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The dark side of language dominance | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5103 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 97 of 176 31 May 2014 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Plus you can be reasonably sure that no one is likely to be able to eavesdrop on your conversation. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7159 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 98 of 176 31 May 2014 at 1:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
If my extrapolation based on sifting through linguistics monographs/analyses/theses is correct, research is still published in languages other than English. For Uralic languages I've seen lots of papers published on some topic pertinent to more than one branch of the group in Finnish, German, Hungarian and Russian, in addition to English. I've also seen enough journals and compilations containing monographs, articles or book reviews published also in Estonian or Northern Saami, in addition to the languages mentioned above. Forgive me if I'm starting to come off as snide, but I'm afraid that a lot of such scientific material escapes your attention and contributes to your upset because you don't have sufficient reading knowledge of the language(s) in question to make use of such research or more fundamentally you aren't interested in those research topics in the first place. Just because you can't find it (or it doesn't come to mind), that doesn't mean automatically that it doesn't or can't exist. I find it puzzling that you're sad about relationship between English's currency today and the large audience available precisely because of that currency brought on by the number of proficient non-natives. Do you not see value in scientists making their findings known? In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, research findings and ideas in general were typically disseminated in Latin even with the development of the printing press and the gradual trend toward using the vernacular or local language. Even as late 1770, practically the first "research paper" on the Uralic languages was published in Latin (Demonstratio idioma Hungarorum et Lapporum idem esse - “Proof that the Hungarian and Lappish languages are the same”) by a Hungarian astronomer in Lapland who stumbled on the local Saamic languages while doing astronomical research. Would this use of Latin (a dead language no less) be just about as distressing to you? Another problem with trying to address the problem of English as a lingua franca in science (I'm with doitsujin on this one; plenty of non-natives aren't as bothered (if at all) as you are by this development and so you're looking for a solution that lacks a problem) is that it increases the chances of future repetition of how research on the jet stream came about.
For your interest, here is the thread. On a related note, see also “Arguelles' Six Most Important Languages” where we touch on the idea of multilingualism and non-linguistic intellectual pursuits. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 99 of 176 31 May 2014 at 4:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I'm definitely not stating that there is no research done in other languages. I'll paste back the extrapolated information that supported my argument that research is increasingly done in English. My comments are based on a pattern that I see continuing for some time yet (English language influence via Americanization among other things). I'm not stating that the world is already English only in any avenue of life, but that it's increasingly so. This means that there are areas of life/in the world where English has made little or zero impact currently. Here's what backed up my argument earlier: Academia has not been spared the spread of the English language monopoly either and French scholars have adapted the classic scholarly mandate to 'publish or perish' to these changes, now quipping 'publish in English or perish in French' "There is no reason to think that cultural production and intellectual activity in the non-Anglo world is any less lively, creative or relevant than what's going on in English" notes Naomi Buck "but every reason to believe it's reaching a smaller audience". Already in 1997, 95% of the articles indexed in the Science Citation Index's Web of Science were written in English, despite the fact that only half were written by authors in English-speaking countries. Others researchers have noted that publications written in languages other than English have a considerably lower 'impact' (measured by frequency of citation) than English language works, and command lower compensation than works published in English" From "The Rise of English: The language of Globalization in China and the European Union" by Anne Johnson - Macalester International vol 2
I absolutely agree. And just for the record I value your input and challenges. I'm (thankfully) coming from within an English dominated prism of things that interest me. 'Thankfully' meaning my thoughts on English language 'dominance' are biast and I hope more biast than I realise as the spread of English to the degree it is occuring as it is today is not necessarily a good thing in my opinion. It would be nice to find out that I've been persuaded by all the reading on the topic about English in English was really geared towards me believing those arguments without much evidence. However I'm yet to find statistics that suggest English is decreasing it's spread throughout the world including in publishing and scientific avenues. Yes the information is biast often simply because it's provided in English. It's biast because I don't read about all topics, but I have read few research papers myself in my life and base my arguments on the analysis of others (see above) analyzing scientific publications and the like by percentage- ie not through reading scientific papers but via the analysis others have done on the number of scientific papers published- a more reliable method I believe otherwise I'd literally have to be a scientist or researcher to have a valid argument. I must add tho I have read some information on the topic in French too and it 'agrees' that English is growing in strength including in areas such as scientific publication. I would very strongly believe that you would find it very difficult to disagree that scientific research on the whole is increasingly presented in English.
Would this use of Latin distress me? Depends who I am and where I live and what language I speak and so on. ie- back then I wouldn't be who I am now, I'd be someone else living a very different life in order to be able to experience this new spread of Latin. If I held my same ideals as now I am not sure whether I would be distressed by it, but if I try to be completely honest about it I probably would be, simply because the world would be a lot 'smaller' and if Europe was my world and I felt passionate about language diversity back then as I do now I probably wouldn't like it. Ironic since I learn French now, a romance language with Latin origins. Ironic because Latin would later give rise to French. Maybe one day I'll be a citizen of the universe studying English from Earth, Hopskotchiantonium from planet Fry-a-lot and &**$$ from planet ---+++;;; . I see your point, and I understand language evolution is a seemingly natural occurance with perceived benefits and perceived losses. Coming from the point of view of a person who really loves different languages (and not a scientist, publisher, or musician) I'd much rather see the world heading in a direction in which one language is not spreading so powerfully as it appears to be today. I might add that my wishes are probably devoid of a lot of logic, as I know there's no stopping linguistic evolution.
I absolutely wholeheartedly agree that many ppl, perhaps even the majority of ppl are not at all bothered by the spread of English. But I completely disagree on its benefits. Your benefits, including to science, of languistic hemogenesis are far outweighed by the negative effects of linguistic hemogenesis, including in the area of science. Regardless whether the majority of people like it or not. The majority of people like driving cars but they are not good for the environment. I think your argument is too thin. Language is representative of culture. When culture dies or the number of languages in the world decreases the world becomes more homogenous culturally. As this occurs along with loss of knowledge becomes loss of perspective, loss of diversity. If a larger audience is reached through science, music, publication, entertainment and so on- is this better than than having more cultural and linguistic diversity? You may argue that you're not specifically stating or agree that the spread of larger languages (namely English) necessarily equates to the loss of smaller languages/cultures, but it does. To support my arguments The following quotes are from: Title: In Defense of Difference Author: Maywa Montenegro & Terry Glavin From Seedmagazine.com May 30 2014 & Oct 2008 edition of Seed magazine "....an entire human language [extinct] every two weeks. The fallout isn’t merely an assault to our aesthetic or even ethical values: As cultures and languages vanish, along with them go vast and ancient storehouses of accumulated knowledge" To interupt the article, my arguments behind the negative value of the particularly strong spread of English are often are based on capitalism, profits, and reaching a wider audience. You say this is a good thing. I say it isn't when it gets to a certain point... (from same paper): "as globalized trade expands across horizons, it both uproots local cultures and kills off vulnerable species of animals and plants. If it’s not the literal extinction of a language when its last speaker dies or the spread of a devastating invasive fungus, it’s the trafficking of such exotic commodities as elephant tusks, which only get more precious as the animals’ numbers dwindle. A world increasingly calibrated on consumption, efficiency, and convenience is perhaps most apparent in modern industrial agriculture, which churns out mass quantities of food but also demands ever greater uniformity and standardization" Continuing the article: "The tether between linguistic, cultural, and biological extinction is, however, far more complex than its common, top-down driver of globalization. Once set in motion, the extinctions themselves also become drivers, creating a dense network of positive feedback loops. That we are beginning to understand the intricacies of these relationships is due in no small measure to the work of Italian-born anthropologist and linguist Luisa Maffi. Thirty years ago, fresh out of the University of Rome, Maffi was doing fieldwork in Somalia when she first began to surmise a connection between language and ecology. She moved to the University of California at Berkeley and began working toward a PhD in anthropology doing research on ethnomedicine in Chiapas, Mexico. It was in Chiapas that Maffi had a kind of epiphany. The way Maffi tells the story, she was interviewing Tzeltal Mayan people waiting in line at a medical clinic in the village of Tenejapa when she met a man who had walked for hours, carrying his two-year-old daughter, who was suffering from diarrhea. It turned out that the man had only a dim memory of the “grasshopper leg herb” that was once well known as a perfectly effective diarrhea remedy in the Tzeltal ethnomedical pharmacopeia. Because he’d nearly forgotten the words for the herb, he’d lost almost any trace of the herb’s utility, or even of its existence. This is when the full impact of current global trends dawned on her, Maffi recalls. It’s not just species or languages that are vanishing from the world. The world is losing knowledge, too, of the most useful and precious kinds. If the world was losing local knowledge, what else was slipping away? ...when United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released its Global Outlook 4 report, reiterating the scientific consensus that, ultimately, humans are to blame for current global extinctions, UNEP for the first time made an explicit connection between the ongoing collapse of biological diversity and the rapid, global-scale withering of cultural and linguistic diversity: “Global social and economic change is driving the loss of biodiversity and disrupting local ways of life by promoting cultural assimilation and homogenization,” the report noted. “Cultural change, such as loss of cultural and spiritual values, languages, and traditional knowledge and practices, is a driver that can cause increasing pressures on biodiversity…In turn, these pressures impact human well-being.” In Defense of Difference The article continues. Is this enough defense from the perspective of the scientific value of cultural and linguistic diversity? Uniformity, standardization and reaching a larger homogenized audience in my opinion is not a good thing. I vote for diversity. I'm not an English language hater, I just believe there is more value in diversity, particularly scientific evidence that I feel outweighs your argument on the scientific value of homogeny. Chung your link on Professor Arguelles six most important languages can you point out the relevance? As for your link on published science and language thread, I think you've misunderstood me. I never stated that Science was only published in English, but that it is increasingly so. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4085 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 100 of 176 31 May 2014 at 9:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Yes. Note that it's not just a question of an audience being reached, it's a question of people all over the world generating scientific and technological knowledge. Research is not done in a vacuum. People build on existing knowledge. To build on existing knowledge, one must understand existing knowledge. Maintaining several languages in science is actually an impediment to generation of future knowledge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 101 of 176 31 May 2014 at 10:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Science and research did fine up to the 1980s before English learning became omnipresent. English already had a wide audience prior to the large push of English in recent times. Why more? Why presume you know what's best for others? American Indians, Australian aboriginals, Inca's were all doing fine before being forced to become a part of a larger invasive culture. They'd be fine today too had they never met white men and the perceived benefits white man brought along. Did you read my last post in it's entirety and actually still arrive at the conclusion that a less diverse world is good for science? That seems really surprising to me that members of a language learning website prefer less linguistic diversity. Not all cultures value scientific papers/research in my opinion to believe it's better for science to have less linguistic diversity in the world is arrogant to consider other cultures are better off not existing for the sake of reaching a wider audience. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 102 of 176 31 May 2014 at 11:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I don't think anyone here is arguing against diversity, or the need to protect and
nurture indigenous cultures and languages. It's more that there is a lot of value also in having a lingua franca. For me, I would say this is more important in science than in any other area. Art, literature, philosophy, literature, history ... the world is far richer when we have contributions from other cultures. But modern science is an international effort. No one culture can go it alone; I think it's one of the few cases where we need a lingua franca. At the end of the day pure science (as in, the quest for knowledge using the scientific methods of observation) is independent of language. And that's assuming that "science" English is even an English that most of us can understand : ) How many of the polyglots here can truly understand the recent articles on data teleportation using the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlation (a.k.a. quantum entanglement)? And yet I'd bet a Chinese scientist would be able to, even if his/her English is limited outside of physics. *** I read the UN article a couple times, and it seems to say that it's globalization and economic forces that are putting local cultures and knowledge at risk. This is different than saying English (or any other former language of empire) is the cause. Even in Maffi's story, she's talking about a Mayan in Chiapas - where the Mayan language is still dominant in the villages. My experiences in Micronesia were that, at least in the Pacific islands, people were forgetting the old traditions from economic modernization, moving off the remote islands and into the district centers, and certain western religions (presented in the native tongue, of course. Missionaries are awfully good linguists). No one spoke English where I was based, but these same trends were occurring. (Side note: a common saying there you might like was "The Spanish came for God, the Germans came for gold, the Japanese came for glory, and the Americans came for good." With the obvious pun on 'good' - we came because we thought we were doing good, and we came 'for good' and now they can't get rid of us). Edited by kanewai on 31 May 2014 at 11:51am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 103 of 176 31 May 2014 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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@ Gemuse
I feel like I owe you an apology. My apologies Gemuse. I think I got a little too heated and tied my arguments too much with emotion perhaps (emotional blackmail). also @ Kanewai Perhaps you are both right, maybe science does need a lingua franca. Earlier on I suggested a lingua franca for each continent roughly, but I guess you guys are arguing more on the side of English only. I will acknowledge you 'could' be right, or it's simply a difference of opinion with benefits on both sides. All in all I feel strongly that my arguments with the information presented for me personally are more convincing. Thing is I took the article for speaking more in terms of globalization is causing death of cultures as well as languages, but what language is synonomous English? I can't be bothered looking at the article right now but i'm sure it's basically stated that globalization is killing of languages- which language is globalizing- English. Anyway I'm kind of thinking this argument is coming to an end. We have all provided some very interesting food for thought and strong points. I think it's time for me to bow out as I've provided enough sources for reflection and get back to learning instead of procrastinating (wouldn't you know it!) Thanks all for participating and apologies if I have offended anyone, it's been fun :) PM edit: Feel free to keep up the discussion. At the request of someone I shall still be involved, but I will devote less time to this so I actually study as well. Edited by PeterMollenburg on 31 May 2014 at 1:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4035 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 104 of 176 31 May 2014 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I hate how English is dominant, it takes the language of the British and it becomes pop music and such and such.
I would love that my native language be left alone, to add, the dominance of English hasn't done linguistics many favors. There are too many half-wits right now. Edited by Stolan on 31 May 2014 at 4:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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