Each communicative style has its own vocabulary/ jargon.

Like a secret “insider” language, jargon is a terminology only understood by people in a certain group. Most
words in the English language are a part of common, everyday speech, understood by almost anyone who
speaks it. However, jargon is like a type of shorthand between members of a particular group of people, often
involving words that are meaningless outside of a certain context.

There are many examples of jargon in the workplace. Whether it is the typical colloquial language that is
heard in a café or the stuff that you might say or hear in a cubicle or around a water cooler in the office,
workplace jargon is very common. Jargon can be for casual or conversational speech style. It can also be in
the formal speech style if it is used in the professional field.

Different types of Jargons

Professional
Language that is specific to a profession. For example, project managers use the term full- time equivalent to
measure the labor required by a project.
Industry
Terms used by an industry such as the use of rack rate in the travel industry to refer to the regular price of a room
before discounts. It is typically understood that it is rare for anyone to actually pay the rack rate.
Business
Business jargons are terms that are used across multiple industries and professions. For example, management,
busswords such as best practice.
Technical
Vocabulary that emerges around technology including words to describe the design, operations, maintenance and
the use of technology. This is an extremely broad category of jargon as areas such as networking, operating
systems, infrastructures, databases, software development, artificial intelligence, robotics, user interface
design and information security have their own rich vocabularies that are familiar to many IT professionals.
Beyond this, there is also jargon that is specific to proprietary technologies that can be extremely obscure.
Acronyms
A common feature of jargon is the use of acronyms. This is often done to make communication more efficient,
particularly for long phrases that are frequently used. However, it is common for people to find acronyms dull
and irritating, even if they understand them.
Examples: LASER, SCUBA, BRB (be right back), IDK (I don’t know) etc.
Codes
In some cases, jargon includes non- language element such as numerical codes. For example, a police force may
use numerical codes to identify situations and instructions to the headquarters to policemen.
Organizational
Firms often develop their own language to describe things such as systems, applications, processes, products,
services, locations and strategies. In some cases, a long- term employee assumes that organizational terms
are industry terms.
Teams
It is possible for extended vocabularies to emerge in a single team that is unfamiliar to their organization or anyone
else. For example, a software development team may develop a language to describe their APIs and systems.
Learning this language becomes a means of gaining acceptance into the team as part of the team culture.
Culture
Language is an element of culture that is also generated by culture at the level of society, traditional culture,
subculture, and super culture. For example, a music subculture may develop its own vocabulary to describe
musical genres, styles, and events.
Sports
Each sport has its own vocabulary to describe everything from equipment to strategy.
Basketball- assist, dribble, pass, three- point shot, offense, defense, dunk, etc.
Volleyball- spike, serve, ace, free ball, touch ball, etc.
Medical
Medicine is an extremely board and complex domain that has its own language that is understood by researchers,
doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. This is often unfamiliar to patients who may require
explanations in plain language.
Example
1. Alopecia: The technical term for hair loss. Alopecia often occurs as a result of chemotherapy.
2. Anemia: A condition where there is insufficient red blood cells in the body. It can cause tiredness
and fatigue.
Legalese
Legal documents and communications demand precision and consistency, completeness and soundness that
require a unique vocabulary, syntax and semantics. (examples of these are contracts, will, usually makes
use of the law)
Academic
Sciences and other academic fields typically have a distinct vocabulary that is used to capture broad abstract
concepts and fine details that are specific to a domain.