The trend
Recent papers, editorials, and commentaries discuss the growing use of English as the main language of communication in academic human geography, be it through articles, textbooks, or conferences (Aalbers, 2004; Belina, 2005; Helms et al, 2005; Kitchin, 2005; Paasi, 2005; Rodríguez-Pose, 2004; Short et al, 2001). Journals in an increasing number of non-English-speaking countries, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, have turned to the English language to become internationally more attractive. This has been connected with the general trend of cultural globalisation and deterritorialisation (Short et al, 2001) and with the rising academic capitalism, which is leading to increasing pressure in non-English-speaking countries to publish in international (that is, English) journals about mainstream topics (Paasi, 2005). It has some clear advantages, such as the creation of a global community ["geography itself has become globalized" (Short et al, 2001, page 10)].
However, the globalisation of the geographical discourse has been geographically partial. So-called international journals are to a limited extent truly international, as the lion's share of their authors stem from the UK and the US. Gutiérrez and Lopez-Nieva (2001, page 67) calculated that these two countries cover 73.4% of the authors between 1991 and 1997, whereas Germany and France have scores of around 0.5%. They conclude that human geography is still "fragmented into national and linguistic communities". Strongly related to this evidence is the heated debate about the Anglo-American hegemony in human geography (Minca, 2000; Olds and Poon, 2002; Rodríguez-Pose, 2004; Yeung, 2001). It is to some extent, but certainly not only, a power question: linguistic hegemony empowers some (native speakers mainly) while disempowering others (Short et al, 2001). It is argued by many, that due to language advantages Anglo-American geographers dominate theoretical debates and discourses by possessing key gatekeeper functions, such as journal editorships and acting as referees (see, for instance, Garcia-Ramon, 2003; Gutiérrez and Lopez-Nieva, 2001). It is also said that Anglo-American geographers ignore or disregard as irrelevant, research written in languages other than English. Even worse, the work in English of geographers from other traditions, is considered, at best, exotic and, at worst, irrelevant.
Rodríguez-Pose (2006, page 603) recently summarised the main tenor of most of the commentaries as follows: "Hence, the prevailing perception is that the supposed `Anglo-American' domination is narrowing the confines of the discipline, eating away some of its richness and diversity, and leading towards a human geography that is poorer and less capable of understanding an increasingly complex world in which diversity matters." His most recent analyses, however, show that Continental Europeans and more recently Asians are catching up, when it comes to journal articles and citations, at the expense of American and Australian colleagues, whereas the British maintain their strong position (Rodríguez-Pose, 2006).
Emotions are running high or "they think you're as stupid as your English is" (England and Stiell, 1997)
Despite these recent positive trends, the commentaries are often driven by emotional feelings of unfairness. At international conferences and workshops, for instance, the knowledge and wisdom of some nonnative colleagues cannot be disclosed because of linguistic barriers, whereas native English speakers can sometimes hide their ignorance by using fine or rapidly spoken language. Belina (2005) points at the use of context-specific abbreviations and acronyms, in particular by native speakers, something which also has annoyed me several times. The use of English at conferences seems to lead to unconscious expectations among native-speaking colleagues that the audience is well informed about the context in their home countries. Nonnative speakers, in general, introduce their local topic with much more care and depth. In particular, nonnative colleagues observe these phenomena, sometimes get emotional, but have to accept them, because they know that there is no alternative to the use of English at international conferences.
There are also complaints about the lack of interest shown by colleagues from Great Britain and the US in empirical work in other countries and in work by the Others, even if they write in English. Rodríguez-Pose (2004, page 1) states in this context that "in cases of similar quality, papers dealing with ...New York or Northumberland are more likely to be published than papers addressing similar issues in Jakarta ... or Ecuador, and a paper by an English or American academic on Mexico has a greater chance of making it than that of a Mexican scholar." De Pater (1999) observes that, although Dutch-speaking geographers have a long tradition in publishing in international journals, only the colleagues who moved to Great Britain or the US are internationally well cited. The same is true for some other Continental European colleagues: would they be cited as often, if they had stayed in their home country? The conclusion for ambitious nonnative colleagues would be to try to get a job at a university in Great Britain or the USA, which would reinforce the existing trends and vicious circle.
In that context I would like to make a remark about Rodríguez-Pose's (2006) praise of the multinational, flexible, and open atmosphere at many departments in Great Britain, the US, and Canada in contrast to the majority of non-English-speaking countries, such as his home country Spain, and his reference to his own career move to Great Britain. Aren't these departments so multinational because English is the dominating language in academia? Why, for instance, do departments in Germany, which are in my experience also flexible and open, attract hardly any nonnative German-speaking geographers?
Like many of my nonnative colleagues, I have been faced with the language issue on several occasions during my career. Being educated in a small-language country (I studied human geography at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands), I was at an early stage confronted with English textbooks. On rational grounds (I wanted to pass the examinations), I quickly gave up my negative attitude towards English, which was the only foreign language I didn't like at school. I got frustrated with the textbooks, though, as theoretical arguments were illustrated only with case studies from faraway cities and regions in Great Britain and the US, with which I was not familiar. Furthermore, as the textbooks were written by British and American authors, they nearly only used English references. After my recent appointment at the University of Oslo, I found out that the power of the Anglo-American textbook is also strong in Scandinavian countries. Positive emotions were generated by the improvement of my English due to specific language courses as a postgraduate and the writing of my PhD thesis in English. I was proud that I managed it and that colleagues in other countries could read my work. After getting annoyed at several international conferences by the ignorance of Anglo-American colleagues and the pitiful performance due to language barriers of highly esteemed nonnative colleagues, it was at the first global conference on economic geography in Singapore in 2000 that I dared to utter my frustration in public after a keynote speech on the power of the textbook. I made a critical remark about the power of language, noting that there were hardly any nonnative keynote speakers at the conference and that large parts of the industrialised world, particularly French and Spanish-speaking colleagues, were absent from this global conference. It was interesting to see that representatives from a large proportion of the nonnative colleagues reacted enthusiastically after my intervention; some of them said to me that they thought exactly like me but didn't dare to make such an intervention. After the conference some publications appeared dealing with the Anglo-American hegemony (see, for instance, Olds and Poon, 2002).With regard to publishing, from time to time I got annoyed by the requirement of this journal to translate non-English references into English. Am I a linguist? What should I do with untranslatable expressions in references? Aren't only-English-reading colleagues advantaged enough by the fact that I write the article in their language? Recently, when I received the referee report from a colleague referee after a paper by an anonymous author was resubmitted, I was surprised that he complained about the use of too many non-English references by the author(s) (see also Aalbers, 2004). He or she urged the authors to replace them with English references. In my contrasting view, using references in languages other than English is an asset!
In nonnative English countries there is a constant tension between opening up and closing yourself through the selection of the language and thus between your own national tradition and Anglo-American work (Kitchin, 2005). At more and more universities in Germany, for instance, some courses are taught in English, but, at the same time, it is forbidden in some faculties for Germans to write their PhD theses in English. In Norway at my current university, there has been a lively debate over the last year about the use of Norwegian as an academic language at the university and the threat of English.
Rodríguez-Pose (2004; 2006) is one of the few who does not regard the Anglo-American hegemony as a big problem and who even favours the use of English as a vehicle to preserve geographical diversity. Like him I have crossed borders in Europe in order to find a decent job in academia, but I didn't cross the Channel, which might have affected my thoughts on the topic, particularly with regard to language. In my view, it is easy to write in favour of English if you are a nonnative speaker who has been based in England for many years and who is well integrated in the Anglo-American scientific community. I wonder what Rodríguez-Pose would have written, had he made a career in his home country. I do agree with Rodríguez-Pose (2006) that much of the criticism is driven by emotions, anecdotes, and personal grudges, because a paper has been rejected, for instance. He is also fully right in stating that these emotions are sometimes misused to distract from internally caused problems, such as the hierarchical academic system, inadequate research incentives, and rigidities. It is easy to distract attention from internal problems if you blame external dominance. At the same time, the British and American system might suffer from ignoring internal weaknesses as well, due to their partly linguistically caused dominance, which might hide internal deficits.
The debate, however, is too important to be simply dismissed as being an emotional reaction to suppression and frustration. There are two areas that deserve further reflection and discussion, areas that have not been taken up to a large extent in the debate so far, namely the strategies that can be used by nonnative speakers and, in particular, the impact that the use of English has on the work by nonnative writers.
How to cope with it?
According to Yeung (2001, page 6) there are three options for scholars outside the dominant Anglo-American systems: first, to play the `game' as an insider, secondly, to play the `game' as an outsider, and thirdly, to exit the `game' altogether or to remain isolated in national, non-English traditions and schools. Since the third option is no serious option (Garcia-Ramon, 2003), most scholars opt for the first one and try to get into the Anglo-American system by publishing in English.
Some have recently come up with solutions to solve the problems caused by the hegemony of the English language in human geography. Garcia-Ramon (2003), for instance, proposes the promotion of multilingualism among all geographers, by translating more non-English books and articles into English and making international journals truly international by opening them up to other languages than English. The latter option has, for example, been adopted by Social Geography.
But what about the consequences?
Interestingly, little has been said about the consequences of the hegemony of English as a lingua franca for non-English human geographers writing in English. Language is not only a means to communicate and to convey ideas and research results; more importantly, language also represents a way of thinking, a mental framework to do research (Garcia-Ramon, 2003; Rodríguez-Pose, 2004). Language is strongly socially embedded. It is no wonder, therefore, that natural sciences were earlier to adopt English as a scientific lingua franca than social sciences, such as human geography. To enter the world of Anglo-American human geography, therefore, means to change attitudes and the way of thinking. That might have two kinds of consequences for non-English human geographers who write in English.
First, it might have consequences for the research topics they choose. In order to be accepted by Anglo-American editors and referees, they might choose research topics that dominate in the Anglo-American discourse at the expense of locally situated research topics (Paasi, 2005). Since many young geographers in non-Anglo-American countries are more or less forced to adjust to Anglo-American discourses, they tend, for instance, to downplay local, situated knowledge. Moreover, partly due to the language barriers "non-Anglo-American research is often more applied, policy-relevant and accessible, and less tied into theoretic debate, and is often thus seen as unsuitable for publication" (Kitchin, 2005, page 4).
Secondly, in writing about locally situated phenomena in English, something might get lost in translation or the unwritten might not be conveyed (Short et al, 2001, page 10; see also Faludi, 2003; Gregson et al, 2002). This consequence might be more far-reaching when it comes to written as opposed to spoken English. Spoken English is more flexible and is more often adapted to local taste, whereas written English is much more rule bound and slow to change. Short et al (2001, page 10) state in this context: "If we only use one language to describe the world, we lose something ... .The creation of a monolingual geography raises issues about what we are losing in terms of range and subtlety of languages used to describe the world . ...The consequences require a more reflective discussion. Let us end with a question that is rarely posed yet requires an answer: What are the implications of a geographical discourse dominated by just one language?" In a recent empirical article, the Dutch human geographer Pijpers (2006, page 102) makes the following illustrative remark in an endnote: "All quotes are literally translated from Dutch. I have attempted to stay as close to the exact meaning of the Dutch texts as possible without producing bad English (or good `Dunglish'...").
This commentary has made clear that the domination of one language leads to two marginalisation processes: namely the marginalisation of areas, due to linguistically caused ethnocentricity, and the marginalisation of colleagues, because language is a symbolic power which empowers some and disempowers others. The commentary is also a plea for more thought about and reflections upon the research topics chosen and the question of `losing something' when writing and speaking in English as a foreign language about locally observed phenomena in non-English-speaking areas. In this context, I plead for more openness and tolerance with regard to both verbal communication at international conferences and the use of non-English quotes and references in written work. When will the first truly global human geography textbook appear, with references in Spanish, French, German, Chinese, and Japanese? In empirical publications I would plead for fewer translations: don't translate the untranslatable! Use glossaries to paraphrase terms in English. Multilinguistic geographers need to be rewarded, not punished. The use of references in several languages needs to be considered a strength, not an obstacle! Multilinguistic geographers need to become the standard, not something exotic. By being open to foreign-language quotes and references and by not translating the untranslatable, we might find the way between accepting English as the lingua franca, but at the same time saving at least some precious geographical diversity.
Acknowledgements. I would like to thank Bjornar Saether, Kristian Stokke, Terje Wessel, and Gerald Wood for giving useful comments on an earlier version of this commentary.
Robert Hassink Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo
References
Cite as: Hassink R, 2007, "It’s the language, stupid! On emotions, strategies, and consequences related to the use of one language to describe and explain a diverse world" Environment and Planning A 39(6) 1282 – 1287
Source: http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=a39282