German as a Language of Scholarship
The Deutsche Kulturrat announced this week that a scant 1% of publications in the natural sciences appear in German and regretted the fact that using English at international conferences in Germany means that Germans end up speaking English to each other. Admittedly it does seem silly, but the international scholarly community needs a common language. Personally I would not mind if that language were German, French, Spanish or some other broadly used language. I like learning languages. But the fact is it is English.
This has consequences for my students. If they want to have a career that is not strictly local, they need to read English well, to write it at a level that communicates their ideas (even if the grammar is imperfect and the tone not quite native), and to speak and understand it decently enough to take part in discussions. This is hard and we do far too little to train them.
Mere language competence is not, however, quite sufficient. There are cultural norms that adhere to English language discourse that are not quite standard in Germany and vice versa. I tend, for example, to understatement much too often when speaking German -- an English speaker would recognize my intent, but my German students often do not. The reverse happens too: Germans can seem needlessly combative or aggressive in English when they do not mean it. This is odd in its way, because the give-and-take in class or colloquium debate in German sometimes seems excessively polite (especially toward professors) compared to, say, the US go-for-the-throat standard where scholarly issues are concerned.
The language problem affects library publications. German language library journals simply are not read outside of Germany, except by a few German subject specialists, and many of Germany's best library authors write in English for international journals because they want a broader audience for their ideas. Does this mean that the German-only journals are doomed to a local-only significance? It is hard to argue that the answer is not "yes".
This has consequences for my students. If they want to have a career that is not strictly local, they need to read English well, to write it at a level that communicates their ideas (even if the grammar is imperfect and the tone not quite native), and to speak and understand it decently enough to take part in discussions. This is hard and we do far too little to train them.
Mere language competence is not, however, quite sufficient. There are cultural norms that adhere to English language discourse that are not quite standard in Germany and vice versa. I tend, for example, to understatement much too often when speaking German -- an English speaker would recognize my intent, but my German students often do not. The reverse happens too: Germans can seem needlessly combative or aggressive in English when they do not mean it. This is odd in its way, because the give-and-take in class or colloquium debate in German sometimes seems excessively polite (especially toward professors) compared to, say, the US go-for-the-throat standard where scholarly issues are concerned.
The language problem affects library publications. German language library journals simply are not read outside of Germany, except by a few German subject specialists, and many of Germany's best library authors write in English for international journals because they want a broader audience for their ideas. Does this mean that the German-only journals are doomed to a local-only significance? It is hard to argue that the answer is not "yes".
posted by Michael Seadle at 11:39 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks (belatedly - just found your blog via your signature) for putting your thoughts down here. I make similar arguments here in Leipzig, and would go so far as to say that, increasingly, the ability to speak English is of necessity a career-enhancing or -inhibiting factor for anyone who works on any level other than the local, as you point out.
I feel somewhat guilty, as a native speaker, about this state of affairs, but arguing about the right and wrong of it misses the point. English has, for now, established itself as the lingua franca in nearly any international pursuit. Better to spend the time learning English than fighting or dodging it.
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