Is there a project-specific terminology? Considerations focussing a public health project

Abstract

Internationally and interdisciplinarily collaborating academics in research projects communicate with several LSPs, embedded in an individual language used by all project members.
Commonly, English is appropriate as lingua franca for such purposes. During the course of these projects, a kind of “common language” accrues, including a project-specific terminology. This article will describe this developing terminology based on one project involving partners from Europe, Africa and India where intercultural communication in interdisciplinary research teams is a daily practice. In this research project, the terminology was not created and implemented consciously – so how can this evolving project-specific terminology be defined and classified? For answering this question, the data sources of this paper include minutes from meetings attended by representatives of all project partners, notes from participant observation as well as the outcomes from surveys conducted with the project participants. Additionally, as to the characteristics and function of this terminology, the acquisition will also be discussed in this article.