Re: Imperial oppression

On Apr 16, 3:52 am, "Jens S. Larsen" <jens_s_lar...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ross Clark:

mb:
And yet this is precisely the situation in which most
researchers, teachers, students, and even schoolchildren find
themselves. They might speak any one of more than 6,000
languages used in the world today, but if they don't communicate
in English, then the sciences, especially the life sciences, are
closed to them.
This is a wild exaggeration. I'm sure schoolchildren around the
world are being taught elementary biology (and mathematics and
geography) in dozens if not hundreds of different languages. Not
in every single one of the 6,000, of course. And the further you
pursue your studies the narrower the range of languages gets.
Nevertheless, professional scientific communication (journal
articles, monographs, conferences) continues to take place in
French, Spanish, Japanese and other languages.

Which journals about natural science in other languages than English
would an American university library subscribe to?

I was curious enough to search "Chemistry-Periodicals" in my
university's library. Out of about 150 titles I found about 50 in
languages other than English: (in descending order of numbers) German,
French, Latin, Russian, Italian, Swedish, Slovak, Croatian,
Macedonian, Finnish and Afrikaans.
Of course these are just titles (many journals are bilingually
titled), and don't tell you what languages the contents are in. If you
looked at this, as well as how often they are accessed, etc., English
might appear more dominant.
This doesn't contradict my original point. But it may be that
publishing in your national language in your national journal, since
it inevitably limits your audience, is not the way to an international
reputation, job offers from MIT, and Nobel Prizes. Not just in science
either. Compare the Ngugi Wa Thiongo debate about publishing
literature in your own (African) language vs going for the world
audience in English.

[...]

There are two broad issues: fairness and efficiency. The first
can't be disputed; it is patently unjust to force the majority
to work in a nonnative tongue.
"Unfair" maybe, like life's unfair. The position of English in
the world means that the majority have to do some learning (and
not just in science) that native speakers of English don't.
It would be "unjust" only if there were some ready available
alternative.

That's rubbish. Injustice is injustice, no matter how long you have to
struggle to overcome it.

Well, in this case there is no conceivable prospect of overcoming it.
And I still think "unjust" would be appropriate only if there was some
existing principle of "justice" that was being violated, and I don't
see it here.

Aside from the individual struggles of scientists to
make themselves understood, there are also institutional biases.
For example, the various world rankings of research institutions
include only English-language publications in their assessments.
That Anglophone institutions will fill the top spots is a
built-in bias in the process.
If this is true, it merely confirms the stupidity of such
"rankings". They have been dreamed up, and are taken seriously,
mainly by ed-biz administrators with degrees in management
and suchlike.

Which "ready available alternative" to such rankings do the ed-biz
administrators (whatever that is) have for doing their work?

You'd have to ask them. Don't assume that their work is
indispensable.

In fact this whole article seems to treat science as just another
industry, in which certain people are not getting a fair chance at
careers and advancement.

What's the difference between science and industry in this respect?

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.

Why stop there? Why not substitute university teaching in local
languages with English, then the college teaching in order to make the
transition to university easier, and then the whole educational system
down to the elementary level? Scandinavia and Holland are well under
way already!

I sense a reductio here. While teaching foreign languages at an early
age is a good idea, there is no need to make English the medium of
instruction. Only a minority of students are going to become
scientists, anyway. My suggestion was in response to the original
article's picture of lots of aspiring scientists out there suffering
career frustration because their English was not good enough. Probably
most large national languages are capable of teaching science up to
tertiary level, but at that level students aiming at a scientific
career are going to have to develop English (and possibly other
language) skills to connect to the existing literature and the
international communication system of science. It's at that point that
assistance might be needed.


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

Just because it's imperial oppression, that doesn't mean you can get
rid of it right away. It's a job for several subsequent generations,
and you have to find the right place to start (once you have some idea
of where you want to end, that is).

Jens S. Larsen

So give us some idea of where you want to end.

Ross Clark
.

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