of cognitive or cultural classification underlying the system of linguistic classification. However, the question what, if any, semantic principles can explain the groupings of nouns into classes in Bantu languages has been controversial. The received wisdom is that although some generalizations can be made, there is a lot of arbitrariness in these systems.

In this paper I will suggest that the diagnosis of arbitriness rests on an overly restrictive definition of what `semantic coherence' means, and that a cognitive-semantic approach reveals more systematicity than might appear at first.

From Using Dreamweaver (a web authoring program by Macromedia)

Using Dreamweaver to set up a new site

Once you create your site structure (see Organizing the site structure), you must designate the new site in Dreamweaver. Setting up this local site in Dreamweaver means that you can use Dreamweaver with FTP to upload your site to the Web server, automatically track and maintain your links, and collaboratively share files. It is best to set up your local site in Dreamweaver before you begin creating your pages.

American Library Association Resolution on the Use of Filtering Software in Libraries

WHEREAS, On June 26, 1997, the United States Supreme Court issued a sweeping re-affirmation of core First Amendment principles and held that communications over the Internet deserve the highest level of Constitutional protection; and

WHEREAS, The Court's most fundamental holding is that communications on the Internet deserve the same level of Constitutional protection as books, magazines, newspapers, and speakers on a street corner soapbox. The Court found that the Internet "constitutes a vast platform from which to address and hear from a world-wide audience of millions of readers, viewers, researchers, and buyers," and that "any person with a phone line can become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox"; and

WHEREAS, For libraries, the most critical holding of the Supreme Court is that libraries that make content available on the Internet can continue to do so with the same Constitutional protections that apply to the books on libraries' shelves; and

WHEREAS, The Court's conclusion that "the vast democratic fora of the Internet" merit full constitutional protection will also serve to protect libraries that provide their patrons with access to the Internet; and

WHEREAS, The Court recognized the importance of enabling individuals to receive speech from the entire world and to speak to the entire world. Libraries provide those opportunities to many who would not otherwise have them; and

WHEREAS, The Supreme Court's decision will protect that access; and

WHEREAS, The use in libraries of software filters which block Constitutionally protected speech is inconsistent with the United States Constitution and federal law and may lead to legal exposure for the library and its governing authorities; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the American Library Association affirms that the use of filtering software by libraries to block access to constitutionally protected speech violates the Library Bill of Rights.