"German scientists and scholars are increasingly publishing their work in English, and ever more frequently, scientific symposia and conferences held in Germany, too, are in English. Some scientists now assume that English will eventually prevail as the lingua franca of European"
"Obviously the linguistic differences between German and English are due to a fundamentally different understanding of science: The language of science is embedded in an understanding of what is a good scientific argument and it also has a major impact on the theory-construction process.”
Since each language allows a different perspective on reality and offers individual patterns of argumentation, it amounts to intellectual impoverishment when teaching and research are limited to English”.
That means; "European languages should not be be allowed to lose their significance in scientific research and teaching"
Source: www.goethe.de (Winfried Thielmann , "Deutsche und englische Wissenschaftssprache im Vergleich. Hinführen – Verknüpfen – Benennen" (Synchron Wissenschaftsverlag der Autoren, 2009)
http://www.goethe.de/lhr/prj/diw/dos/en8201485.htm
Michael - a good question and one that has been asked in several forms before. Whether it is a good or a bad thing to have a predominant international language will always raise a lot of debate. From a research and science perspective, the downside is that many knowledge breakthroughs and findings are often restricted to a limited national audience - where those scientists and researchers are unable, for a variety of reasons, to disseminate their findings to a wider international audience in English. On the other hand, English is often the 'default' language of commerce, economics, policy, journals, conferences etc. It is perhaps only natural that those forums want their messages to reach as wide an audience as possible - for maximum impact. Some have argued, mostly from a wider more recent internationalisation and population number basis, that Chinese could become the future predominant language of commerce and research etc. In the meantime, with the strong economic influence of countries such as the US and the UK, as well as where I am currently based (Australasia) - then the 'trend' looks set to stay for some time yet.
Dear Dean, dear George,...
Many thanks for your comments........
there is an other aspect of my questions,...... you find it at the link I attached in the question. I insert the main topic in the question above to make it clearer:
"Obviously the linguistic differences between German and English are due to a fundamentally different understanding of science: The language of science is embedded in an understanding of what is a good scientific argument and it also has a major impact on the theory-construction process.”
Since each language allows a different perspective on reality and offers individual patterns of argumentation, it amounts to intellectual impoverishment when teaching and research are limited to English (Winfried Thielmann, 2009) ."
That means in narrow Interpretation... "We have to take care not to follow the trend"
With best regards
Michael
Dear Dean, dear George,...
Many thanks for your comments........
there is an other aspect of my questions,...... you find it at the link I attached in the question. I insert the main topic in the question above to make it clearer and modified the question itself.
"Obviously the linguistic differences between German and English are due to a fundamentally different understanding of science: The language of science is embedded in an understanding of what is a good scientific argument and it also has a major impact on the theory-construction process.”
Since each language allows a different perspective on reality and offers individual patterns of argumentation, it amounts to intellectual impoverishment when teaching and research are limited to English (Winfried Thielmann, 2009) ."
That means in narrow Interpretation... "We have to take care not to follow the trend"
With best regards
Michael
True enough Michael - especially, from my personal perspective, in relation to the 'philosophy' of science. Part of my research expertise lies with qualitative philosophy. Let's take just some of the classic German existentialists etc - Habermas, Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger. How much interpretation is 'lost or added' in translation. It isn't just a German/English thing either. What of the same with regard to Foucault, Sartre, Comte etc. Part of my PhD was discourse analysis based on Jacques Derrida's deconstructionism (amongst other things). I read a number of different interpretations of the same original texts of his - and all had a different spin on things!!
Yes George - fully agree. Shall we say the 'harder' sciences perhaps do not suffer the same dilemmas as the ones that I have highlighted with social and humanities-based sciences - to varying degrees; as I wouldn't want to over-generalise. Michael did mention 'linguistics' in his original question. I wonder if the 'bottom-line' is that, where the sciences that lean more towards 'words and narrative', there might be more difference of understanding. In my perhaps naïve view of things - numbers are numbers; however, the concepts still have to be discussed, explained and explored.
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