<div dir="auto"><div dir="auto">Paolo,</div>This is a wonderful statement of all the complexities of language choice that arise in the domain of scholarly linguistic publication, complete with a cogent proposal for how to balance the conflicting values that inevitably come into play.<div dir="auto">Jack<br><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto">==============================<br>John W. Du Bois<br>Professor of Linguistics <br>University of California, Santa Barbara<br>Santa Barbara, California 93106<br>USA<br><a href="mailto:dubois@ucsb.edu">dubois@ucsb.edu</a></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 7:50 AM Paolo Ramat <<a href="mailto:paoram@unipv.it">paoram@unipv.it</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="IT" link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class="m_-2072160162676558545WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dear all,<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I have followed with great interest the discussion about ‘Globish’ and languages of scholarship. Having been since 1996 the (now outgoing) editor of the oldest Italian linguistic journal founded by G.I. Ascoli (1873: “Archivio Glottologico Italiano”, <i>AGI</i>), I was faced many times with the language choice problem. I would like to make some comments. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I think that between “defeatists” and “romantics” (Martin’s dichotomy) there is a third way. Linguists should care not only for the international readers’ community but also for the ‘local’ readers who might not be interested in general, theoretical problems, but are strongly concerned for their own language and eager to know more about its history and perhaps also about its future. There exist journals which are dedicated to specific areas. Take for instance the Dutch journal “Taal en Tongval” : we read on the cover sheet: <<<span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins>Taal en Tongval [is] an academic journal devoted to the scientific study of language variation in the Netherlands and Flanders, in neighbouring areas and in languages related to Dutch. The journal welcomes contributions in Dutch, English and German. In certain cases we also consider articles in other languages, including Frisian, Afrikaans and French.</ins></span>>>. Similarly, it would make little sense to ask perspective contributors to the “Rivista di Dialettologia Italiana” to use English (unless an article would deal with general problems concerning what’s a dialect and what does it mean for a dialectologist to write a grammar of a dialect).<span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins> </ins></span> Admittedly, this is pure <u>Eurocentrism</u> (as Claire Bowern underlines); but we are the heirs of a long standing tradition which deserves to be kept. Why to re-baptize the glorious Norsk tidsskrift for sprogvidenskap as “Norwegian Journal of Linguistics”? Even keeping the traditional “<i>NTS</i>” name would it be possible to accept English written papers --perhaps the majority of them, if the Authors prefer to write in English or ‘Globish’.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DA">Peter Austin is absolutely right when he writes that t<span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins>here are hundreds of excellent research papers in linguistics and related fields published annually in languages like Chinese, Japanese and Arabic, much of which never pierces the consciousness of English-only researchers because of attitudes like having language hierarchies composed entirely of European languages</ins></span> (see also B.Hurch’s mail). Moreover. I agree with Martin when he writes that along with the traditional Eurocentrism it’s also</span><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins> ethnocentric to only cite work by American linguists and somehow assume that there is nothing else of relevance.</ins></span></span><span lang="DA"><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DA"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">On the other hand it is true, as Guillaume says, that young linguists are not competitive if they don’t publish in ‘Globish’. Remember the amusing anecdote told by Nigel who, on the occasion of an international conference on Italian linguistics, was asked to held his plenary lecture in Italian since most </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black"><span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins>of the native speakers had chosen to give their papers in English!</ins></span> (It’s amusing, but not so fun!...).<span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins><u></u><u></u></ins></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The solution is to <b>leave the choice to the Author</b> of the article submitted to the journal, as, e.g., <i>Diachronica</i> does. This is the liberal policy we have adopted for <i>AGI. <u></u><u></u></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But this is not the policy of the big publishing houses. I remember the long discussion we had with the publisher in order to have one volume of the EUROTYP-series published in French: <i>Actance et Valence dans les langues de l’Europe </i>(in a similar vein Nigel tells us of </span><span lang="DA" style="color:black"><span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins>a special issue of 'Transactions of the Philological Society'</ins></span>: he and Frans Plank have been <span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins>able to persuade the publishers to allow one of the articles to be published in French</ins></span> !). Whether you like it or not, this is the situation you have to live with.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p><span lang="DA" style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">My conclusion: one has to have ’mixed (and at the same time liberal) feelings’ : <u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin-left:36.0pt"><u></u><span lang="DA" style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><span>1.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><u></u><span lang="DA" style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">’Defeatism’: Globish (i.e. an English variety </span><span lang="DA"><span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins>avoid</ins></span>ing<span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins> dialectal, non-transparent idiomatic expressions, </ins></span>using<span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins> short sentences,</ins></span> etc.: see <span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins>Ilja Seržant</ins></span>) is the international unavoidable language linguists and other scientists have to use when dealing with general problems which may be relevant for a large international audience. (Obviously, this does not impinge upon the possibility of having valuable English written contributions on Mòcheno, a Bavarian dialect spoken in Trentino -- Fersentalerisch ! Once more: the language choice is a matter of the Author, who shouldn’t be compelled to use Globish) <u></u><u></u></span></p><p style="margin-left:36.0pt"><u></u><span lang="DA" style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><span>2.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><u></u><span lang="DA">On the other hand, just as Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese linguists have their own journals dedicated to the many languages spoken in their own areas, we –I mean the European linguists—have to keep alive a tradition of studies using our mother tongues : a ’romantic’ position, in Martin’s terms.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p><span lang="DA">Best,<u></u><u></u></span></p><p><span lang="DA">Paolo<b><span class="m_-2072160162676558545msoIns"><ins><u></u><u></u></ins></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="DA"><u></u> <u></u></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>Università di Pavia (retired)<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>IUSS Pavia (retired) <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>Editor-in-Chief of “Archivio Glottologico Italiano”<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>Accademia dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>Academia Europaea<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Societas Linguistica Europaea, Honorary Member<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Home address:<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>Piazzetta Arduino 11<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>I-27100 PAVIA<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>##39 0382 27027 ##39 347 044 9844 <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div><div id="m_-2072160162676558545DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2">
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