Beyond keywords and neologisms: learning from 'scale'

Keywords play a prominent role in social discourse. Since Raymond Williams’ formative contributions, cultural studies scholars have studied and, at times, sought to actively shape their meanings. In addition, close attention has been paid to various prominent neologisms, such as ‘post-truth’ and ‘the Anthropocene’. This article makes the case for attending to notable words of a third kind. Neither present-day keywords nor prominent neologisms, these terms can nonetheless exert significant semantic power as social circumstances change. For instance, in Anglophone political debates, consider how the word ‘oligarchy’ has achieved a new and potent salience since around 2015. However, the semantic ‘journey’ of words like this can vary considerably, for example, the speed and particular causes of them taking on renewed significance. Attending to this variety can allow cultural study scholars and others to make conscious strategic interventions intended, on ethico-political grounds, to shape the social discourses they study. To illustrate, the article examines an old and seemingly ordinary word, namely ‘scale’. Scale may seem far too dry or technical to play a key role in present-day social discourse. I argue otherwise. Major shifts in our shared reality are today giving scale a heightened relevance. This suggests there’s potential for the word to perform increasingly important semantic work in the 2020s and beyond. The article resolves and itemises the venerable meanings of scale before suggesting why and how this ensemble sheds useful light on our troubled world. The example of global environmental change is used to illustrate the argument. Scale, I suggest, may become a ‘minor keyword’ or ‘semantic sinew’ of considerable significance as, or if, broader awareness of its helpful polysemy grows. Cultural studies scholars can contribute to this process as part of a wider ‘scalar turn’ emerging in the Anglophone social sciences and humanities. More broadly, by attending closely to the ‘career’ of ordinary words like scale, they can continue to shape public discourse in self-consciously normative ways, as they have done with critiques of neoliberalism. Keywords and prominent neologisms matter, but other important terms both reflect and shape the major contours of social reality. Aside from scale, we might ask what other existing terms contain large semantic potential that may be better actualised.