Terminological Innovations in International Relations: Emergence and Diffusion

这个跨学科项目的目的是分析关于国际关系的话语中的术语变化。此外，该项目旨在探索术语创新如何从政治学的一个分支学科--国际关系学术语言传播到政治实践者的话语中。相应地，研究的核心问题是：术语创新是如何在学术关系话语中出现的？这样的创新是如何在德国从学术传播到政治话语的？在这方面，哪些国际关系学派特别成功？为了回答这些问题，我们将创建一个三方语料库，其中包括a)关于国际关系主题的学术出版物(该语料库内部分为国际、英语部分和关于国际关系的德语出版物)；b)智囊团发布的政策文件和德国联邦议院的科学部门；c)德国联邦议院关于国际关系问题的逐字记录和德国外交部的文件。在这个三方语料库的帮助下，我们计划分析术语创新如何以及在什么时间框架内从学术话语传播到政治咨询文件和政治话语。可证伪的起点假设是，术语创新应该源于学术话语，并从那里扩散到政治咨询和议会辩论。然而，我们的研究设计也能够记录相反的路径，以防术语创新源于政策文件或政治话语。无论如何，我们的项目将超越单纯的描述，并努力通过比较的方式，确定术语创新职业生涯中可能的模式和因果路径。目标是找出术语创新特别成功的条件。

The purpose of this interdisciplinary project is an analysis of terminological change in discourses on international relations. Moreover, the project aims to explore the diffusion of terminological innovations from the academic language of International Relations (IR), a sub-discipline of political science, into discourses of political practitioners. Accordingly, the key research questions are as follows: How do terminological innovations emerge within the academic IR discourse? How do such innovations diffuse in Germany from the academic into the political discourse? What schools of IR are particularly successful in this regard? To answer these questions we will create a tripartite corpus, consisting of a) academic publications on the subject matter of international relations (this corpus is internally divided into an international, English-language section and German language publications on international relations); b) policy papers issued by think tanks and the scientific service of the German Bundestag; c) verbatim records of the Bundestag on issues of international relations and documents of the German foreign office. With the help of that tripartite corpus we are planning to analyze how, and in what timeframe, terminological innovations diffuse from the academic discourse into political advisory documents and political discourses proper. The falsifiable starting hypothesis is that terminological innovations should originate from academic discourse and diffuse into political advisory and parliamentary debate from there. However, our research design is able to document the reverse path as well, in case that terminological innovations originate from policy papers or political discourses. In any event, our project will go beyond mere description and strive to identify, by way of comparison, possible patterns and causal pathways in the career of terminological innovations. The goal is to spot the conditions under which terminological innovations are particularly successful.