Since all socially relevant specialist knowledge has to be put into language in order to be communicated, the research network pays particular attention to language as the medium through which specialist knowledge is constituted. This makes it possible to analyse and elucidate, from a linguistic point of view, problems of specialised and professional communication as well as of »published« and public communication about specialist knowledge.
The research network aims to identify communicative difficulties at an early stage – already in the constitution of specialist objects and knowledge-specific states of affairs in specialist texts and discourses – before the publication of specialist knowledge (as a »published« representation in the public sphere) can be investigated with regard to the specifically linguistic aspects of its mediation. The underlying assumption is that knowledge in all domains is constituted, among other things, through language, and that problems of mediation should therefore be addressed through cooperation between subject experts and linguists.
For this reason, the research network primarily brings together linguists who each combine a specific professional and linguistic interest in one particular domain of knowledge. For subject-specific support, they form tandems with experts from the respective field.
By establishing an interdisciplinary research network under linguistic leadership and by institutionally linking scholarly expertise, the network also lays the groundwork for applications for third-party funding.
Preliminary remarks on the project idea
Disputes of relevance to society as a whole are often conducted within the individual domains of knowledge before they become known to the so-called public (that is, before opinions are published). The debates taking place there can be traced with methods of discourse description developed in linguistics, among other disciplines. When these debates enter public discourse and are continued in national media, the experts familiar with the subject matter are usually surprised at how differently their subject is constituted there.
This phenomenon can be partly explained by the distinction – familiar from media studies – between actuality (Wirklichkeit) and reality (Realität) (Schmidt 1996). Actuality denotes the world as it can be experienced and grasped with our own senses; reality denotes the scenario of that world as depicted – and thus necessarily shaped – by the media. Against the background of this distinction, we as citizens of the so-called information age are to a considerable extent confronted with »reality«, that is, with products that purport to show »actuality«. When we take in socio-politically relevant events, we are therefore dealing with shaped material in linguistic form that has transformed »actuality« into »reality«. Linguistic and visual signs and sign sequences in the mass media are thus a perspectivised section of the world, serving the interest-driven constitution of reality within a spectrum of different actualities.
Theses on the project idea and the research network
The following theses illustrate the aims and the context:
The pre-scientific and intuitive basic assumption that the media report on events is too simplistic and cannot be upheld in this form. As media recipients, we have seen this assumption shaken many times, yet it persists as a stereotypical attitude of perception. The problem with this assumption is that the »actualities« constituted in processes of verbalisation are accepted as given in their outcome. This goes hand in hand with the presupposition that the media merely wish to depict or explain what is already ontically given. The process of verbalisation as such – a central process in (not) understanding – is not problematised, either from a semiotic or from any other perspective. Such a purely instrumental (not to say mechanistic) view additionally implies a naive, picture-theoretical one-to-one relationship between linguistic expression and ontological entity (the assumption of an ontological-essentialist constitution of the world and its objects).
By contrast, S. J. Schmidt, too, regards the meaning of media offerings (e.g. texts) not as ontological entities but as something that results from socio-culturally oriented cognitive operations with media offerings in concrete contexts. Signs and sign sequences instruct cognition and communication, but they do not direct them. The »facts« or states of affairs created by declarative speech acts in institutional media communication are characterised by the fact that a certain status is imposed on different ontological categories of phenomena – such as people, events, actions, mental activities, things and objects – which are thereby declared to be matters of relevance to society as a whole. To perform such declarative speech acts, the person performing them must have the authority and the corresponding position within the systematic relations of institutions.
The widespread constructivist thesis that the media construct media reality out of originally experienced actuality ignores the fact that mass-media reality can also be constituted without any counterpart in actuality.
The media often first establish the scientific state of affairs as a social one, thus creating a state of affairs of its own kind that would not exist without institutional media communication. Such »media realities« without a »counterpart in actuality« in the domains of knowledge are the reason for the astonishment or unease of the experts involved. Many experts perceive these text transformations (i.e. the changes that occur when specialist texts are turned into texts for a wider audience) as »distortions« and attribute them to deficient (»disturbed«) communication.
Consequences for the structure and organisation of the network
In order to make the »distortions of information« just mentioned more transparent along the path of text transformation, both discourse experts and subject experts from the respective domain of knowledge are ideally required. Linguistic criticism of the numerous approaches to knowledge transfer emphasises that the problem cannot be tackled by focusing on the texts of mediation alone, but only by tracing the subject-specific (linguistic) conditions of constitution in the respective field and domain of knowledge as an antecedent backdrop of perception and »actuality«. Without knowledge of the typical speech acts of specialist language and specialist communication through which specialist objects are constituted (as distinct from the everyday constitution of matters of life), successful mediation is impossible.
Structure of the research network: domains of knowledge, project leadership, cooperation partners
The consequences of this insight apply in a similar way to all domains of knowledge. For this reason, the tasks within the domains can only be dealt with adequately if subject experts from the respective domains work together with linguists or discourse analysts who are also well versed in the subject. Together, the linguistic project leaders and the cooperation partners form a tandem of experts in both subject matter and specialist communication.
The following domains of knowledge are currently represented:
- Architecture and the City — Ingo H. Warnke
- Education and School — Jörg Kilian, Dina Lüttenberg, Tobias Heinz, Birgit Brouer, Sandra Nitz
- Reflection on Language – Language Criticism – Language Ideology — Gerd Antos, Jochen A. Bär, Jürgen Spitzmüller
- History – Politics – Society — Martin Wengeler, Kersten Roth, Alexander Ziem, Edgar Wolfrum
- Art – Art World – Art History — Andreas Gardt, Marcus Müller, Heiko Hausendorf
- Mathematics — Vasco Alexander Schmidt, Helmut Neunzert
- Medicine and Healthcare — Thomas Spranz-Fogasy, Albert Busch, Klaus-Peter Konerding
- Nature – Literature – Culture — Berbeli Wanning, Axel Goodbody
- Science and Technology — Nina Janich, Thomas Metten, Armin Grunwald, Nico Blühtgen
- Law — Ekkehard Felder, Markus Nussbaumer, Stefan Höfler, Friedrich Müller, Ralph Christensen
- Religion — Alexander Lasch, Wolf-Andreas Liebert, Wilfried Härle
- Animal – Human – Machine — Pamela Steen, Bastian Dewenter, Heike Rettig
- Economy, Management and Organisation — Stephan Habscheid, Markus Hundt, Andreas P. Müller
The research network can be expanded at any time.
Conclusion and tasks of the network
At the centre of the network’s field of activity is the following research desideratum: difficulties in specialised and professional communication as well as in »published« and public communication about specialist knowledge are to be analysed from a linguistic perspective. The investigation does not begin with the texts of mediation themselves, but with the respective specialist texts of the specialist discourse. Unlike other approaches, specialist knowledge constituted in the so-called public sphere is consistently examined with regard to the role that the medium of language plays in the constitution of specialist states of affairs. The underlying assumption is that knowledge in all domains is constituted, among other things, through language, and should therefore be dealt with through cooperation between subject experts and linguists. This tandem of linguistic project leadership and subject-specific cooperation partners is best placed to accompany text transformations – the changes that occur when specialist texts are turned into texts for a wider audience – with a critical eye.
The following three-part set of questions could be useful when working on any of the domains:
- Which contested issues within the respective domain of knowledge are of relevance to society as a whole or attract public interest?
- How can the current state of research on the specialist language be characterised?
- What are the consequences for specialised and professional communication as well as for »published« and public communication about specialist knowledge?
The project leaders attempt to provide initial answers to these three questions and structure their respective domains according to the specific discursive conditions.
This page is an English translation of Idee und Intention.