sociologese

sociologese

The seemingly pretentious and opaque language found in some writing on sociology was an obvious target for Sir Ernest Gowers in his edition of Fowler's book (1965). Among several examples, all unattributed, the following was typical: The technique here reported resulted from the authors' continuing interest in human variables associated with organizational effectiveness. Specifically, this technique was developed to identify and analyse several types of interpersonal activities and relations, and to provide a method for expressing the degree of congruence between two or more of these activities and relations in indices which might be associated with available criteria of organizational effectiveness. But there is a difference between sociology written for sociologists (which this is) and sociology intended for a wider readership (if there is such a thing). For reservations about choosing linguistic targets from technical domains, see more generally gobbledegook, jargon, Plain English.