Linguistic practices and representations of Argentinian scientists

LUCÍA CÉSPEDES

Toronto

Conferencia; 4S Annual Meeting 2021 Good Relations: Practices and Methods in Unequal and Uncertain Worlds; 2021

Society for the Social Studies of Science

The influence and role of languages and language use in an increasingly internationalized scientific field has been a matter of interdisciplinary debate over the last decades. While the issue and its many ramifications have been amply studied in settings such as multilingual higher education and research institutions in the USA, Europe, or Asia, Latin America is still underrepresented in the literature. Therefore, in this presentation we show the results of a survey on linguistic practices and representations conducted in four National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) units located in Córdoba, Argentina. While the survey analyzed 14 interrelated variables such as accumulation of linguistic capital, internationalization of trajectories, and strategies for multilingual reading and writing, among others, we will focus on the lived experiences and perceptions of agents towards the current conditions of the scientific linguistic market. A series of exploratory interviews with a sample of the surveyed population, conducted previous to the application of the questionnaire, are also part of the analytical corpus. Comparisons and contrasts are established across disciplines (Astronomy, Biomedical sciences, Law, and Humanities) and stages in the informants? academic trajectories (doctoral students, postdocs, and full-time researchers).