[Edling] Language Differences in Formulating and Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals

[Francis Hult]

SYMPOSIUM CALLS FOR GREATER ATTENTION TO LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES IN FORMULATING AND IMPLEMENTING THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

New York, May 21, 2016.  The dominant use of major languages, especially English, in formulating the Sustainable Development Goals has actually widened the linguistic gap between the planners and the populations addressed, according to a recent document published by the Study Group on Language and the United Nations.

The Study Group, an informal group of academics, researchers and practitioners, recently organized a Symposium on Language and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), held at the Church Center for the United Nations, New York, on April 21 and 22, 2016.  Over one hundred academics, diplomats, NGO representatives and UN officials attended the gathering, which examined the linguistic implications of the SDGs, set by the United Nations General Assembly as the basis for the UN’s development agenda for the period 2015-2030.  The recently published summary presents some of  the conclusions of the symposium. It emphasizes that language and language differences tend to get taken for granted by planners, who overlook their importance in determining effective outcomes.

“The dominance of certain languages, particularly English, in international development discourse” creates, according to the report, “the illusion of a unified global effort.”  While development experts may be fluent in English, many of the people they seek to serve know none of the major world languages. Thus, “dialogue tends to go in one direction: from the planners to the planned,” and “often language prevents dialogue in a spirit of reciprocity and equality between planners and people.”

There is clearly “an urgent need to include language at the planning, implementation and assessment stages” of the SDGs.

The report points out that all seventeen of the SDGs involve language, either as part of the outcome of a particular goal (thus, essential to Goal 4, on quality education, is education in a language that pupils can understand), or as a tool: even clean water [Goal 6] and responsible consumption and production [Goal 12], topics apparently far removed from language, require discussion, planning and training among equal partners with different language backgrounds.

“Top-down language policies frequently fail to engage individual members of society, whose grass-roots motivations and thought-processes will ultimately determine the outcome of policy implementation,” the report maintains.  “Engagement and authentic dialogue require acknowledgment of language diversity” and the sensitive planning that should accompany it.

The symposium conclusions give particular attention to education, which requires “linguistically aware educational policies” if it is to be effective.  Also addressed are language issues in displaced and refugee populations, and “the protection and enforcement of individuals’ fundamental rights” where these can be compromised through inadequate language policies, for example in courts of law (Goal 16 addresses “peace, justice and strong institutions”).

The summary report is available at www.languageandtheun.org<http://www.languageandtheun.org/>.  A full report on the symposium will be published in the coming months.

Keynote speakers at the symposium were Suzanne Romaine, until recently Merton Professor of English Language at Oxford University, and Michael Ten-Pow, Special Adviser to the UN Coordinator for Multilingualism.




Contact: tonkin[at]hartford.edu
160526
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