The Status of German as a Lingua Franca in Written Scientific Communication: A Study on Language Policies in Linguistic Journals

Many scholars agree on the point that the role of German as a lingua franca in scientific communication has undergone important changes during the last hundred years. Although the status of German in scientific communication has been intensively discussed within the field of German Sociolinguistics, there is still much work to be done on this issue, especially with regard to the lack of representative empirical studies on developments in specific communication contexts. This explorative study aims to investigate the current position of German as a lingua franca of science, departing from the explicitly declared language policy of scientific journals of the selected countries. The focus of the study lies within the field of Linguistics, but also takes into account some of the ‘Nischenfächer’ (‘niche disciplines’), in which both the German language and German scientific tradition have played an important role.