Does Science Need a Global Language?

Does Science Need a Global Language? PDF Author: Scott L. Montgomery
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022601004X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
In early 2012, the global scientific community erupted with news that the elusive Higgs boson had likely been found, providing potent validation for the Standard Model of how the universe works. Scientists from more than one hundred countries contributed to this discovery—proving, beyond any doubt, that a new era in science had arrived, an era of multinationalism and cooperative reach. Globalization, the Internet, and digital technology all play a role in making this new era possible, but something more fundamental is also at work. In all scientific endeavors lies the ancient drive for sharing ideas and knowledge, and now this can be accomplished in a single tongue— English. But is this a good thing? In Does Science Need a Global Language?, Scott L. Montgomery seeks to answer this question by investigating the phenomenon of global English in science, how and why it came about, the forms in which it appears, what advantages and disadvantages it brings, and what its future might be. He also examines the consequences of a global tongue, considering especially emerging and developing nations, where research is still at a relatively early stage and English is not yet firmly established. Throughout the book, he includes important insights from a broad range of perspectives in linguistics, history, education, geopolitics, and more. Each chapter includes striking and revealing anecdotes from the front-line experiences of today’s scientists, some of whom have struggled with the reality of global scientific English. He explores topics such as student mobility, publication trends, world Englishes, language endangerment, and second language learning, among many others. What he uncovers will challenge readers to rethink their assumptions about the direction of contemporary science, as well as its future.

Does Science Need a Global Language?

Does Science Need a Global Language? PDF Author: Scott L. Montgomery
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022601004X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
In early 2012, the global scientific community erupted with news that the elusive Higgs boson had likely been found, providing potent validation for the Standard Model of how the universe works. Scientists from more than one hundred countries contributed to this discovery—proving, beyond any doubt, that a new era in science had arrived, an era of multinationalism and cooperative reach. Globalization, the Internet, and digital technology all play a role in making this new era possible, but something more fundamental is also at work. In all scientific endeavors lies the ancient drive for sharing ideas and knowledge, and now this can be accomplished in a single tongue— English. But is this a good thing? In Does Science Need a Global Language?, Scott L. Montgomery seeks to answer this question by investigating the phenomenon of global English in science, how and why it came about, the forms in which it appears, what advantages and disadvantages it brings, and what its future might be. He also examines the consequences of a global tongue, considering especially emerging and developing nations, where research is still at a relatively early stage and English is not yet firmly established. Throughout the book, he includes important insights from a broad range of perspectives in linguistics, history, education, geopolitics, and more. Each chapter includes striking and revealing anecdotes from the front-line experiences of today’s scientists, some of whom have struggled with the reality of global scientific English. He explores topics such as student mobility, publication trends, world Englishes, language endangerment, and second language learning, among many others. What he uncovers will challenge readers to rethink their assumptions about the direction of contemporary science, as well as its future.

Does Science Need a Global Language?

Does Science Need a Global Language? PDF Author: Scott L. Montgomery
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226535037
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
In early 2012, the global scientific community erupted with news that the elusive Higgs boson had likely been found, providing potent validation for the Standard Model of how the universe works. Scientists from more than one hundred countries contributed to this discovery—proving, beyond any doubt, that a new era in science had arrived, an era of multinationalism and cooperative reach. Globalization, the Internet, and digital technology all play a role in making this new era possible, but something more fundamental is also at work. In all scientific endeavors lies the ancient drive for sharing ideas and knowledge, and now this can be accomplished in a single tongue— English. But is this a good thing? In Does Science Need a Global Language?, Scott L. Montgomery seeks to answer this question by investigating the phenomenon of global English in science, how and why it came about, the forms in which it appears, what advantages and disadvantages it brings, and what its future might be. He also examines the consequences of a global tongue, considering especially emerging and developing nations, where research is still at a relatively early stage and English is not yet firmly established. Throughout the book, he includes important insights from a broad range of perspectives in linguistics, history, education, geopolitics, and more. Each chapter includes striking and revealing anecdotes from the front-line experiences of today’s scientists, some of whom have struggled with the reality of global scientific English. He explores topics such as student mobility, publication trends, world Englishes, language endangerment, and second language learning, among many others. What he uncovers will challenge readers to rethink their assumptions about the direction of contemporary science, as well as its future.

Scientific Babel

Scientific Babel PDF Author: Michael D. Gordin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022600032X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
English is the language of science today. No matter which languages you know, if you want your work seen, studied, and cited, you need to publish in English. But that hasn’t always been the case. Though there was a time when Latin dominated the field, for centuries science has been a polyglot enterprise, conducted in a number of languages whose importance waxed and waned over time—until the rise of English in the twentieth century. So how did we get from there to here? How did French, German, Latin, Russian, and even Esperanto give way to English? And what can we reconstruct of the experience of doing science in the polyglot past? With Scientific Babel, Michael D. Gordin resurrects that lost world, in part through an ingenious mechanism: the pages of his highly readable narrative account teem with footnotes—not offering background information, but presenting quoted material in its original language. The result is stunning: as we read about the rise and fall of languages, driven by politics, war, economics, and institutions, we actually see it happen in the ever-changing web of multilingual examples. The history of science, and of English as its dominant language, comes to life, and brings with it a new understanding not only of the frictions generated by a scientific community that spoke in many often mutually unintelligible voices, but also of the possibilities of the polyglot, and the losses that the dominance of English entails. Few historians of science write as well as Gordin, and Scientific Babel reveals his incredible command of the literature, language, and intellectual essence of science past and present. No reader who takes this linguistic journey with him will be disappointed.

English as a Global Language

English as a Global Language PDF Author: David Crystal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107611806
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

The Dominance of English as a Language of Science

The Dominance of English as a Language of Science PDF Author: Ulrich Ammon
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110869489
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

The Rise of Chinese as a Global Language

The Rise of Chinese as a Global Language PDF Author: Jeffrey Gil
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030761711
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This book investigates the macroacquisition of Chinese – its large-scale acquisition and adoption for various purposes by individuals, governments and organisations – and the implications of this process for the future of English as a global language. The author contextualises the macroacquisition of Chinese within the global ecology of languages, then analyses the factors responsible for the macroacquisition of Chinese, showing, in contrast to most academic and popular commentary, that a character-based writing system will not stop Chinese from becoming a global language. He then articulates three possible future scenarios: English remaining a dominant global language, English and Chinese both being global languages, and Chinese becoming a global language instead of English. The book concludes by outlining directions for further research on the acquisition and use of Chinese around the world. It will be of interest to students and scholars with an interest in English as a global language, Chinese as a second/foreign language, language education policy, and applied linguistics more generally.

The Rise of English

The Rise of English PDF Author: Rosemary C. Salomone
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190625619
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
A sweeping account of the global rise of English and the high-stakes politics of languageSpoken by a quarter of the world's population, English is today's lingua franca- - its common tongue. The language of business, popular media, and international politics, English has become commodified for its economic value and increasingly detached from any particular nation. This meteoric "riseof English" has many obvious benefits to communication. Tourists can travel abroad with greater ease. Political leaders can directly engage their counterparts. Researchers can collaborate with foreign colleagues. Business interests can flourish in the global economy.But the rise of English has very real downsides as well. In Europe, imperatives of political integration and job mobility compete with pride in national language and heritage. In the United States and England, English isolates us from the cultural and economic benefits of speaking other languages.And in countries like India, South Africa, Morocco, and Rwanda, it has stratified society along lines of English proficiency.In The Rise of English, Rosemary Salomone offers a commanding view of the unprecedented spread of English and the far-reaching effects it has on global and local politics, economics, media, education, and business. From the inner workings of the European Union to linguistic battles over influence inAfrica, Salomone draws on a wealth of research to tell the complex story of English - and, ultimately, to argue for English not as a force for domination but as a core component of multilingualism and the transcendence of linguistic and cultural borders.

Words of the World

Words of the World PDF Author: Abram De Swaan
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 074566346X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
This bold and accessible study of human languages and communication explores issues which are at the forefront of today's globalized society. The human species is divided into more than five thousand language groups that do not understand each other. And yet these groups constitute one coherent world language system, connected by multilingual speakers in a surprisingly powerful way. The chances of a language thriving depend on its position in the system. There are thousands of small, peripheral languages, each connected to one of a hundred central languages. The entire system is held together by one global language: English. A language is a ‘hypercollective' good: the more speakers it has, the higher its communication value for each one of them. Thus, when people think that a language is gaining new speakers, that in itself is a reason for them to want to learn it too. That is why, in an age of globalization, only a few languages remain for transnational communication and these often prevail even in national societies. This important book discusses a number of specific constellations in detail: India, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa and the European Union. De Swaan concludes by providing a sober but illuminating view of language policy in multilingual societies. This book will be essential reading for those studying sociology, communication studies and linguistics.

The Social Psychology of English as a Global Language

The Social Psychology of English as a Global Language PDF Author: Robert M. McKenzie
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048185661
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
This ground-breaking work is a detailed account of an innovative and in-depth study of the attitudes of in excess of 500 Japanese learners towards a number of standard and non-standard as well as native and non-native varieties of English speech. The research conducted refines the investigation of learner attitudes by employing a range of pioneering techniques of attitude measurement. These methods are largely incorporated from the strong traditions that exist in the fields of social psychology and second language acquisition and utilize both direct and indirect techniques of attitude measurement. The author locates the findings in the context of the wealth of literature on native speaker evaluations of languages and language varieties. The study is unique in that the results provide clear evidence of both attitude change and high levels of linguistic awareness among the informants of social and geographical diversity within the English language. These findings are analyzed in detail in relation to the global spread of English as well as in terms of the pedagogical implications for the choice of linguistic model employed in English language classrooms both inside and outside Japan. The issues examined are of particular interest to educators, researchers and students in the fields of applied linguistics, TESOL, second language acquisition, social psychology of language and sociolinguistics. The pedagogical and language policy implications of the findings obtained make essential reading for those with a specific focus on the role of the English language and English language teaching, both in Japan and beyond.

The Local Construction of a Global Language

The Local Construction of a Global Language PDF Author: Joseph Sung-Yul Park
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110214075
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
In South Korea, English is a language of utmost importance, sought with an unprecedented zeal as an indispensable commodity in education, business, popular culture, and national policy. This book investigates how the status of English as a hegemonic language in South Korea is constructed through the mediation of language ideologies in local discourse. Adopting the framework of language ideology and its current developments, it is argued that English in Korean society is a subject of deep-rooted ambiguities, with multiple and sometimes conflicting ideologies coexisting within a tension-ridden discursive space. The complex ways in which these ideologies are reproduced, contested, and negotiated through specific metalinguistic practices across diverse sites ultimately contribute to a local realization of the global hegemony of English as an international language. Through its insightful analysis of metalinguistic discourse in language policy debates, cross-linguistic humor, television shows, and face-to-face interaction, The Local Construction of a Global Language makes an original contribution to the study of language and globalization, proposing an innovative analytic approach that bridges the gap between the investigation of large-scale global forces and the study of micro-level discourse practices.