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German Minister refuses to speak English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| mpete16 Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 5523 days ago 98 posts - 114 votes  Speaks: Tagalog, English* Studies: German | Message 41 of 128 12 October 2009 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Everyone makes mistakes. It's okay. Edited by mpete16 on 12 October 2009 at 7:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Saif Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5613 days ago 122 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Levantine)*, French | Message 42 of 128 12 October 2009 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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German should be expected to be spoken in a German press conference. What a radical idea!
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Leopejo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6110 days ago 675 posts - 724 votes Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English Studies: French, Russian | Message 44 of 128 12 October 2009 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | ||
She said she was leaving the forum. Still deleting one's posts - whether by request or administrator's decision - is bad. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rhian Moderator France Joined 6498 days ago 265 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Personal Language Map | Message 45 of 128 12 October 2009 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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To prevent this getting off-topic: Jar-Ptitsa broke several rules and was about to be subject to disciplinary action
when she announced that she was leaving. I suppose it suits both parties but in the meantime she has been coventrized. I suspect it was because her tone was accusing and argumentative but I cannot say for sure as I have not asked the Administrator. Her posts would not have been muzzled so much because of what she said but how she said it. Any wishes to discuss this a bit more please pm a moderator or the Administrator about the decision :-) And back on topic.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Envinyatar Diglot Senior Member Guatemala Joined 5537 days ago 147 posts - 240 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 46 of 128 12 October 2009 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe Esperantists are right, using the national language of some countries as Lingua Franca will always convey political issues like in this case. What if international press asks questions in an artificial Lingua Franca? There won't be replies like "This is Germany, this is not Great Britain".
Food for thought indeed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 47 of 128 12 October 2009 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | ||
I think you're taking that a wee bit too far. Keyser's point is that language teaching traditionally involves a lot of aculturation. This is fair enough when you learn the language of a country, but if English is a world language, then you can't teach it as the language of England and the USA, as most course books do.* This means that the teacher should drop all the little cultural references in cliche and idiom too. Some teachers and theorists have taken this a bit further and said that they should be allowed to make their own language patterns, and talk about notions like "Globish", the "Global English" developed by learners. I think this is a bit much, because that leaves us with no universals to teach. (No-one has written a grammar or dictionary of this language, and in my experience there's a lot more variation between learners' Englishes than the Globish crowd claims....) Note that this is all specifically to do with the use of English in an intrinsically international context. Customer services/contact centres is a whole different kettle of fish**. These are essentially domestic services that are delivered internationally for operational purposes. The customer should expect to be addressed in his own language, and in a familiar model of it. But if the US, UK and Indian foreign ministers held a conference, no single one of them should expect the other two to adopt his model of English as superior to either of theirs. Back to the case in question: In many pubs in Gaelic-speaking areas, many people consider it rude to speak in Gaelic in front of a non-speaker. In many of my company's internal comms channels, we have an English-only policy because it's the nearest thing we have to a universal language, and using multiple languages would lead to the obscuring of information and ultimately the duplication of effort. These things are expected, and in fact many of the strongest voices in favour of these policies are the speakers of non-English languages. The press conference of a German politician, seeking election in Germany, is aimed at a German-speaking audience. It is the language that everybody understands... except the silly journalist who turns up without a word of German. The nearest thing to a universal language must be the accepted language: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.*** The journalist shouldn't have pushed the point on asking the question in English. He asked, he was turned down, and he had an interpreter there for a reason, after all. The politician did come across a bit smug and condescending over the whole thing, but he was in the right. If the BBC's man was trying to out the guy as not competent in English, then that's surely linguistic imperialism at work -- why should we assume that a foreign minister would need to speak English? * OK, the books say the UK and the USA, but when they talk about "the UK", what they describe is England. ** Oh dear -- subtle linguistic imperialism in the form of idiom. ** Oops -- more cliched linguistic imperialism. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6619 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 48 of 128 13 October 2009 at 2:56am | IP Logged | ||
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This is kind of a silly debate. I'm sure the media outlets have interpreters for a reason. The journalist should have asked before the interview which language the politician would like to be addressed in. The politician was merely making the statement that English as a common language can not be pushed onto every country or every person.
3 persons have voted this message useful |
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