[Corpora-List] Re: 'Standard European English' ?

[Briony Williams]

FIDELHOLTZ_DOOCHIN_JAMES_LAWRENCE wrote:
> Perhaps there is a desire to actually communicate with the largest 
> possible group, which almost certainly has a higher probability in the 
> unmarked Internet case in English, given the political, globalized facts 
> of life (as well as the obvious fact that English is the most-taught and 
> most-used second language in the world, although Chinese begins to look 
> like it may give us a run for our money).

There are two potentially competing demands here:
a) To reach the maximum number of readers.
b) To use one's native language.

This is a hot issue in the case of minority languages. If someone were to 
send a message to this list in Welsh, for instance, the expected number of 
responses would probably be zero. Even sending the message bilingually (with 
an English translation) would be a little pointless, unless there was at 
least one other list member who would be able to respond in Welsh.

> In any case, I have never seen any actual resolution on this list about 
> the language to use, and aside from us monolingual Americans, most 
> English speakers with any academic pretensions at all (ie most of those 
> on this list, I assume) can at least read in a couple of non-English 
> languages.  In short, as far as I am concerned, at least, people are 
> welcome to contribute here in Spanish, French or German.

At least in the case of Spanish, French, German, etc., there is a high 
probability that many people will at least be able to read that language, 
even if they then respond in English. But where do we draw the line? What 
about Dutch, Finnish, or Urdu? In practice, each person has to estimate the 
likely audience size for any given language. Since the primary criterion 
seems to be "maximum audience size", English will win every time.

What this means for minority languages is that they will continue to be 
squeezed out of the domain of academic discourse. Even some state languages 
(Dutch, Finnish, etc) tend to be squeezed out as well. Although my native 
language is English, I am sorry to see this happen, and my professional 
efforts for many years have been bent towards helping to ensure that the 
Welsh language at least has a stake in speech and language technology. This 
is the reason I set up the ISCA Special Interest Group in "Speech And 
Language Technology for Minority Languages" (SALTMIL) - see 
http://isl.ntf.uni-lj.si/SALTMIL/

On the other hand, if anyone sends a message to this list in French or 
German, I might attempt at least a simple reply in that language - and then 
continue in English!  :-)

Best regards

Briony Williams