Fluency with prevailing speech patterns is mistaken for genuine knowledge and relevance

Evidence

In the process, linguistic ‘[s]hoddiness that drifts with the flow of familiar speech is taken as a sign of relevance and contact: people know what they want because they know what other people want. Regard for the object, rather than for communication, is suspect’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 996

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: ‘Regard for the Object Is Suspect’ — how communicative smoothness displaces substantive engagement in contemporary discourse.
• XREF: connects to: Mastering technical vocabulary does not overcome official disregard; Language fluency shapes what an ethnographer can actually learn overseas — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1181