LL-L "Language politics" 2012.05.23 (01) [EN]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 23 May 2012 - Volume 01
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From: Mike Wintzer k9mw at gmx.com
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2012.05.21 (01) [EN]

Dear LLs,
after so many electrons chased around the world
on the subject of English in higher education,
here's my five-cents worth.
You might not even consider it worth five cents,
because I beg to differ.
Higher education is becoming more and more a
global activity, so a common language - in the
old days it used to be Latin - is not a bad thing
per se. PROVIDED this doesn't spill over into
other domains of social life. This is a very evident
danger - evidenced by the examples of Mexico
and the Netherlands cited in recent postings on
the subject. This danger might obliterate the
upside that I see: A common language on
"national" or global level would REMOVE ALL
JUSTIFICATION for a central government to
impose a "national" language, the ubiquitous
phenomenon that threatens our vernaculars
in the LL and indeed world-wide.
With all respect, Mike Wintzer

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From: R. F. Hahn
Subject: Language politics

Dear Lowlanders,

Most of us cling to lofty ideas about institutes of higher education. Yes,
while most of them are still at least partially supported by governments,
but more and more of their specialized (graduate) education and research
comes to be financed by private enterprise, and more and more universities
are transitioning to function as advanced-level vocational schools that are
marketed as money-making ventures. At the same time, humanities and social
studies departments keep being whittled down and amalgamated as auxiliary
units that serve the "important" departments. Language and culture
departments are a case in point. Only (commercially) "important" ones
remain. And, yes, so tend to do those that deal with the language and the
culture of a given university's home country.

In past times, foreign students had to study the languages of their host
countries as a part of their curricula. This is a lot to ask of a person
unless their major *is* the language of the host country. In China I met a
lot of African and Latin American students that were there to study
medicine, agriculture, civil engineering, etc., and had to study Chinese
before they could even start ... and most of them resented that. So, seen
from a merely practical standpoint, there is something to be said for using
an international lingua franca in certain fields that attract large numbers
of foreign students. It started with international summer courses,
continued on to undergraduate and higher courses in fields such as
international business, and is now apparently being extended to entire
universities switching to English.

So I assume that the mentioned Italian university will still offer Italian
studies majors, and I further assume that the default language for these
will be Italian (just as it is the default language of the upper grades in
Italian departments in non-Italian universities). In all other fields,
however, the default language will be English. This will open up a vast
faculty pool. I foresee some problems with that. Italian students studying
medicine, engineering or computer science are likely to end up not being
able to be fully conversant in their specialties in their native or main
language: Italian.

Imagine: a patient sits in the exam room, and one or two doctors join the
attendant doctor to discuss the case ... *in English* ... and the attendant
doctor then relates the gist of it to the patient ... in Italian, probably
peppered with English terminology.

And Italy's many regional and minority languages? Even if they came to be
officially recognized and are being taught in some university, they would
be first to be culled at the first sign budget problems.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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