Re: Lingua Franca Today
"Serious" technical documents should not use inaccessible language solely
for the purpose of sounding more "intelligent." There is no reason to use
flowery terms like "lingua franca." when perfectly good, boring terms like
"common language" work just as well and are far more accessible to
readers.
I do spy another logical fallacy under the petticoats. No one took the position that LF _should_ be used in technical writing.
I would note that, for those non-TWs who use language that some find off-putting, they may well do so for educative reasons. They may believe that people ought to know what lingua franca means and that keeping language and our culture alive requires that it be used--read, written, and spoken.
Other non-TWs choose certain words because they mean what they want to say. Consider lingua franca: The very word refers to a unique language that evolved to meet the need for commercial transaction, rather than relying on the language of one culture, expecting everyone else to speak it. Common language is a poor substitute; it doesn't quite capture how a protocol is a language unto itself, not reducible to proprietary languages. It's an important concept. Could it be taught a different way? Sure. But, perhaps using a real historical example makes something seemingly non-human, very human and, thus, a good hook for a literate, but non-tech audience. Lingua Franca points to a real historical process. Global English points to another. LF as metaphor = protocol; GE as metaphor = microsoft tactics :)
Finally, some very good non-TW writers have a melody to their writing. These writers choose certain words because they want to evoke a certain pace, rhythm, lyricism, etc. Consider the difference between ostensibly and supposedly or nonchalance and insouciance. For some learners, this melody is important for retaining what they've read in the same way that some learners need color or visual cues.
In didactic writing it's assumed that the reading-learner of abstract material needs material that stimulates rational cognition as well all sensory cognition. Alliteration, metaphor, lyricism, etc.--all of these have long been used to evoke that sensory experience. Didactic writing encourages readers to slow down, enhances that sensory experience.
None of this is to say, of course, that I'm advocating that lingua franca should be included in TW. in fact, I have explicitly said, several times, that i don't think it should.
Kelley
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Re: Lingua Franca Today: From: Andrew Plato
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