Research network · since 2005
Language as the Key to Knowledge
An interdisciplinary network investigating how knowledge is put into language in socially relevant domains.
Conference 2026: Reading Between the Lines – The Pragmatics of the Unsaid
23–25 September 2026
About the network
The research network Sprache und Wissen (Language and Knowledge) brings together researchers from Germany and abroad – most of them linguists – who study, from a specifically linguistic perspective, how subject-specific objects and states of affairs are constituted and put into language in a range of socially relevant domains of knowledge.
Knowledge domains
Architecture and the City
How built space is talked about – and how language helps to plan cities.
Education and School
Teaching, education policy and didactics as practices negotiated through language.
History – Politics – Society
History of discourse and mentalities: how the past is negotiated in language.
Computer Science
Artificial intelligence, decision systems and their linguistic preconditions.
Art – Art World – Art History
»Art needs no language, since it presents itself through its works.« The notion that works of art speak for themselves shapes their …
Mathematics
Definition, proof and notation as a distinct form of linguistic rigour.
Medicine and Healthcare
Doctor–patient talk, diagnosis and informed consent – expert knowledge under time pressure.
Nature – Literature – Art
Towards the end of the 18th century, the poet Novalis wrote: »The poet understands nature better than the scientific mind.« How …
Science and Technology
Science communication between expert discourse and the public.
Law
Legal texts, interpretation and judgment: language with immediate legal consequences.
Religion
Religious speech, ritual and the translation of religious experience into language.
Reflection on Language – Language Criticism – Language Ideology
Before the »German language« became a subject of schools and of scholarship (today above all of »German linguistics«), …
Animal – Human – Machine
Boundaries between humans, animals and machines – seen from a linguistic perspective.
Economy – Management and Organisation
The subject of this domain is (linguistic) communication in institutions and organisations within the economy as a sphere of action, knowledge and socialisation. In addition …
The pages on the individual knowledge domains are currently available in German only.
