SOCIOLINGUISTIC IMPLICATIONS OF ACADEMIC WRITING

The language of academic journals tends to become so technical that only specialists are able to understand the unnecessarily complex features of vocabulary, syntax, discourse, and format. This seems particularly unfortunate at a time when the results of present-day scholarship in linguistic and cultural anthropology need to be as widely accessible as possible. An examination of problems in two articles in Language and one in the American Anthropologist points out the nature of the difficulties and some of the solutions.