The diversity of accents: the English language and the social sciences

Abstract

In this new article, Renato Ortiz develops an archeology of the concepts of "linguistics" and "language," with the aim of understanding the social position of the English language in the spheres of society, science, and especially the social sciences. Assuming that all languages are equally able to describe reality, the author critically analyzes the "superiority" of the English language compared to all the other languages. In the wake of the universality / diversity dichotomy, Ortiz intends to interpret the English language as an element of the market of symbolic goods. By observing the predominance of the English language in science, he questions the dominant role of this language in the social sciences, which is characterized, if not by the constitution of a universal knowledge, by the development of a cosmopolitan knowledge.