Contributions of the philosophy of science to juridical semantics

Philosophers as writers – experts’ views on writing process

“Publish or perish” has for a long time been an accurate description of the situation in the academic world. Therefore, the importance of writing skills is recognized in all disciplines, but especially in fields strongly based on discussion, like philosophy. Philosophy is based on discussion to such a degree that it has been described as “mind-to-mind combat with co-professionals” (Bloor 1994).

In the present paper, I will discuss how Swedish and Finnish philosophers view their own writing. The discussion is based on different writing process models, especially the classical models of Flower and Hayes (1984), and of Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987). The material of the study consists of answers to a questionnaire where Swedish and Finnish philosphers were asked to comment on their writing process both as a practical and as a cognitive process.

Literature
Bloor, Thomas (1996). Three Hypothetical Strategies in Philosophical Writing. In: Academic Writing: intercultural and textual issues, 19–43. Eds. Eija Ventola & Anna Mauranen. Amsterdam Philadephia: John Benjamins.

Bereiter, Carl & Marlene Scardamalia (1987). The psychology of written composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Ablex.

Flower, Linda & John Hayes (1984). Images, plans, and prose: The representation of meaning in writing. Written Communication 1, 120-160.


Kretzenbacher, Heinz Leonhard

An scientiarum Babylonem debabylonescendam esse censeo

Throughout the history of academic communication, natural languages have been considered less than ideal media for the representation of scholarly research by many individual academics and academic institutons. The paper first gives an overview over the history of attempts to create a universal language for academic communication from R. Llull's times to contemporary ortholinguistic concepts. Subsequently, several rhetoric strategies and ideological backgrounds of historical and contemporary arguments for and against such a universal academe are analysed.

Kristiansen, Marita
The multi-disciplinary nature of behavioural sciences. Assessment of disciplinary autonomy by terminological analysis
Two main questions will set the frame for this paper. The first one relates to the notion of disciplinary autonomy: how is it possible to say that a particular discipline is autonomous? The next question involves terminological analysis: can a terminological analysis of a discipline serve as a useful indicator of the autonomy status of that discipline?
The first question will be addressed by considering general criteria for scientific activities. Such criteria will include both sociological and epistemological characteristics, however, I will only focus on the latter.
The tradition of borrowing concepts, as found in many behavioural sciences, results in highly multi-disciplinary subject fields. My attempt will be to outline how the origins of one such discipline, namely organisational behaviour (OB) can be traced its mother disciplines. To do so, I will apply methods of terminological analysis to compare some OB concepts with their corresponding mother concepts. This will be an attempt to answer the second question raised above. Such a comparison will disclose whether any changes have taken place in the adopted OB concepts or not, and also whether new concepts have been developed.

Kurkina, Mag. Tatjana

Über die Nomination der Inhaltsstoffe der Arzneipflanzen

Die Nomenklatur der Inhaltsstoffe der Arzneipflanzen ist mit den Benennungen der biologisch aktiven Gruppen verbunden: Kohlenhydrate, Lipoide, Vitamine, Organsäure, Alkaloide, Xanthone, Monoterpene usw. Die griechisch-latainischen internationalen Elemente sind in der Terminologie der konkreten Inhaltsstoffe z.B. Diterpenlacton, Rutin anwesend. Das spiegelt die komplezierte Sprachentwiklung dieser Wissenschaft.

Die Morpheme markieren die chemische Struktur der Inhaltsstoffe. So kann z.B.die Namensgebung der Alkaloide auf verschiedene Weise erfolgen. Durch Anhängen eines besonderen Präfixes oder Suffixes können Hauptalkaloide (Suffix -in) und Nebenalkaloide (Suffixe –inin, -id) benannt werden. Suffix –in ist für viele Inhaltsstoffe charakteristisch, besonders für Alkaloide. Für die Gruppe der Glycoside ist -osid charakteristisch. Das Suffix -yl zeigt die Bildung neuer Stoffe auf Grund der 2 Gruppen, der Präfix oxy- „streicht“ die besondere Struktur des Sauerstoffes, nor- weist das Verlieren eines Kohlenstoffes.
Die aktivsten Terminoelemente der spezialen terminbildenden Präfixe in der Pharmakognosie sind iso-, pseudo- auch epi-, neo- und pro- usw. Mit ihrer Hilfe wird im Gadächtnis der Wissenschaftler das festgestellt, was für das Erkennen der Zusammensetzung und für die Herstellung der effektiven Präparate wesenlich ist. Das Streben der Spezialisten terminbildende Morpheme für die terminologische Nomination zu benutzen ist mit der Notwendigkeit die motivierende Termine zu bilden verbunden.


Kurtán, Assoc. Prof. Zsuzsa

The combination of semiotic systems in chemical discourse

Visuals are important when seen as independent vehicles for meaning in their own right (Kress, van Leeuven 1996). However, little is known of the meanings created through the combinations of semiotic systems (Veel, Lemke 1998).

This paper is based on the analysis of 89 research articles by international authors published in six numbers of the Hungarian Journal of Industrial Chemistry between 1997 and 2000. It has been revealed that a high proportion (40 %) of information is conveyed through visuals which are either inserted (mathematical and chemical equations) or not inserted (graphics, tables and figures) in the running verbal text (60 %).
The aim of the investigation was (1) to sample the relative frequency and common types of non-verbal semiotic expression, (2) to investigate the interrelationships, the interactions between texts and the various types of visuals, and (3) to demonstrate that visuals do not just 'illustrate' a text, but they actually create new orders of meaning.
The results of the survey show that the text would be incomprehensible without the linearly read visuals. In addition, it is impossible to verbalise what certain non-inserted, multidimensional visuals represent. Text and visual give complementary information.