Jargon is specialized vocabulary used within a particular profession, discipline, or community. “Refactoring,” “deployment pipeline,” and “regression” are jargon to software engineers; “etiology,” “differential diagnosis,” and “contraindicated” are jargon to physicians. Jargon is not inherently bad — it exists because specialists need precise, efficient terms for concepts they discuss often.
Jargon becomes a problem when it’s used with an audience that doesn’t share the specialist vocabulary. A doctor who tells a patient “we need to rule out an MI” has used jargon that obscures rather than communicates. The same doctor telling a colleague the same thing has communicated efficiently. The issue is not the word but the match between word and audience.
The plain language tradition treats unnecessary jargon as one of the primary barriers to clear communication. Rudolf Flesch argued that experts use jargon not only for precision but for status — to signal membership in a community and to exclude outsiders [@flesch1949]. This observation is sharp: jargon that serves precision is a tool; jargon that serves exclusion is a barrier.
The writer’s task is to know their audience well enough to judge which terms are shared vocabulary (and can be used without explanation) and which are unfamiliar (and must be defined, replaced, or avoided). In technical writing, this judgment is central: documentation for developers can use programming terms; documentation for end users cannot. The audience analysis process determines where the line falls.
Related terms
- register — jargon is one marker of specialized register
- diction — jargon is a diction choice
- audience — whether jargon is appropriate depends on the audience
- plain language — the movement that opposes unnecessary jargon
- official style — bureaucratic prose often relies on jargon for obscurity