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Bilingual Scientific Literacy?: The Use of English in Swedish University Science Courses
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy. Kalmar University College.
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Physics, Department of Physics and Materials Science, Physics Didactics. (Physics Education Research)
2008 (English)In: Nordic Journal of English Studies, ISSN 1502-7694, E-ISSN 1654-6970, Vol. 7, no 3, p. 145-161Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

A direct consequence of the Bologna declaration on harmonisation of Europeaneducation has been an increase in the number of courses taught in English at Swedishuniversities. A worrying aspect of this development is the lack of research into the effectson disciplinary learning that may be related to changing the teaching language to Englishin this way. In fact, little is known at all about the complex inter-relationship betweenlanguage and learning. In this article we attempt to map out the types of parameters thatour research indicates would determine an appropriate language mix in one section ofSwedish higher education—natural science degree courses. We do this from theperspective of the overall goal of science education, which we suggest is the productionof scientifically literate graduates. Here we introduce a new term, bilingual scientificliteracy to describe the particular set of language-specific science skills that we hope tofoster within a given degree course. As an illustration of our constructs, we carry out asimple language audit of thirty Swedish undergraduate physics syllabuses, listing thetypes of input provided for students and the types of production expected from students inboth languages. We use this information to map out an ‘implied student’ for the courseswith respect to bilingual scientific literacy. The article finishes by identifying issues forfurther research in this area.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2008. Vol. 7, no 3, p. 145-161
National Category
Didactics General Language Studies and Linguistics Other Physics Topics
Research subject
Physics with specialization in Physics Education
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-85731OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-85731DiVA, id: diva2:114031
Available from: 2008-12-02 Created: 2008-11-04 Last updated: 2022-01-28Bibliographically approved

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Airey, John

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf