Linguistic influences on professional communication and recognition: A study of chemists and engineers in two Quebec universities
✍ Scribed by Thomas Eisemon; Yakov Rabkin
- Publisher
- Springer
- Year
- 1980
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 893 KB
- Volume
- 9
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0018-1560
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Linguistic influences on networks of professional communication and recognition among engineers at two Quebec universities were examined. It was hypothesized that chemists and engineers affiliated with the French medium University of Montreal and the Ecole Polytechnique would be less active in research and more likely to obtain scientific recognition locally and to feel professionally unrecognized outside Quebec compared to their colleagues at McGiU University. The findings suggest that the localizing effects of using a medium of scientific training which is not the predominant language of international scientific communication and recognition (French) are ambiguous. Although chemists and engineers at the French medium institutions were less active researchers, their language of professional communication with other scientific communities was English and there was little sense of isolation.
Overview
This paper considers the influence of language of work on professional communication and recognition among academic chemists and engineers in Quebec universities. More specifically, we will test the proposition that the use of one language for scientific training and another for professional communication and recognition serves to shrink the reference boundaries of scientists and engineers. The selection of the local language as the medium of scientific training in peripheral scientific communities is often a first step toward the development of a local infrastructure for scientific work that This research has been supported by grants from the Canadian Council and the Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal. The authors also wish to thank Miss Madeleine Palmer, Miss Daniella Quiniou and Miss Rosalba Casas for their help in data collection for this paper.