Jargonness

{{Short description|Jargon and science communication}} {{Primary sources|date=August 2025}} '''Jargonness''' is a piecewise mathematical function mapping the frequencies of a word's appearance in scientific and contemporary English corpora to a parameter quantifying the word's association with scientific jargon – the "jargonness" of that word.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sharon |first1=Aviv J. |last2=Baram-Tsabari |first2=Ayelet |date=January 21, 2013 |title=Measuring mumbo jumbo: A preliminary quantification of the use of jargon in science communication |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963662512469916?journalCode=pusa |journal=Public Understanding of Science |volume=23 |issue=5 |pages=528–546 |doi=10.1177/0963662512469916 |pmid=23825277 |via=SAGE journals}}</ref> It is expressed mathematically as:<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last1=Willoughby |first1=Shannon D. |last2=LaMeres |first2=Brock J. |last3=Hughes |first3=Bryce E. |last4=Organ |first4=Chris |last5=Green |first5=Jennifer L. |last6=Sterman |first6=Leila Belle |last7=Davis |first7=Kent |date=2018 |title=STEM Storytellers: Improving the Oral Communication Skills of STEM Graduate Students |url=https://monolith.asee.org/public/conferences/106/papers/22100/view |access-date=2023-05-06 |website=monolith.asee.org}}</ref><blockquote><math display="block">jargonness = \begin{cases} log \left ( \frac{f_s}{f_g} \right ), & f_g > 0 \\ 3, & f_g = 0 \end{cases}</math></blockquote> In the above equation, <math>f_g</math> stands for the frequency of a word's appearance in a general English-language corpus, <math>f_s</math> stands for its frequency in a scientific corpus, and <math>log</math> is the common (base-10) logarithm.<ref>https://iaea.info/documents/measuring-mumbo-jumbo-a-preliminary-quantification-of-the-use-of-jargon-in-science-communication/</ref>

== Method of use == Both the frequencies (<math>f_g</math> and <math>f_s</math>) must be determined and then substituted in the above equation to calculate the word's jargonness. In case a word has no mention in the general English corpus, 3 is taken as its jargonness as suggested by the second part of the equation.<ref name=":0" /> Noticing that the logarithm in the first part of the equation is a common one (to the base 10), this simply means that the word is assumed to be a thousand times more likely to appear in a scientific text than a non-scientific one.

=== Examples of corpora === The corpora that have most commonly been employed to determine the frequencies mentioned above are the following:<ref name=":0" />

* Professional English Research Consortium Corpus (for scientific vocabulary; 17 million words) * British National Corpus (for common vocabulary; 97 million words)

== References ==

== External links ==

* [https://scnweb.japanknowledge.com/register/PERC/index.html Professional English Research Consortium Corpus]

Category:Metrics Category:Linguistics terminology