Archispeak

8 February 2011 at 11:12 am Peter G. Klein 5 comments

| Peter Klein |

Every academic and professional discipline has its own specialized vocabulary. In some cases, this brings clarity and precision; in others, it serves mainly to bamboozle the uninitiated. Even architecture studies is no exception:

Other architects, especially those teaching in universities, reacted to the collapse of Modernism by attempting to reinvent the field as a theoretical discipline. The theories did not come from the evidence of the practice of architecture, as one might expect (that was left to Christopher Alexander), but from arcane historical tracts and the writings of French literary critics in hermeneutics, poetics, and semiology. Thus began a new phase in professional jargon.

Thanks to Witold Rybczynski for giving us an entry for both our jargon watch and Pomo Periscope series. What would Fabio say?

Entry filed under: - Klein -, Jargon Watch, Pomo Periscope.

What the Seminar Speaker Really Means São Paulo Workshop on Institutional Analysis

5 Comments Add your own

1. fabiorojas | 8 February 2011 at 11:16 am

Here is what Fabio says: Yes! Every field has crazy jargon. Sociology (my field) is weird in that is has both statistical AND European theory jargon. The odd part is that if you read leading soc journals, pomo is pretty much absent. People think sociology is all post-modernism, but it simply isn’t the case.
2. David Hoopes | 8 February 2011 at 12:55 pm

No one in the field of “management” can criticize any other field when it comes to jargon. We’re like the jargon dumping ground of the universe. An entrepreneur friend, who had an MBA from UCLA, picked up a copy of AMJ (how did that get on MY dining room table) and read the first abstract of the first paper aloud. It was pretty awful.

Gosh, I keep sticking up for sociology. I need a break.
3. Randy | 8 February 2011 at 1:22 pm

Feel good about yourself, David. Sticking up for sociology is like volunteering at the soup kitchen.
4. k | 8 February 2011 at 2:47 pm

In this work, Philosopher, what for?
Jean Francois Ravel in 1957, discuss the problem in philosophy. Sorry, but it is a translation in spanish:
http://www.philosophia.cl/biblioteca/revel.htm
JFR it is the author of Neither marx nor Jesus and The Antiamerican Obsession, odes to the USA
5. Roundup 9 February at Catallaxy Files | 9 February 2011 at 5:56 am

[…] collection of economics links from Michael “Lorenzo” Warby. Hooray! Peter Klein on the language of architects and the things that seminar speakers […]