Re: Imperial oppression

On Apr 14, 9:53 pm, "benli...@xxxxxxxxxx" <benli...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 15, 3:21 pm, mb <azyth...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On Apr 14, 4:24 pm, "benli...@xxxxxxxxxx" <benli...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 15, 11:01 am, mb <azyth...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 14, 3:15 pm, "benli...@xxxxxxxxxx"
...

In fact this whole article seems to treat science as just another
shu industry, in which certain people are not getting a fair chance at
careers and advancement. If you want to look at it that way, the most
obvious way of improving the situation would be to improve the
teaching and learning of English around the world.

Just the kind of dismissal I would have expected from a core-
population defender of the empire.

Dismissal of what?

But then that would
probably be seen by some as "Imperial oppression".

Sure would, without quote marks.

OK, as a core-population defender of the empire I guess I should shut
up and let someone who's not suggest what should be done. Do you
qualify?

Certainly not; whatever my L1 I live here. As to "what to do"
recommendations, they are liable to come even more ridiculous than the
light-hearted pooh-poohs by Anglos (I love the one by Messinger, by
the way). It was only posted to give access to the 2 papers and 2
slide shows (and, of course, their utopian recommendations).

I was really responding only to the excerpts from the editorial you
posted. The writer seemed to feel there was a "problem", but concluded
with no idea what could be done about it. Ammon's and Vergara's
presentations had some interesting data, but raised a number of
tangential issues (why so few international books of all kinds are
translated into Arabic; creation of science publications for general
readers and young people; etc.).

Correct. On the other hand, to propose anything to do about it, you'd
need to assume seriously that anything can be done. In fact, there was
some utopic talk in there.

Nothing in my post was a light-hearted pooh-pooh. I think it is a
waste of time to sit around resenting the fact that English has become
the global lingua franca.

(And I would offer the same advice to my
successors 100 years from now if Chinese has taken its place.) There
is no immediate prospect of substituting Esperanto or anything else.

OK. What if it were not about resenting but just getting the facts
straight?


Of course thousands of scientists do learn enough English to do their
work, without making a fuss about it. If others who want to pursue a
scientific career are having trouble, by all means let's help them. If
an employer turns down a candidate for a job by weighting English
skills more highly than research (or teaching) ability, more fool
they.

Not exactly. A minimum ofcommunication efficiency is an absolute must
in most technical work, administrative efficiency is a must for most,
and high technical ability in one field is no guarantee against being
totally and irrememediably impermeable to language learning.

I personally regret the slow decline of the non-English languages used
for science (and of non-English language-reading skills among my
students). But science is never going to be done in 6,000 languages --
the EU is having great trouble functioning with 30 -- and it may even
have an inevitable tendency towards monoglossia.

No contest.
.

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