"Culture and Conceptualisation of Scientific Terms: An Analysis of the Concepts "Weight" and "Mass" in Arabic and French
Main Article Content
Abstract
Studies on difficulties in understanding scientific terms have shown that the problem is more serious among non-Western learners. The main reasons for this are the learners' pre-existing knowledge of scientific terms, their native language incommensurability with Western languages, and the polysemy of the words used to denote scientific concepts. The current study is an analysis of the conceptualisation of scientific concepts in two culturally different languages, i.e. Arabic and French, which represent a non-Western language and a Western language respectively. Physics concepts which are considered as some of the most challenging concepts for non-Western languages (Loo 2005; Aranador 2005) were selected for analysis. To this end, the terms that refer to two physics concepts, "weight" and "mass" in Arabic ????? (wazn) and ??????? (kutla) and in French poids and masse were semantically analysed. The analysis of the concepts in both languages is informed by the prototype theory by Rosch (1973; 1975), idealised cognitive models (ICMs) by Lakoff (1987), and conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy by Lakoff and Johnson (2003). The data for analysis were retrieved from two comparable Arabic and French corpora, namely the ArabiCorpus and the Concordancier-Corpus Français. The results suggest that there are both similarities and differences between the Arabic and French concepts in terms of meanings, prototypes, and metaphorical as well as metonymic semantic extensions. These findings support the argument that the human conceptual system is related to our environmental and cultural experiences and also importantly, validate previous claims on the need for educators to be cognizant of the culturally relevant meanings of scientific words found in everyday language that may impede learners' understanding of scientific concepts.
Article Details
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
Aikenhead, G. 2001. Integrating western and aboriginal sciences: Cross-cultural science teaching. Research in Science Education 31(3): 337–355, https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013151709605.
Aikenhead, G. and Ogawa, M. 2007. Indigenous knowledge and science revisited. Cultural studies of Science Education 2(3): 539–620, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-007-9067-8.
Aranador, L. C. 2005. Language culture incommensurability in science in the Philippine education context. In Southeast Asian and Japanese cultural influences on the understanding of scientific concepts: Proceedings of the Japan Foundation Intellectual Exchange Project, eds.
Loo, S. P. and Sarmiento, C. Q., 118–122. Pulau Pinang, Malaysia: RECSAM-SEAMEO. Boas, F. 1922. Handbook of American Indian languages. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 40: Part 2. Washington: Government Printing Office.
______1911. Handbook of American Indian languages. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 40: Part 1. Washington: Government Printing Office.
Bowker, L. and Pearson, J. 2002. Working with specialized language: A practical guide to using corpora. London: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203469255.
Croft, W. and Cruse, D. A. 2004. Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803864.
Duit, E. and Kesidou, S. 1988. Students' understanding of basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics. Research in Science Education 18(1): 186–195, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02356594.
Fillmore, C. 1982. Frame semantics. In Linguistics in the morning calm, ed. The Linguistic Society of Korea, 111–138. Seoul: Hanshin Publishing Company.
Geeraerts, D. 2006. Where does prototypicality come from? In Words and other wonders: Papers on lexical and semantic topics, eds.
Geeraerts, D., Dirven, R., Taylor, J. R. and Langacker, R. W., 27–47. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110219128.1.27.
Hampton, J. A. 2006. Concepts as prototypes. Psychology of Learning and Motivation 46: 79–113, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-7421(06)46003-5.
Ho-Abdullah, I. and Hashim, R. S. 2009. A cognitive semantics analysis of Alam (nature) in Malay. European Journal of Social Sciences 8(1): 140–151.
Hudson, R. A. 1996. Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139166843.
Kawasaki, K. 2007. Towards worldview education beyond language-culture incommensurability. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education 5(1): 29–48, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-005-9023-6.
_______ 2005. Toward restoration of subjectivity in science education: How to resolve language-culture incommensurability. In Southeast Asian and Japanese cultural influences on the understanding of scientific concepts: Proceedings of the Japan Foundation Intellectual Exchange Project, eds.
Loo, S. P. and Sarmiento, C. Q., 15–54. Pulau Pinang, Malaysia: RECSAM-SEAMEO.
_______ 2002. A cross-cultural comparison of English and Japanese linguistic assumptions influencing pupils' learning of science. Canadian and International Education 31(1): 19–51.
_______1999. A deductive description of cultural diversity of "observation" in science education. Journal of Science Education in Japan 23(4): 258–270.
_______1996. The concepts of science in Japanese and Western education. Science and Education 5(1): 1–20.
Lahlou, H. and Hajar Abdul Rahim. 2013. A cognitive linguistic analysis of the concept TEMPERATURE in English and Arabic. Special issue on translation, Arab World English Journal 2: 118–128.
Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226471013.001.0001.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. 2003. Metaphors we live by. London: The University of Chicago Press.
Langacker, R. W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. 1: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Loo, S. P. 2005. The two cultures of science: On language-culture incommensurability concerning "nature" and "observation". In Proceedings of the Japan Foundation intellectual exchange project: Southeast Asian and Japanese cultural influences on the understanding of scientific concepts, eds.
Loo, S. P. and Sarmiento, C. Q., 1–14. Pulau Pinang, Malaysia: RECSAM-SEAMEO.
Ng, K. T. and Soo, B. N. 2006. Exploring factors contributing to science learning via chinese language. Kalb? Studijos 8: 50–57.
Ogawa, M. 1998. A cultural history of science education in Japan: An epic description. In Socio-cultural perspectives on science education: An international dialogue, vol.
, ed. Cobern, W. W., 139–161. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5224-28.
Rosch, E. 1975. Cognitive representations of semantic categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104(3): 192.
_______1973. Natural categories. Cognitive Psychology 4(3): 328–350.
Rosch, E. R. 1978. Principles of categorization. In Cognition and categorization, eds. Rosch, E. R. and Lloyd, B. B., 27–48. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Sapir, E. 1921. Language: An introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Saussure, F. D. 1959. Course in general linguistics, trans. Baskin, W. New York: McGraw-Hill Book.
Sharifian, F. 2011. Cultural conceptualisations and language: Theoretical framework and applications. Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Benjamins.
Strömdahl, H. 2007. Critical features of word meaning as an educational tool in learning and teaching natural sciences. In The 13th international conference on thinking, 181–218. Sweden: Linköping University Electronic Press.
Whorf, B. L. 1956. Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Massachusetts, USA: MIT Press.