Prospects for language studies in our era of globalization

The idea of the “situatedness” of all scientific endeavour has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt by the so-called ‘sociologists of knowledge’ and is today beginning to be recognized even by some hard-core, dyed-in-the-wool philosophers of science. Linguistics, like all other human and social sciences, cannot help being socio-historically situated. Neither can linguists. It is also no secret that the science of language came into being at a time when the world lived by a completely different set of rules. Today the world we live in is a far cry from what it used to be in those times and the phenomenon of globalization has changed it unrecognizably. It only stands to reason that our science is in dire need of being rehashed or, who knows, radically revamped, so as to bring it more in tune with the changing times. This presentation addresses the mind-boggling prospects ahead, including that of having to rethink some of the fundamental concepts and categories with which we have got used to working in the field of linguistics