Speech on why languages are important in science
Answers
Language is the tool that humans have used since the beginning of time. It is constantly changing as new words are made up for a dynamic society. Words can identify objects and ideas; however, as time progressed languages have become gendered to place things either as masculine or feminine. This gendering of words can be stigmatizing to the topic of discussion and altering the perception of it. Language is an important part of society and its (improper) use can be a determining factor in the way it is received by others both inside and outside the scientific community.
In Anne Fausto-Sterling’s “Science Matters, Culture Matters”, she explains how scientists are in the citadel and everyone else is part of the rhizomes (Fausto-sterling, 2003). The image depicted is one where there is a walled city surrounded by rhizomes or root like structures. The walled city is for the scientists who are kept inside and away from culture. While the outside, the rhizomes or roots, is where the normal everyday life happens, where the culture is shaped constantly. People like to believe that the rhizomes stay in their place and that the citadel is protected from the outside troubles, however as Fausto-Sterling puts it, “rhizomes can and do also burrow right under the walls of the citadel, bringing ideas born in culture into the realm of scientific theory” (2003). This is important for language because it shows how as much as scientists like to believe the citadel is “pure and objective” the rhizomes can easily corrupt it by their culture (Fausto-Sterling, 2003). Therefore, scientific information can be altered to reflect culture ideas, instead of being wholly accurate.
This inaccurate reflection can be seen, for example, with sexual reproduction. For ages, it has been taught that the sperm fights his way to the passive egg that is waiting for just the right sperm to come along and fertilize it. The sperm and egg took on the gender stereotypes of the Victorian ages, according to Jonathan Knight. This is seen by the words used to describe the sperm and egg such as coy and promiscuous. These are characterization of the egg and sperm that reflect the ideals of sexuality in the current society (Jonathan Knight, 2002). This characterization in turn has a greater impact on the surrounding society. For instance with the XYY men words like supermale, violence, and aggression where thrown around and the media jumped on the idea. Soon after the “XYY supermale syndrome” news was released TV shows and movies were published exploiting the idea (Richardson, 2013). Richardson does challenge “this classic case of scientific error, arguing that gender conceptions, not media hype, were the primary culprit” (2013). With this corruption of the citadel, the language alters around this topic to mirror the outside perceptions, which has a larger impact on the surrounding culture and views.
Nancy Leys Stephan believes that metaphors are critical to science (2013).