Academic copying, archaeology and the English language.

Academic copying, archaeology and the English language. There is now a proliferation of new journals on almost everyconceivable topic (e.g. Journal of Happiness Studies, Queueing Systems,Wear, World Pumps, with titles for archaeologists such as Anthropoetics,Archaeological Dialogues and Archaeoastronomy ar��chae��o��as��tron��o��my?n.The study of the knowledge, interpretations, and practices of ancient cultures regarding celestial objects or phenomena.ar & Ethnoastronomy eth��no��as��tron��o��my?n.The study of the knowledge, interpretations, and practices of contemporary cultures regarding celestial objects or phenomena.eth News), so that an author can publish almost any article by moving downthe journal ranking Static Journal RankingJournal ranking is widely used in academic circles in the evaluation of a journal's impact. Although there are several websites that release rankings of journals in specific areas of research, their audiences have only static access to ranking reports. far enough (Svetlov 2004). With the added stress onreviewers, and increasing stress on academics to publish in quantity(Larkin 1999; Mojon-Azzi et al. 2003), this has become a recognisedpractice (Adam & Knight 2002; Clausen & Nielsen 2003; Jefferson& Shashok 2003; Koonin 2003; Lawrence 2003). Increasingly therefore,academics must regulate their own writing rather than relying on editingand peer review to ensure meaning and clarity. Accurate, clear use oflanguage is especially crucial because that language is now more likelyto be copied by other academics. As editorial control decreases,academic writing is free to become more and more subject to fashion,with authors copying each other in an effort to stay on top of thelatest ideas. Prehistoric potters copied each other's decorations to use ontheir pottery, whether in North America North America,third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. (Neiman 1995; Lipo et al. 1997),or in Neolithic Germany (Bentley & Sherman 2003; Bentley et al.2004; Sherman & Wilkinson 2001), so it is not surprising thatcopying also underlies the production of academic publications. Manyaspects of modern popular culture exhibit the same statistical patternsas a simple model of random copying, including distributions of howpopular the choices are, as well as the rate of turnover among the mostpopular (Bentley et al. 2004; Bentley & Sherman 2005). In the UnitedStates United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , for example, people's random copying of one another appearsto be the predominant process in how names are chosen for babies (Hahn& Bentley 2003) and how dog breeds are chosen as pets (Herzog et al.2004). Through online journal citation databases, one can easily documentthe accelerating process with which terms or ideas catch on (Bentley& Maschner 2000; Bissey & Viossat 2003). Statistical studies ofcitation databases also show that most authors copy their referencesfrom other bibliographies rather than reading the articles themselves(Simkin & Roychowdhury 2003). Academic terms are particularly proneto this game of chance fashion, and although we cannot predict which newterm will become the next buzzword A term that refers to the latest technology or a term that sounds catchy. If not a flash in the pan, new technologies become mainstream. For example, Java was a hot buzzword in the 1990s, but should remain a major topic for decades. , we can predict confidently thatthere will be new buzzwords in the future. For example, words such as'agency' and 'nuanced' seem to be everywherenowadays (Figure 1). After 1990, 'agency' caught on sosuddenly (Figure la) that it resembles an example of the 'tippingpoint' that Gladwell (2000) has popularly described. Interestingly,archaeologists and anthropologists did not pick up on 'agency'until after 1994 (Figure lb), and a similar lag can be detected with'nuanced' which since 1997 has been rising quickly elsewhere(Figure 1a, b). The consequences of academic language choice can beserious, as in the case of processual and post-processual archaeology.These labels tell non-archaeologists very little--doesn't everyresearcher, almost by definition, study a process? Evenpost-processualists study a process, namely how we narrate the past.Unfortunately, archaeologists are stuck with these horribly inelegant in��el��e��gant?adj.Lacking refinement or polish; not elegant.in��ele��gant��ly adv. and non-descriptive labels. If we could write more carefully today,clear, descriptive language may begin to outweigh jargon. As a greaterproportion of useful terms are copied in future publications, the entirevocabulary, and hence understanding of the discipline, could graduallybegin to improve. In 1946, George Orwell wrote an essay, 'Politics and theEnglish language', that has become a classic for many first-yearwriting or literature courses, and after 60 years his lament over themisuse of political language is still startlingly star��tle?v. star��tled, star��tling, star��tlesv.tr.1. To cause to make a quick involuntary movement or start.2. To alarm, frighten, or surprise suddenly. See Synonyms at frighten. relevant. For Orwell,the importance of precise, meaningful language was critical becauselanguage not only communicates our ideas but directs our own thoughts.Orwell was particularly irritated by the use of 'ready-madephrases' that are repeatedly copied from one person to another: '... modern writing at its worst does not consist in pickingout words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order tomake the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips ofwords which have already been set into order by someone else, and makingthe results printable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way ofwriting is that it is easy. It is easier--even quicker, once you havethe habit--to say, "In my opinion it is a not unjustifiableassumption that" than to say "I think".' (Orwell1946: 359) The citation studies mentioned above suggest that archaeologicalacademics are susceptible to copying strips of words from each other.This makes us all the more obliged to write our ideas clearly the firsttime. For doing so, Orwell (1946) provided five simple rules: (1) Never use a metaphor, simile simile(sĭm`əlē)[Lat.,=likeness], in rhetoric, a figure of speech in which an object is explicitly compared to another object. Robert Burns's poem "A Red Red Rose" contains two straightforward similes: or other figure of speech whichyou are used to seeing in print. (2) Never use a long word where a short one will do. (3) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. (4) Never use the passive where you can use the active. (5) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon wordif you can think of an everyday English equivalent. In writings on archaeological theory, Orwell's first rule isperhaps most often violated, in phrases such as mobilization ofresources, hitched to our empirical cart, throw the baby out with theproverbial bathwater, in the context of and brought to bear to name onlya few. More serious, however, is the copying of complicated words thatviolate rule 2, in that they are often used when the idea is eithersimple or poorly understood. Examples in theoretical archaeology includehermeneutic her��me��neu��tic? also her��me��neu��ti��caladj.Interpretive; explanatory.[Greek herm , epistemological, neo-evolutionary paradigm, analyticalconstruct, post-processualist, meta-archaeological, historiographicalsocio-economico-political and so on. These are rarely used any more withany fresh definition. Other words, inserted to make a sentence soundmore professional, are not complicated but extraneous. Common examplesare complex, factor, process and dynamical. In an archaeologicalpublication, one might read that prehistoric events were somehow part ofa dynamic process, involving the complex interplay of social, politicaland/or ideological factors. What isn't? Generally, just about allentities in the universe are factors in a dynamical process, whetherthey are atoms of the Sun, plot twists in a narrative or worms in thesoil. As a proof of their redundancy, large complicated words are oftenlinked in the same passage, violating Orwell's third rule, as inthe article title (taken from the literature) 'Notes toward anepigenetic epigenetic/epi��ge��net��ic/ (-je-net��ik)1. pertaining to epigenesis.2. altering the activity of genes without changing their structure. model of the evolution of "civilisation".Epigenetic (Greek epi for 'upon' and genesis for'formation') is defined by the Chambers Dictionary as'the science that studies the causes at work in development',which is very close to the definition of evolution. Is the titletherefore any more descriptive than 'An epigenetic model of"civilisation"? If so, is the additional meaning worth thecost of scaring most readers away from a good article, rather thaninviting them with a title such as 'On the evolution of"civilisation"? Academics invent jargon prolifically, often by adding suffixes. Asnoted previously in Antiquity (Hawkes 1968; Lake 1997; also Service1969), we have an increasing number of 'isms' inarchaeological writing, including collectivism collectivismAny of several types of social organization that ascribe central importance to the groups to which individuals belong (e.g., state, nation, ethnic group, or social class). It may be contrasted with individualism. , reconstructionism,processualism, post-processualism, contextual-structuralism,neo-evolutionism, obscurantism, polyvocalism, progressivism anddual-processualism. Another favoured habit is to add 'ise' toadjectives or nouns, as in dehistoricise, monumentalise Verb 1. monumentalise - record or memorialize lastingly with a monumentmonumentalizeimmortalise, immortalize, memorialise, memorialize, commemorate, record - be or provide a memorial to a person or an event; "This sculpture commemorates the victims of the , racialise andnormativise. A particularly gratuitous 'isation' is to useoperationalise instead of do. Another habit is adding '-ian' to surnames. Acceptableinstances of 'ianisation' include Freudian, and possiblyDurkheimian and Levi-Straussian, but surely others such as Hocartian,Gramscian and Weberian are unnecessary. In archaeology, perhaps theworks of Lewis Binford are famous enough to warrant Binfordian, but onedoubts that he has ever been asked whether he wanted this'ianism'. Surely it is no benefit, since once'ianisation' has started, it inevitably multiplies itself, asit has for the work of Louis Althusser (1918-1990), resulting inAlthusserian, post-Althusserian, non-Althusserian, Althusserianism andpost-Althusserianism. Academic word copying is not necessarily random.In fact, complicated words may be copied at the expense of simpler ones,even to the point of saturation, as in this example from a high-impactanthropology journal in 1985: 'The challenge to Althusserianism usually revolves around acritique of the structuralist concept of social totality in whichideology is viewed as a super-structural instance of the socialformation, albeit an instance with its own historicity'. Translating such a passage is a lot of work, and many readers willnot engage in the struggle. A reader pressed for time will generally dotwo things: glide over the material, intimidated by its impenetrabledensity and, more to my point, begin to integrate the most incoherentaspects of it into his/her own vocabulary. We can see, for example, howsimilar language reverberates through this passage, taken from a 2004archaeology journal: 'I have considerable sympathy for the intentions of both thepluralist commitments of the cosmopolitanists and the"emancipatory e��man��ci��pate?tr.v. e��man��ci��pat��ed, e��man��ci��pat��ing, e��man��ci��pates1. To free from bondage, oppression, or restraint; liberate.2. " interests of the sectionalists. However, bothprogrammes are ultimately unsatisfying as they hold a greater commitmentto depersonalizing and dehistoricizing the subject than to exposing theapparatus that inscribes subjects within a historically created field ofdifference'. It is difficult to understand what this passage actually means. Anadded consequence of this runaway language copying is that the languageitself has become the object of study, rather than archaeology. Thetopics have become cosmopolitanism and sectionalism sec��tion��al��ism?n.Excessive devotion to local interests and customs.section��al��ist n. , with the processesat work argued to be depersonalisation Noun 1. depersonalisation - emotional dissociative disorder in which there is loss of contact with your own personal reality accompanied by feelings of unreality and strangeness and dehistoricisation. When thishappens, the redundancy becomes well hidden. For example, it is actuallyno surprise that a 'cosmopolitanist' would have'pluralist' commitments, because cosmopolitan by definitionmeans to consist of many dements from different places. Similarly, itseems that to 'dehistoricise' something must mean to take awayits historical context, or, as the author puts it, not to expose'the apparatus that inscribes subjects within a historicallycreated field of difference'. Hence the passage is practically atautology tautologyIn logic, a statement that cannot be denied without inconsistency. Thus, “All bachelors are either male or not male” is held to assert, with regard to anything whatsoever that is a bachelor, that it is male or it is not male. , and yet it is completely intimidating at first glance. If myeffort to interpret the passage misses its meaning, than that in itselfillustrates the point. Complicated diction and fashionable vocabulary may impress in theshort term, but they ensure that, in the long run, the ideas will beforgotten. Even worse, by introducing bogus jargon into our ownpublished writing, we run the risk of spreading these poorly-understoodideas through future generations of publications and research.Orwell's (1946) main concern was that language be used 'as aninstrument for expressing and not concealing or preventingthought'. Muddled language not only muddles our currentunderstanding of things, but it also multiplies itself and infectsacademic thought in the future. Received: 30 December 2004; Accepted: 25 February 2005; Revised: 13April 2005 References ADAM D. & J. KNIGHT. 2002. Journals under pressure: publish,and be damned. Nature 419: 772-6. BENTLEY, R.A., M.W. HAHN & S.J. SHENNAN. 2004. Random drift andculture change. Proceedings of the Royal Society Biology 271: 1443-50. BENTLEY, R.A. & H.D.G. MASCHNER. 2000. A growing network ofideas. Fractals 8: 227-37. BENTLEY, R.A. & S.J. SHENNAN. 2003. Cultural evolution andstochastic network growth. American Antiquity 68: 459-85. --2005. 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