Technical terminology

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Technical terminology is the specialized vocabulary of a profession or of some other activity to which a group of people dedicate significant parts of their lives (for instance, hobbies or a particular segment of industry). Sometimes technical terminology is termed jargon or, particularly in law, terms of art or words of art.

An Industry term is a type of technical terminology that has a particular meaning within a specific industry. Whereas the word is somewhat pejorative, the phrase industry term implies that a word or phrase is a typical one within a particular industry or business and people within the industry or business will be familiar with and use the term.

Technical terminology exists in a continuum of formality. Precise technical terms and their definitions are formally recognised, documented, and taught by educators in the field. Other terms are more colloquial, coined and used by practitioners in the field, and are similar to slang. The boundaries between formal and slang jargon, as in general English, are quite fluid, with terms sliding in and out of recognition. This is especially true in the rapidly developing world of computers and networking. For instance, the term firewall, meaning a computer or network device used to filter network traffic, was coined as technical slang. As these devices became more important and the term became widely understood, the word was adopted as formal terminology.

Technical terminology evolves due to the need for experts in a field to communicate with precision and brevity, but often has the (usually) undesired effect of excluding those who are unfamiliar with the particular specialized language of the group. This can cause difficulties as, for example, when a patient is unable to follow the discussions of medical practitioners, and thus cannot understand his own condition and treatment. Differences in jargon also cause difficulties where professionals in related fields use different terms for the same phenomena. For instance, substantial amounts of duplicated research occur in cognitive psychology and human-computer interaction partly because of such difficulties.

The term jargon can, and often does, have pejorative connotations, particularly when aimed at "business culture". The marketing and public relations industries are particularly relevant here, and have made substantial contributions to the ever expanding lexicon of jargon that permeates the global business environment.