Corporate jargon, variously known as corporate speak, corporate lingo, business speak, business jargon, management speak, workplace jargon, corporatese or commercialese, is the

jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...

often used in large

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...

bureaucracies The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...

, and similar workplaces."corporate argot" i
The Jargon Jumble: Kids Have 'Skeds,' Colleagues, 'Needs'
''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', 24 October 2006 The tone is associated with managers of large corporations, business management consultants, and occasionally government. Reference to such jargon is typically derogatory, implying the use of long, complicated, or obscure words, abbreviations, euphemisms, and acronyms. For that reason some of its forms may be considered as an

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...

. Some of these words may be actually new inventions, designed purely to fit the specialized meaning of a situation or even to " spin" negative situations as positive situations, for example, in the practice of

greenwashing Greenwashing (a compound word modeled on " whitewash"), also called "green sheen", is a form of advertising or marketing spin in which green PR and green marketing are deceptively used to persuade the public that an organization's products, aim ...

. Although it is pervasive in the education field, its use has been criticized as reflecting a sinister view of students as commodities and schools as retail outlets. The use of corporate jargon is criticised for its lack of clarity as well as for its tedium, making meaning and intention opaque and understanding difficult. It is also criticized for not only enabling delusional thoughts, but allowing them to be seen as an asset in the workplace. Marketing speak is a related label for wording styles used to promote a product or service to a wide audience by seeking to create the impression that the vendors of the service possess a high level of sophistication, skill, and technical knowledge. Such language is often used in

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

press releases A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public release. Press releases are also considere ...

, advertising copies, and prepared statements read by executives and politicians.

Examples

Many terms have straightforward meanings in other contexts (e.g., leverage in physics, picked up with a well-defined meaning in finance), but are used more loosely in business speak. For example, ''

deliverable A deliverable is a tangible or intangible good or service produced as a result of a project that is intended to be delivered to a customer (either internal or external). A deliverable could be a report, a document, a software product, a server upgr ...

'' is used to refer to anything that has to be done by a certain date to be verified by another party. The phrases ''going forward'' or ''moving forward'' make a confident gesture towards the future, but are generally vague on timing, which usually means it can be removed from a sentence with little or no effect on its overall meaning. Legal terms such as "

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...

" can be used: for example, Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code is about US bankruptcy. Corporate speak in non-English-speaking countries frequently contains borrowed English acronyms, words, and usages., see page 99

References

External links

Business Terms and Business Jargon explained

Corporate gibberish generator

Corporatepoems.com
Corporate language rating
Business Buzzword Generator

Example of a generator of random plausible business-speak sentences

Jargon Grader Database of over 700 corporate jargon terms

Business English dictionary for corporate jargon
Corporate jargon, Business terms Dialects of English

Examples

See also

References

Further reading

External links