Manuel Célio Conceição

ABSTRACT

Communication of science is one of the major issues of our daily life. During times of post-truth, of massification of information, of social networks and with an apparent uncontrolled circulation of knowledge, specific research is needed in language diversity and language use in order to communicate and to contribute to real societal impact of science. In recent times, in higher education context an international language, a “lingua franca”, has been imposed, reducing diversity and claiming that what is thought, expressed and communicated in other languages seems to be less valued. Monolingualism for internationalization, and for excellence is becoming an old perspective. Considering that science must have impact at different levels of the society, its communication must reach different receptors and it will not occur without language diversity. We will present some results of our research about the conceptualization, languages and multilingualism to communicate knowledge and to help people in different contexts to acquire/ to use this knowledge. Mainly using examples collected from different languages about pandemic terminology, our aim is to evaluate the impact of chosen languages and language varieties and communication procedures in the access to knowledge and in the creation of fear or trust in society. Our reflection and analysis will allow us to show evidence of the relevance of research in this interface between languages and knowledge, enhancing the need of language diversity for the sustainability of science communication.

Keywords

language diversity; science communication; societal impact; awareness of needed diversity

References

1. Conceição, M. C. (2020). Higher Education Language policies: global trends and local needs, in Pieters, D. and T. Keersmaekers (Eds.), Internationalisation of Universities and the National Language (pp. 45–59), ISBN 978-3-631-81686-8. Peter Lang.

2. Conceição, M. C. (2020). Language policies and internationalisation of Higher Education, in European Journal of Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2020.1778500