Abstract
To what extent do the vocabularies of mathematics, computing, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, economics, political science, philosophy, and linguistics overlap? To explore this question, samples of the anglophone vocabularies of these subjects were created using the Oxford English Dictionary (Benjafield in Scientometrics 118:1051-1064, 2019. 10.1007/s11192-019-03021-2). The first part of this study compared the vocabularies of the five empirical members of Comte's hierarchy of the sciences (HoS) plus psychology (i.e., astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology). The results were generally consistent with the existence of an empirical HoS. For example, each subject shared its vocabulary the most with another subject adjacent to it in the hierarchy (i.e., astronomy with physics, physics with chemistry, biology with chemistry, psychology with biology, sociology with psychology). The second part of this study examined patterns of sharing between mathematics, computing, economics, political science, philosophy, linguistics and the six members of the empirical HoS. Among the most interesting results was the high degree of vocabulary sharing between mathematics, philosophy, and linguistics. Indeed, it turns out that all subjects share their vocabularies with all other subjects, to varying degrees. It was suggested that, in addition to comparing subjects in terms of a linear HoS, similarities between subjects should be examined independently of their position on the HoS.
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