Investigating intercultural German-Chinese communication in the sciences

Linguistic research into communication in the sciences takes as it starting point that in each society specific science cultures which determine the form taken by scientific texts and discussion have evolved. The contrastive pragmatics and linguistics of specialised texts are the main witnesses, though not the only, to this phenomenon.
Hence, for example, it has been argued that in the PRC the Confucian tradition with its orientation towards "hierarchy and harmony" (the title of an article in the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" of 1.3.2007) hinders the development of an eristic science culture.
Concretely: contrastive research on German-Chinese reviews in the sciences (Liang 1991, 289 – 311) reveals that in this text type negative criticism is formulated in a very circumscribed way, if at all. Hence in such cases reviews of specialist articles employ numerous polite expressions, as in the following example:

"However one defect does not spoil the lustre of jade. With the author's rich teaching experience and high scientific level, (...), we are convinced that this text book can certainly be revised to make it perfect".

A specifically Chinese culture of the sciences?

Of course, not only are the domains of politics, business, the media or the arts global in character, that of the sciences is as well. Transcultural overlappings and changes as a result of mobility and exchange within these specific communication spaces have already produced significant changes and are doing so now. Are therefore specific, traditional Chinese ways of communication part of German-Chinese communication in the sciences, or have hybrid forms developed? A research project on intercultural communication in individual courses, begun at the end of 2006, pursues this question. A German-Chinese case study in the form of a "workshop report" presenting initial results of analysis undertaken so far, follows.