¿Castellano, português, English? The languages of sciences in the Latin American scientific field

CÉSPEDES, LUCÍA

Brighton

Otro; 27th SPRU PhD Forum; 2021

University of Sussex

Current conditions of production, circulation, and appropriation of scientific knowledge correspond quite closely to what Salager-Meyer sees as an "increasingly multipolar scientific world in which the distribution of scientific activity is concentrted in a number of interconnected and widely dispersed hubs" (2014, p.78), albeit entangled in unequal power relations. This configures a spectrum of interactions where the linguistic aspect becomes crucial. However, there is more to linguistic struggles than mere language choice. In this aspect, as in many others, the Latin Americn scientific field is marked by a permanent tension between autonomy and heteronomy derived from its subordinate situation in the World Scientific System and the world-system in general (Beigel, 2014). In my PhD thesis I set out to study the presence, distribution, and value attributed to different languages used for peer communication within the Latin American scientific field, particularly, in Argentina and Brazil, understanding language as a dimension transversal to the inner logics of the field, which has a direct impact on the practices and perceptions of the agents who integrate it. I consider my thesis project as a contribution to the further development of a sociolinguistic perspective of sciences, in order to deepen our comprehension about current processes of integration or exclusion of non-central, non-Anglophone voices in the scientific world concert.