Overview

• Introduction and scope of the report: Internationalisation needs a way of communication. Therefore a common language is necessary for technology transfer. Especially for developing countries it seems to be necessary to adopt certain language skills to understand technological manuals on the other hand they have to preserve a cultural heritage. The report focusses on the impact and the means of technology transfer
• Chapter One: ``General situation of development and change of specialized existing languages and their vocabulary''
  • Communicative needs and language change: Historic language change is not fast enough to match the problems of todays communicative needs
  • The development of the languages of science and technology: ``Languages of science and technology develop in direct response to socio-economic change and therefore reflect the intellectual and socio-economic development of a speech community.''
  • The form of the special lexicon: For a systematical ordering of technical terms a minimum of knowledge has to be accumulated, otherwise due to different background of researchers will be inconsistent. Therefore language developments will consist of constant change until this level is reached.
    • Motivation for designation:
  • Modes of naming new concepts
    • The use of existing resources: To name a different aspect of an experience existing expressions are taken: similes, metaphors
    • Modification of existing resources: derivation and compounding of sources
    • The use of new resources: Neologisms by combination of existing words with Greek or Latin word elements, usage of Latin or Greek stems, Blending, eponyms, absolute invention
• Chapter Two: ``Examines the question with reference to the situation of developing countries. It discusses the situation created by the lingua francas of scientific communication and their impact on the development of science and the language of technology, and describes current international and supranational efforts of assisting in the transfer of terminology.''
  • Language change in developing countries: Third world countries do not consist of a uniform language area, most of them have different languages. On the other hand language communities are often divided by political borders.
  • The role of international lingua francas: only about 60 languages are used for scientific publications. Especially English is a widely spread lingua franca, maybe in connection with some French.
  • Different approaches to science and technology transfer:``Terminology transfer between languages is dependent upon conceptual transfer having taken place'' The consequence is that only people understanding both languages can use them and translation may be the result. The other way is that one can teach the concepts in a different language and learns to use them. In university a dual way is to be observed, but otherwise in developing countries the other concept is more likely.
  • International efforts of assistance with terminology transfer: Different perspectives on terminology-transfer result in different approaches.
• Chapter Three: Problems in terminology transfer, types of linguistic environment in developing countries, language planning and language education policies, establishing technical terms from other languages
  • Categories of linguistic communities: Several kinds of countries can be distinguished: monolingual countries, multilingual countries and countries trying to establish a common language (e.g. Kiswahili)
  • Socio-economic conditions for terminology transfer: A broad language basis has to be built to break ground for a systematic terminology.
  • Attitudes to foreign terminology assimilation: ``Attitudes towards naming concepts new to a language community can be broadly divided into purist and permissive and on the whole mirror existing attitudes to any foreign language influence with two possible variants.'' Results are:
    • Borrowing
    • Loan-words
    • Loan translation
    • Internationalisms
• Chapter Four: Technical language in society
  • New demands on terminology: Internationalization results in the necessity for a more heterogeneous user group for access to terminology. Therefore it needs to be very systematic.
  • Popular scientific communication requirements: An `intermediate' language might systematically developed between special and general language but both are not necessarily distinguishable.
  • Outlook:
• Bibliography
• Appendix I: Workplan that lead to the study
• Appendix II: A report on the use of on-line services