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1) 'Here are three quite ordinary sentences, sentences which would not seem out of place in a politician's speech, a consultant's report or a daily newspaper. Sentence one: "Progress in educational planning will depend on a restructured process of communication."'
2) 'Sentence two: "Current models of development are not addressing pressing information needs."
Sentence three: "Social adjustment depends on a secure sexual identity."'
Quotes from #plasticwords audio presentation, written and presented by David Cayley https://www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/2017/2/18/plastic-words
Sentence three: "Social adjustment depends on a secure sexual identity."'
Quotes from #plasticwords audio presentation, written and presented by David Cayley https://www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/2017/2/18/plastic-words
3) 'Each of these seemingly innocent &unremarkable utterances is composed of what German scholar Uwe Pörksen calls "plastic words." Information, communication,structure,identity, process,model, development,& needs are all examples of this modern &increasingly international code.'
4) 'Uwe Pörksen is a linguist, a medievalist, a novelist, and a professor at the old University of Freiburg in southwestern Germany. In 1988, he published a book called Plastikwörter: Die Sprache einer Internationalen Diktatur ..' ..
5) ..'—Plastic Words: The Language of an International Dictatorship. Plastic words, according to Professor Pörksen, are words of colloquial origin which have been taken up by some branch of science or expert knowledge and then returned to everyday speech, with new connotations.'
6) 'Information, for example, is an old English word. Not more than fifty years ago it began to be used as a term in communication theory, where it signifies that property of a signal or message which can be distinguished from noise and measured in bits.'
7) 'In ordinary speech, it now has a scientific aura, without denoting anything precise.
In a similar way, words like 'structure' and 'role' have made a round trip from the vernacular into sociology and back. 'Sexuality' and 'identity' have journeyed through psychoanalysis, ..'..
In a similar way, words like 'structure' and 'role' have made a round trip from the vernacular into sociology and back. 'Sexuality' and 'identity' have journeyed through psychoanalysis, ..'..
8) ..'and 'development' through biology. These words then spread into every corner of the language, displacing synonyms, overshadowing more homely terms, and seducing speakers with their shimmer of scientific prestige.'
9) 'When people use these words, Pörksen says, they unwittingly turn themselves into clients of those who actually know what the words mean and, at the same time, their own power to say what they mean is reduced.'
Quotes from https://www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/2017/2/18/plastic-words
Quotes from https://www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/2017/2/18/plastic-words
10) 'In 1875, in a book called Untimely Meditations, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a short passage about what he called "the madness of general concepts." This passage anticipates at least the outline of Uwe Pörksen's theory of plastic words &,in his book, Pörksen quotes it in full.'
11) '"Everywhere," Nietzsche says, "language has fallen ill." He believes this sickness to be a consequence of the overweening ambition of modern science, using that term in its broad sense. "In order to grasp the domains of thought," Nietzsche says, language has ..' ..
12) ..'been forced "to climb to the highest level it could reach" and, in this ambitious reach for an increased power of generalization and abstraction, it has suffered a proportional loss in vividness, concreteness, and direct correspondence with our experience.'
13) '"In the short space of contemporary civilization," he says, "the strength of language has been exhausted by this excessive effort," with the result that language can no longer express the simple joys and sorrows of suffering people.'
14) '"Language," he goes on, "has everywhere become a power unto itself, which now grabs the people with ghostly arms and forces them into places where they don't even want to go. As soon as they try to understand one another and come to some agreement, they are seized..' ..
15) ..'by the madness of general concepts." "Man is no longer recognizable in language," he concludes, because language no longer corresponds to his "actual troubles," but only to "the hollowness of those tyrannical words and concepts."'
16) 'This passage stands alone in the essay in which it appears, a brief sketch without further elaboration; but, like so much of Nietzsche, it is strangely clairvoyant. What he had to strain to see—he speaks of a condition "only dimly intuited"—we would now have to strain..' ..
17) ..'to overlook—a murky, inept, and refractory language.
Uwe Pörksen tries to analyze this condition with his concept of 'plastic words.' Plastic words embody the ambition Nietzsche speaks of, to climb to the highest level of abstraction.'
Uwe Pörksen tries to analyze this condition with his concept of 'plastic words.' Plastic words embody the ambition Nietzsche speaks of, to climb to the highest level of abstraction.'
18) 'The term 'development', for example, when applied to whole societies, refers to a process of total transformation without limit; there is nothing that cannot be developed, and nothing, consequently, which is not development.'
19) 'Such words, Pörksen believes, spread like an oil slick, covering the whole field of their application with a thin film of connotations, and the more they spread the more diffuse their meaning becomes.'
20) 'Plastic words, Pörksen says, are without form, taste, or texture; they evoke no particular place, no particular history. Like the substance for which they are named, they are both malleable and inert. And they have two great effects.'
21) 'The first is that they turn society into a laboratory, by mandating a state of permanent change and authorizing the hegemony of the experts and professionals who will direct this change. Words like 'role', 'model', 'factor' and 'trend', all on Pörksen's list, ..' ..
22) ..'are like molds in which society and persons are again and again reshaped, taking on new 'roles', adopting new 'models', following new 'trends'.
The second great effect is that they overshadow ordinary intercourse and the ordinary words on which it depends.'
The second great effect is that they overshadow ordinary intercourse and the ordinary words on which it depends.'
23) 'Beside these imperious and universal constructs, simply to live, or simply to speak, without any intention of altering or improving what one speaks about, seems paltry and perhaps a little irresponsible—shouldn't we after all be "communicating," ..' ..
24) ..'getting to grips with our "sexuality," assessing our "needs," adapting to current "trends," or whatever it may be?
I've been fascinated by Uwe Pörksen's theory of plastic words since I first heard of it. I've read his book in an unpublished translation, ..' ..
I've been fascinated by Uwe Pörksen's theory of plastic words since I first heard of it. I've read his book in an unpublished translation, ..' ..
25) ..'and his approach seems to me much more helpful and more analytically pointed than what is usually called "language criticism" and often amounts to little more than hectoring people about their careless disregard for the grammatical rules and syntactical niceties..' ..
26) ..'cherished by the critics.
Recently, I met with Uwe Pörksen at the home of historian Barbara Duden in the northern German city of Bremen. There we recorded the interview from which this program is taken.'
Recently, I met with Uwe Pörksen at the home of historian Barbara Duden in the northern German city of Bremen. There we recorded the interview from which this program is taken.'
