Psittacism and Dead Language

Some of you may be unfamiliar with the word "psittacism"--and the related words, "psittacine," "psittaceous," and "psittacosis." I confess that I did not know them until I encountered one in my reading last summer. The word "psittacism" refers to conduct or behavior resembling that of a parrot; specifically, using language--talking (and I would include writing)--without paying the slightest attention to what you are saying; talking without any understanding, appreciation, or thoughtfulness about meaning; and making no effort to find words that do justice to reality and the truth.

Every month, I read hundreds upon hundreds of pages of literature, materials, and documents in and about education. A great deal of it is psittaceous. The same words appear over and over again in textbook after textbook, book after book, article after article, reform document after reform document, curriculum framework after curriculum framework, consultant report after consultant report--and it is clear that very little thought is being applied to their use.

These outpourings are largely useless, because the language in which they are written is dead. By "dead language," I do not mean ancient languages such as Latin and Attic Greek that, like all other foreign languages, are dead most of all in the minds of people who have never studied them. I mean modern, contemporary language--idioms, jargon, pseudojargon, cliches--words and phrases used repeatedly and without reasoned consideration that are inert; powerless to capture reality; doomed to obscure truth, complexity, and subtlety; and therefore destined to mislead those who take them as substitutes for thinking. Dead language is dangerous because it uses up time that needs desperately to be filled with language that is alive--that conveys and requires thinking, that is laced with meaning that bears genuinely on teaching and learning and on the power to affect...