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FACHSPRACHE - Current Issue 3-4/2011
Knowledge Asymmetries
Ed. by Marianne Grove Ditlevsen & Peter Kastberg, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University
Abstracts
Articles / Aufsätze
Knowledge Asymmetries –
Beyond “To Have and Have Not”
Peter Kastberg
In this article I begin by presenting what may count as examples of intuitively accepted notions of knowledge asymmetries from a wide variety of research disciplines. I go on to state that knowledge asymmetries are prototypically seen as unwanted aspects of human interaction. Responding to that stance, I propose to look at knowledge asymmetry from the viewpoint of another and less confrontationally oriented ideology in the hope that another perspective may lead to other insights and hopefully new avenues of research within LSP, Public Understanding of Science, Science Communication and related disciplines. In this article I therefore aim at opening a discussion of how knowledge asymmetry may be understood conceptually and how this understanding may be evaluated and applied within a wider framework of Knowledge Communication research. In order to do so, I (re-)conceptualize knowledge asymmetry from the viewpoint of three perspectives: asymmetry, knowledge and communication. In their synthesis, i. e. as communicatively salient knowledge asymmetry, the three perspectives are then discussed and elaborated upon and theoretical implications are drawn.
Keywords knowledge asymmetry, asymmetric relation, knowledge, communication
The Paradox of Scientific Expertise: A Perspectivist Approach to Knowledge Asymmetries
Hugo Fjelsted Alrøe & Egon Noe
Modern societies depend on a growing production of scientific knowledge, which is based on the functional differentiation of science into still more specialised scientific disciplines and subdisciplines. This is the basis for the paradox of scientific expertise: The growth of science leads to a fragmentation of scientific expertise. To resolve this paradox, the present paper investigates three hypotheses: 1) All scientific knowledge is perspectival. 2) The perspectival structure of science leads to specific forms of knowledge asymmetries. 3) Such perspectival knowledge asymmetries must be handled through second order perspectives. We substantiate these hypotheses on the basis of a perspectivist philosophy of science grounded in Peircean semiotics and autopoietic systems theory. Perspectival knowledge asymmetries are an unavoidable and necessary part of the growth of scientific knowledge, and more awareness of this fact can help avoid blind and futile struggles between scientific perspectives, and direct efforts toward more appropriate ways of handling these fundamental knowledge asymmetries. Concretely, we show how different kinds of scientific knowledge, expertise, disagreement and learning can be correlated to the perspectival structure of science, and propose how polyocular communication based on (second order) observations of the observations made by specialised perspectives can be used to handle such perspectival knowledge asymmetries. This can help overcome the observed problems in carrying out cross-disciplinary research and in the collective use of different kinds of scientific expertise, and thereby make society better able to solve complex, real-world problems.
Keywords Science, differentiation, specialisation, knowledge asymmetries, expertise, cross-disciplinary, perspectivism
An Extended Model of Knowledge Communication: The Situational View of Dealing with Asymmetries
Hanna Risku, Eva Mayr, Florian Windhager, Michael Smuc
In this paper, we examine the consequences of knowledge asymmetries in complex communication scenarios, looking especially at those situations in which professionals – in our cases translators and visual information designers – are required to manage communication for other parties, produce texts and design information. After describing the general knowledge communication setting in information design processes, we will discuss the knowledge asymmetries and diversities which characterize this scenario. We base our arguments on conceptualizations of knowledge as constructive and situative. This constructivist, situational perspective on knowledge confronts us with new challenges for translators and visual information designers. To overcome these challenges, we propose an extended model of knowledge communication and different strategies for addressing the changes in information design and translation practice that result from a situated view on knowledge communication. This novel conceptualization of the knowledge communication setting manifests itself in four changes to the information design process: a changed view on user knowledge as situated, on artefacts as enriched, of target users as innovators, and of information designers as situation designers.
Keywords knowledge asymmetries, information design, knowledge communication, translation, visual information design, situated cognition
Wissensasymmetrien, Interaktionsrollen und die Frage der „gemeinsamen“ Sprache in der interdisziplinären Projektkommunikation
Nina Janich & Ekaterina Zakharova
Abstract The goal of the present discourse analysis is to report on the initial results of a DFG project on communication in interdisciplinary projects. Based on a case study, the following questions were investigated:
1) at what times or phases of a project communication problems occur,
2) what kinds of problems occur as a result of knowledge asymmetries, and
3) which interactive and discourse roles do participants take on when facing such problems? Three main conclusions can be drawn from the findings; first, that linguistic-communicative problems occurring in interdisciplinary projects are not simply a result of attempts to find a “common language”, but are grounded in issues of contextual, methodological, organisitory, and socio-pragmatic agreements. Second, these communication problems arise during the initial, preparatory phases of a project, earlier than social scientific process models suggest, i. e. as early as the writing and submission of the project proposal, as opposed to when the project work actually begins. Third, that these problems, induced by the inevitable presence of knowledge asymmetries among participants, must be resolved not only through active and consistent meta-communication, but also through meta-meta-communication. Evidence for these findings was gathered by means of interviews with project participants in which they reflected on the phase of jointly writing their project proposal from the perspective of their respective disciplines.
Keywords Wissenschaftskommunikation, Interdisziplinarität, Diskurslinguistik
Climate Change Discourse: Scientific Claims in a Policy Setting
Kjersti Fløttum & Trine Dahl
The scientific knowledge associated with the phenomenon of climate change is presented and circulated in a variety of text and talk aimed at audiences with different knowledge backgrounds and agendas. Language is crucial in the presentation of scientific issues, but to date few climate change studies have taken a point of departure in linguistics. This paper explores some linguistic and discursive features of a text from the IPCC, the Summary for Policymakers of the Fourth Assessment’s Synthesis Report (2007). This document is based on scientific papers but addressed to policymakers, something which we argue makes it an example of knowledge asymmetry.
It represents the formally agreed statement of the IPCC concerning key findings and uncertainties regarding climate change. We consider how this discourse is constructed, being situated somewhere between scientific and political discourse. We focus specifically on two features: the nature of knowledge claims and the use of polyphonic (multivoiced) constructions. Climate change knowledge is characterised by complexity and uncertainty. The discussion of knowledge claims takes its point of departure in these characteristics and focuses primarily on how the uncertainty aspect is mediated to a non-scientific audience. In the polyphonic analysis, we explore to what extent the linguistic form is multi-voiced, which voices are included, and to what extent the sources of the voices are made explicit. The purpose is to explain how claims and voices orient the discursive argumentation in climate communication.
Keywords scientific discourse, political discourse, complexity, uncertainty, knowledge claims, knowledge asymmetry, polyphony, voice
Reviews / Buchbesprechungen
Martynova, Olga (2010): Sprachwahl in der deutsch-russischen Unternehmenskommunikation, Ines-A. Busch-Lauer
Kvam, Sigmund/Knutsen, Karen Patrick/Langemeyer, Peter, Hrsg./eds. (2010): Textsorten und kulturelle Kompetenz. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zur Textwissenschaft/ Genre and Cultural Competence. An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of Text, Ines-A. Busch-Lauer
Scheller, Petra (2010): Verständlichkeit im Physikunterricht. Kriterien und Ergebnisse einer interdisziplinären Analyse, Bernd Struß
Grewendorf, Günther/Rathert, Monika, eds. (2009): Formal Linguistics and Law, Stefan Höfler
BIBLIOGRAPHY / BIBLIOGRAPHIE
Also available online - please click on "BIBLIOGRAPHY" in the main menu on the left!
» Table of contents: FACHSPRACHE 3-4/2011 (pdf)
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