Hi Peter -- You may be interested in a paper we wrote in 2008 that has a section on the role of terminological ambiguity and how that can affect researchers understanding of issues. We review some approaches to using ontologies in ecology to formalize language usgae. We also provide references to a number of other papers that deal with this issue as part of our review.
Madin, J. S., S. Bowers, M. P. Schildhauer, and M. B. Jones. 2008. Advancing ecological research with ontologies. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 23:159–68. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2007.11.007. The link on Google Scholar is: http://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=W0SpAvYAAAAJ&citation_for_view=W0SpAvYAAAAJ:IjCSPb-OGe4C Hope this is helpful, Matt Jones -- Matthew B. Jones Director of Informatics Research National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) University of California Santa Barbara http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecoinfo On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 6:26 AM, Duerkop, Peter . [[email protected]] <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings, > > > > I am doing some research on the influence of language in the biological > realm and would love some feedback from researchers and managers alike > within the ecolog community. Some questions to be addressed could be…. > > > > Has a language barrier hindered your research? > > > > At what geographic/temporal scales does language hinder communication? > Regional vs international? Current vs historic? etc. > > > > How does language influence interdisciplinary cooperation? > > > > Have you ever dismissed potential research or job opportunities due to a > language gap? or embraced them? > > > > How can we overcome obstacles related to language? > > > > Feel free to include anecdotes, reoccurring themes, strange encounters or > other resources that may be relevant. Unfortunately, I fall into the > category known abroad as a “typical American” who only speaks English so > please respond accordinglyJ. > > > > Thanks! > > > > Peter >
