1 Language and Engineering: Towards Bilingual Scientific Literacy

Two languages are usually used in the education of engineers in Sweden—the local language and English. There are clearly many benefits of this approach, but a number of interesting questions do arise. One such question relates to scientific literacy. If we accept that the overarching goal for engineering degree programmes is the production of scientifically literate graduates, then what is the nature of this scientific literacy when a programme involves two languages? Here, Airey and Linder have introduced a new construct: bilingual scientific literacy in order to characterise the particular set of language-specific engineering skills acquired by students. This paper reports ongoing research results from the first Swedish study to be carried out into the relationship between the teaching language and disciplinary learning at university level. The study explored the teaching language (English, Swedish or both) and the related learning experiences of students from two Swedish universities. Students attended physics lectures in both English and Swedish as part of their regular undergraduate programmes. These lectures were videotaped and students were then interviewed about their learning experiences using selected excerpts of the video in a process of stimulated recall. The work reported here concerns evaluation of a number of techniques that may be used to estimate bilingual scientific literacy. Student ability to use both English and Swedish to spontaneously describe and explain the concepts met in their lectures is analysed in terms of; linguistic fluency, code-switching, and ‘disciplinary fluency’(as determined by science teachers). This is cross-referenced with the language in which the original material was taught (Swedish, English, or both languages). The implications of the findings thus far are discussed