{"id":4342,"date":"2018-11-28T13:49:50","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T18:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/?p=4342"},"modified":"2018-11-28T13:49:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T18:49:50","slug":"undergrad-wednesdays-arcane-incantations-and-technobabble-the-exploitation-of-exclusive-language-in-the-canterbury-tales-and-the-modern-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/2018\/11\/28\/undergrad-wednesdays-arcane-incantations-and-technobabble-the-exploitation-of-exclusive-language-in-the-canterbury-tales-and-the-modern-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Undergrad Wednesdays \u2013 Arcane Incantations and Technobabble: The Exploitation of Exclusive Language in The Canterbury Tales <\/i>and the Modern Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
[This post was written in the spring 2018 semester\u00a0for Karrie Fuller's course on Chaucer\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Canterbury Tales. It responds to the prompt posted<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>here<\/a><\/em>.]<\/em><\/pre>\n
In the many conversations we regularly engage in, there is always the risk that we will be confronted with an unfamiliar term or concept. When this happens, we are faced with two options: 1) Ask the speaker what it means. B) Don\u2019t ask about it \u2014 try to infer the meaning from context and perhaps make a mental note to look up the word or concept later, consigning oneself\u00a0for the time being to an uncertain or incomplete understanding of the speaker\u2019s message.<\/p>\n
While choosing the first option seems like the best and most reasonable way to ensure that one understands what the speaker is saying, there are a number of reasons that people might opt not to ask. Probably the biggest reason is that it requires one to admit ignorance of the word, thus admitting the speaker\u2019s intellectual superiority in the matter, and risking exposing oneself to ridicule if the word is considered common knowledge. People also might not feel at liberty to request a definition (such as if the speaker is the listener\u2019s social superior or is addressing an audience) or they might not trust the speaker to accurately define the term.<\/p>\n
Regardless of why listeners might remain ignorant about a word\u2019s meaning, in doing so they grant their speaker a special immunity from criticism or disbelief. Most listeners, when confronted with an unfamiliar word, will by default assume that it was used correctly, or at least refrain from questioning the validity of its usage. If someone were to say that a Diplopod is a type of Chelicerate, most speakers would make no objection unless they knew what those terms referred to. While it seems like common kindness for an ignorant listener to give their speaker the benefit of the doubt in such cases, the trouble begins when speakers learn to exploit this tendency, dazzling their audience into believing falsehood by using intentionally indecipherable language.<\/p>\n
Geoffrey Chaucer\u2019s The Canterbury Tales<\/em>, harshly critical of the clergy on a number of fronts, writes of this tendency of medieval clergy-members to abuse their education, especially their knowledge of Latin, to deceive or swindle the uneducated masses. The clearest example of this is during the Pardoner\u2019s Prologue, in which the corrupt Pardoner, a clergyman licensed to collect money and grant indulgences on behalf of the Church, \u2014\u00a0\u00a0is describing the many rhetorical techniques he uses to manipulate people into paying him (for more information on Chaucer\u2019s Pardoner and his relevance to the modern day, check out Zach Prephan\u2019s post<\/a>).<\/p>\n
And in Latyn I speke a wordes fewe
\nTo saffron with my predicacioun
\nAnd for to stire hem to devocioun. [1; Fragment VI; lines 344-346]<\/p>\n
[\u201cAnd I speak a few words in Latin\/ to season my preaching\/ and to stir [my audience] to devotion\u201d]<\/p>\n
He boasts of being able to use his knowledge of Latin to lend his sales pitch an (arguably undeserved) air of authority and legitimacy, precisely because the language would be unintelligible to most. While his \u201ctheme\u201d which he mentions a few lines earlier \u2014 \u201cRadix malorum est cupiditas\u201d (1; VI; 334) [\u201cthe root of all evils is greed\u2019] \u2014 is indeed a valid biblical quote (1 Timothy 6:10), his use of Latin rather than the vernacular language gives him complete control over the interpretation, as few, presumably, if any, of his audience would also speak Latin.<\/p>\n
While most widely-used languages are used for their ability to reach a wide audience, the ubiquitous use of Latin among the clergy seems more readily attributable to its exclusivity. It was frequently argued, especially during the Reformation by religious dissidents such as Martin Luther and John Wycliffe, that the Catholic Church was able to teach false doctrine without facing scrutiny because so few people spoke Latin. Reformation leaders called for widespread distribution of vernacular translations of the Bible, which Catholic Church leaders had, at various times, refused to allow. The Church, they believed, had exploited the exclusivity of the Latin language for its own agenda, preventing the common person from reading and interpreting Scripture for him or herself. If few outside of the clergy could read Scripture, few could pose a legitimate argument about Scriptural teachings against the established Church.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, as the Pardoner suggests, the use of Latin likely evoked an emotional response of awe and reverence. To non-Latin-speakers, the language (which would most frequently be heard in a religious setting) would probably take on an arcane or mystical quality in the context of religious ritual which the same words spoken in vernacular would be less able to evoke. Referring to the medieval clergy\u2019s use of Latin, Kathryn Rudy writes \u201c[l]inguistic exotica suggest mystery and superhuman provenance, something more elevated than a common, Earth-born origin\u201d(2; p. 12). This effect certainly persists today \u2014 if the magic spells uttered by the characters of J.K. Rowling\u2019s Harry Potter\u00a0<\/em>universe were based on English rather than Latin or Greek, would they sound nearly as cool?\u00a0 While it is probably overly-cynical to cite monopoly over theological interpretation and potentially-manipulative emotional effects as the primary reasons for the Church\u2019s preference for Latin, it seems very likely that these contributed to it to some degree.<\/p>\n
Another example of Latin\u2019s special gravitas occurs in the “Nun\u2019s Priest\u2019s Tale,” when the protagonist, a rooster named Chaunticleer, quotes \u201cMulier est hominis confusio<\/em>(1; Fragment VII; line 3164)\u201d to his wife. The comedy of this is that he later says that the phrase means \u201c\u2018Woman is mannes joye and al his blis\u2019(1; VII; 3166) while a more correct translation of the Latin reads \u201cwoman is man\u2019s confusion.\u201d Again, a character turns to Latin to secure a rhetorical advantage and establish a sense of authority. Chaucer, however, seems to satirize this practice by suggesting that neither party actually understands Latin (or, if Chaunticleer is aware of his mistranslation, that he intentionally uses the Latin phrase to argue something almost opposite to its actual message). Just because something is said in Latin doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s true, Chaucer seems to suggest.<\/p>\n
While vernacular translations of the Bible did become widely available and, with the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church ultimately allowed the saying of Mass in vernacular languages, criticism regarding intentionally-inaccessible language remains prevalent, though now focused on secular authority figures. Namely, the development of increasingly-specific jargon for academic fields has occasionally come under fire for allegedly being intentionally difficult to understand. Often derisively called \u201ctechnobabble,\u201d defined by the Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> as \u201cincomprehensible or pretentious technical jargon (3),\u201d scientific or academic authority figures are criticized for using excessively-difficult or esoteric language for personal gain, often to appear more knowledgeable or to hide their ignorance on a topic. At its extreme, technobabble can easily be almost as incomprehensible as an unfamiliar language, as the below video demonstrates.<\/p>\n