Science in a Bilingual Society: The Case of Two Engineering Schools in Quebec

Type of resource
Authors/collaborators
Title
Science in a Bilingual Society: The Case of Two Engineering Schools in Quebec
Abstract
A comparison of McGill University and the Université de Montréal (École Polytechnique). The authors consider the influence of language of work on the professional attitudes and activities of scientists. This Issue is of significance to those linguistically-defined scientific communities in which the medium of scientific training does not coincide with the dominant lingua franca of scientific communication and recognition. Does language of work, for instance, serve to isolate scientific communities, thereby depressing research activity? The authors studied this and other questions in the case of academic engineers affiliated with Quebec's McGill University and the Université de Montréal (École Polytechnique) - a society where the relationship between the two linguistic groups used to be described as 'two solitudes'. The authors found considerable variations between the two universities in terms of professional orientations, research activity, etc. Yet they found that attempts to introduce the local language and to respond to local needs and priorities do not seem to be incompatible with the capacity to be cosmopolitan - although some of their data indicates that relationships to the international scientific system may be weakened.
Publication
Social Studies of Science
Volume
Vol. 8
Issue
no. 2
Pages
245-256
Date
May 1978
Language
en
Citation
Eisemon, Thomas, and Yakov Rabkin. “Science in a Bilingual Society: The Case of Two Engineering Schools in Quebec.” Social Studies of Science Vol. 8, no. 2 (May 1978): 245–256.
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