Die Volkssprache als Fachsprache.

The article examines the use of the vernacular as a specialist language in natural scientific papers around the year 1600. The interaction between Friedrich I, duke of Württemberg, Jacob Foillet, the first printer in Montbéliard, and Johann Bauhin (1541- 1613), personal physician of the Württemberg family and botanist, is used as a case study. Several of Bauhin's papers are translated from Latin into the vernacular (French and German) or directly written in the vernacular, and most of them in both French and German. I show that different recipient groups and functional contexts are targeted and that in return the (vernacular) knowledge of people with practical skills and understanding is opened up to scholarly discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]