¿Puede la ciencia hablar en español? Consideraciones glotopolíticas sobre la controversia en torno a las lenguas de la comunicación científica en el VIII Congreso Internacional de la Lengua (2019)

Abstract

The dominant use of English in specialized scientific communication has enhanced, especially in recent decades, the process of linguistic minorization of Spanish (among other languages) in this area. Inscribed in a glottopolitical approach, a perspective that studies the different interventions that society exerts on language, this article analyzes the argumentative dimension of the positions regarding the use of languages for scientific dissemination, which took place at the VIII International Congress of the Spanish Language (2019). While the dominant discourses of controversy naturalize, through rhetorical questions and prototypical metaphors (warlike, playful), the conviction that English is the lingua franca of science; The other voices appeal to quantitative arguments, in terms of number of speakers and spatial extension of Spanish, in order to vindicate it, as well as referring to the researcher's commitment to the country that allowed its formation.