I have read the thread on the question in which language to submit proposals to DH2014 with fascination, and wondered about two things:

1 / There are political and economic aspects linked to every lingua franca, and it is my understanding that there was a debate in British newspapers a few months back about the fact that for several decades the learning of foreign languages has been rapidly declining in Britain, and the lack of prestige awarded to the mastery of foreign languages is now showing a concrete impact in the diplomatic service and the British business community.
Still, I wonder whether a lingua franca is needed to make any global, transnational, or international community work, or are we going to revitalize Esperanto or are moving back to Latin and French which were important linguae francae in continental Europe? Historical alternatives would be Arabic and Persian whose reach until the 19th century covered most of the Muslim community in Eurasia and Africa, from Spain and the Balkans to northern China, Indian Subcontinent and the Pacific Rim.

2 / I find Ernesto's first comment particularly interesting because his points that languages are not neutral vehicles and that research standards vary from language to language (I would even argue that they vary from society to society, but that is another matter).
But taking the long view -- as a German native who is working in the US on matters of Islamic history in Arabic and Persian -- the dominance of (bad) English at international conferences is a recent phenomenon because the international rise of English as the predominant academic language only began after 1945. Therefore it stands to reason that there is a good chance that at a certain point English will be replaced by another language.  Possible candidates, judging by the sheer sizes of their world wide communities of native speakers are Mandarin and Spanish.
As Neven pointed out, it may be possible to accommodate in an international context large language groups in addition to English, but the real challenge will be to accommodate native speakers in comparatively small language communities such as Maltese, Gaelic, Icelandic -- to add more exotic examples to list of smallish European languages.

Just another 0.02
-- dagmar



On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 8:39 PM, Spence, Paul <paul.spence@kcl.ac.uk> wrote:

Dear Ernesto

 

I’ve just come from the excellent international seminar in digital humanities in Sao Paolo, Brazil, so pardon the delay in responding. Thanks for your kind email – no offence taken at all, and I fully understand the concerns, but I just wanted to give a slightly different perspective as someone who’s seen how the programme committee works ‘on the inside’ over a number of years. Clearly there are a lot of things to think about, and throwing a few ideas out can’t harm anyone – so great to hear new ideas from everyone.

 

All the best

Paul

 

From: globaloutlookdh-l-bounces@uleth.ca [mailto:globaloutlookdh-l-bounces@uleth.ca] On Behalf Of Ernesto Priego
Sent: 25 October 2013 09:13
To: A list for participants in the ADHO DH Global Outlook Community
Subject: Re: [globaloutlookDH-l] Applications in native language and talk in English ?

 

Thanks very much to Paul for his kind response. Rereading my message it's me who comes across unnecessarily stern-- emailing first thing in the morning might not be such a good idea! :/ My sincere apologies for that. I can completely understand how hard it must be for chairs-- and managing peer review for such a large conference must be extra difficult.

Great proposals all around-- I couldn't agree more with Paul that we need to look into

> how academic research papers are produced and reviewed in different countries, and whether we should agree on a common DH standard (which is made explicit) and if not how we deal with heterogeneous criteria.

Perhaps this is where having reviewers from different backgrounds might help; having some basic quality guidelines, like the ones journals have, that can be discipline-agnostic could be the foundation and then specifics related to topic, or style (as in, more essay-like or not) even methodology could be left to the reviewers fluent in the academic cultures associated to different languages. Maybe?

I also think Isabel is spot-on in how multilingual chairs can help a lot; understanding questions from the floor in different accents from various people in varying environments can be very difficult for presenters, so as she says a set of suggested techniques (repeat question for presenter and rest of the audience, translate or explain if necessary) would be great.

Thank you everyone for your patience with these lengthy emails of mine. Cheers!


Dr Ernesto Priego
Lecturer in Library Science
Acting Course Director, MSc/MA Electronic Publishing
City University London

Editor-in-Chief, The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship http://www.comicsgrid.com/

Subscribe to the Comics Grid Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/iOYAj

 

 

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 9:54 PM, igalina <igalina@unam.mx> wrote:

Dear All,

I love the idea of using this list for brainstorming and putting forth some ideas to the ADHO. One suggestion that came up in informal conversations at DH13 with other Spanish speakers has to do with the presentations. Some felt that although they could present in English, they had difficulties with the questions at the end of the session.  They simply couldn't understand the question properly (speaking too quickly, too quietly and/or bad acoustics)  and this made it difficult to answer. One of the suggestions was that, if requested by the presenter, the chair of the session could help out with the questions, either repeating them, translating or making them clearer in some way.  I think promoting the use of bilingual chairs of session would be another way of favouring (positive discrimination is it called?) people whose second language is English and offering new spaces of participation. 

I for one enjoy reviewing for DH and would like to see more abstracts submitted in Spanish (my other language).  I also understand the difficulties encountered with coordinating the whole peer review process and the need for deadlines.  Finding a balance is essential. 

Best, 

Isabel

 

 

----------

Dra. Isabel Galina Russell

Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, 

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

@igalina

De: globaloutlookdh-l-bounces@uleth.ca [globaloutlookdh-l-bounces@uleth.ca] en nombre de Spence, Paul [paul.spence@kcl.ac.uk]
Enviado: jueves, 24 de octubre de 2013 01:02 p.m.
Para: A list for participants in the ADHO DH Global Outlook Community
Asunto: RE: [globaloutlookDH-l] Applications in native language and talk in English ?

Dear Ernesto, All

 

I was the programme chair in 2012, so if I was unnecessarily stern I’m sorry Ernesto, but from the perspective of the chair it’s a lot of work getting everything done on time!

 

As for the issues of multilingualism, I made a significant effort to expand the reviewer list in 2012, with a particular focus on residents of countries outside the traditional areas and under-represented language groups (both to cover the few submissions not in English and to do what we could to address the historic imbalances we all know about), an effort I know others have made in the past. Of course, there are economic and other conditions which affect us all in different ways, but as programme chair you just have to invite everyone who can and wants to, to make a contribution.

 

I’d encourage people on this list to brainstorm ideas on the linguistic challenges and forward them to the ADHO conference co-ordinating committee. For me, however, the key issue at present is cultural – how academic research papers are produced and reviewed in different countries, and whether we should agree on a common DH standard (which is made explicit) and if not how we deal with heterogeneous criteria.

 

Best

Paul

 

 

From: globaloutlookdh-l-bounces@uleth.ca [mailto:globaloutlookdh-l-bounces@uleth.ca] On Behalf Of Ernesto Priego
Sent: 23 October 2013 07:45
To: A list for participants in the ADHO DH Global Outlook Community
Subject: Re: [globaloutlookDH-l] Applications in native language and talk in English ?

 

Domenico, from reading your message I would have never guessed you don't live in an English-speaking country. I live in one and I am sure everyone who doesn't know it think I stilll live in Mexico ;) Your English is perfect to me!.

Main point being is I can completely relate to your decision not to review, I was told off quite briskly in 2012 when I was unable to complete the reviews under the deadline they gave me-- the reasons for this not being laziness or procrastination, but the extra difficulty of having to read and review in different languages. I'd love to contribute more to the international community, but when the conditions of production and survival (employment!) are not equal, complexities arise, and these are hard to subject to standard procedures.

I completely agree the problem is political rather than technical. What is revealed when we think about these issues more openly is that some can, indeed, work for the glory (or, the glory pays). Not all of us are that lucky.

I believe it is a very good thing we are seeing more awareness of the international and mulitlingual nature of DH scholarship. These discussions are productive because they can take this awareness to a next level, where we realise that allowing different languages will not necessarily level the playing field. Perhaps a little bit, but... ;)

My best regards to all the members of this list.

 

 


Dr Ernesto Priego
Lecturer in Library Science
Acting Course Director, MSc/MA Electronic Publishing
City University London

Editor-in-Chief, The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship http://www.comicsgrid.com/

Subscribe to the Comics Grid Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/iOYAj

 

 

On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 8:40 PM, Domenico Fiormonte <domenico.fiormonte@gmail.com> wrote:

I totally agree with Alex. Let's pass the suggestion along. Submissions, in principle, should be possible in ALL languages. That's the only way to guarantee/ensure a minimum common denominator in terms of opportunities, etc.
I've been reviewer for DH for years, and I know the various committes have been struggling to find solutions. I know it's not easy, but in the end English rhetoric, at all levels, rules. See this excellent contribution (pointed out to me by Marin Dacos -- thanks Marin!):
http://www.wssf2013.org/fr/paper-article/role-open-access-challenging-north-atlantic-domination-social-sciences

I am sorry to say that this year I decided to give up reviewing for DH2014. I guess very few native speakers can appreciate how much sweat and tears cost writing a proper review in English. Why should be our 'service' three (or more) times more time consuming than the average reviewer? Am I working for the glory?
And I don't even live in a English-speaking country like Ernesto and others. I don't use English everyday (and I think you can tell this from this email...). So, the irony is that Anglo-Americans very seldom read contributions in other languages than English, but I've to read them all and sometimes also to review them...

The solutions are out there, and the problem, as always, is political rather than technical.

All the best,

Domenico

 

 

2013/10/22 Alex Gil <colibri.alex@gmail.com>

We had a very positive experience at GO::DH with our essay contest by leaving submissions open to ALL languages. We made a commitment to try and find a reviewer for any given language, with the caveat that we may not succeed, in case that happened we would then ask for English. In the end we were able to accommodate all languages submitted. 

 

A combination of flexibility and good will can go a long way.

 

My .02,

A.

 

On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Neven Jovanović <filologanoga@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello all,

for me personally (as my first language and first scholarly community
is Croatian) it is easier to write the proposal in English, if I'm
required to deliver the paper in English as well. But, as they say,
your mileage may vary, and people who do not feel comfortable in
English would probably feel they have a better chance of acceptance if
they write in the language they know best. Also, I believe there is a
number of English speakers able to competently review proposals in
other languages (the reviews and communications to author would have
to be in the chosen language as well, I guess)...

The main problem is, this is simply not possible for *all* other
languages. Certainly it should be possible for Spanish, French,
Italian, German; perhaps for Russian and Polish; but, for Danish,
Croatian, Dutch, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Bulgarian, Slovenian (to
name just a few European ones, and not to mention Arabic or Chinese)?

Perhaps the initiative should state explicitly *which* languages for
proposals are acceptable (and ensure that there exists a pool of
reviewers for these languages).

Best,

Neven

Neven Jovanovic
University of Zagreb
Hrvatska / Croatia



On 22 October 2013 17:19, Ernesto Priego <efpriego@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is an interesting proposal. However, if one can give a talk in
> English... why wouldn't one be able to submit the application/abstract in
> English as well?
>
> I can see this would encourage peer reviewers who speak other langues
> natively to participate, but as pointed out this also carries the danger of
> the pool of experts (perhaps) being smaller and therefore there being
> greater risk of conflict of interest (or not).
>
> I can also see how if presentations are made in other languages (not
> English) then the audience of those presentations might be reduced/othered
> etc.
>
> It is a real dilemma that like many others here I keep thinking about.
>
> My main concern is that languages are not neutral vehicles, and that
> research submitted for review in a particular language will not be the same
> research (i.e. might not have the same quality) when translated into English
> (and who will do this translation? if not the researchers/authors, will
> translators get credit and can count as academic authors? a series of
> problems arise...!) Unless we are talking about researchers presenting a
> paper ("reading a paper") in their own language and having a real-time
> interpreter in situ...
>
> Do you know what I mean? Some research in, say, Spanish is not only research
> that could be presented in any language, but that results from the
> particular settings/problematics/contexts of Spanish-speaking academic
> cultures, availability of research, etc. Perhaps what is top notch research
> in Spanish is not necessarily top notch research in English, mainly because
> that type of research in English has, let´s say, in some cases, already been
> done?
>
> Just some brainstorming in public here...
>
> Cheers...
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr Ernesto Priego
> Lecturer in Library Science
> Acting Course Director, MSc/MA Electronic Publishing
> City University London
> http://epriego.wordpress.com/  @ernestopriego
> Editor-in-Chief, The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship
> http://www.comicsgrid.com/
> Subscribe to the Comics Grid Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/iOYAj
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 2:33 PM, Alex Gil <colibri.alex@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I agree with Marin. Shall we pass the message as is to the organizing
>> committee?
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Oct 22, 2013, at 3:53 AM, Marin Dacos <marin.dacos@openedition.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear friends,
>>
>> As I am thinking about submitting a paper to DH2014, I would like to
>> suggest a way to enhance the visibility of non english native speakers and
>> to encourage them to submit in their own language.
>>
>> I would like to propose that the application is reviewed in the native and
>> the talk given in English. That would help a lot :
>> - the "cost" to write the project would be reduced, and so we would
>> receive more non English applications because people would not have to
>> translate their application in English ;
>> - if the application is refused, then the translation would be useless ;
>> - if the application is agreed, then a translation process of the whole
>> paper would be required, but it would be worth it, since the paper is
>> accepted.
>>
>> The only drawback of this system is that reviewers and authors are more
>> likely to know each other. The advantage is that we are more likely to get
>> new reviewers and more applications. To be completely honnest, today, I am
>> not confortable with my position of reviewer, since I do not support people
>> willing to give a talk in French AND that my reviewing skills are best for
>> French contents. If I had to review in French a paper that would produce a
>> talk in English, this would be more confortable for me.
>>
>> What do you think about this two-step proposal?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Marin
>>
>>
>> --
>> Marin Dacos - http://www.openedition.org
>> Director - Centre for Open Electronic Publishing - CNRS - EHESS -
>> Aix-Marseille Université (AMU) - Université d'Avignon
>> OpenEdition is now a Facility of Excellence (Equipex)
>>
>> Nouvelle adresse postale :
>> OpenEdition - 38 Rue Frédéric Joliot Curie - F - 13013 Marseille Cedex 20
>>
>> Tél : 04 13 55 03 40 Tél. direct : 04 13 55 03 39 Fax : 04 13 55 03 41
>>
>> Skype : marin.dacos - Google hangout : marin.dacos@openedition.org
>> Twitter [FR] : http://twitter.com/marindacos
>> Twitter [EN] : http://twitter.com/openmarin
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> globaloutlookdh-l mailing list
>> globaloutlookdh-l@uleth.ca
>> http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/globaloutlookdh-l
>>
>> You are currently subscribed to this list in NON-digest mode. This means
>> you receive every message as it is posted.
>>
>> If this represents too much traffic, you can also subscribe in DIGEST
>> mode. This sends out a single email once a day containing the entire day's
>> postings. To change your settings go to
>> http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/options/globaloutlookdh-l You can request a
>> password reminder from this page if you have forgotten yours.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> globaloutlookdh-l mailing list
>> globaloutlookdh-l@uleth.ca
>> http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/globaloutlookdh-l
>>
>> You are currently subscribed to this list in NON-digest mode. This means
>> you receive every message as it is posted.
>>
>> If this represents too much traffic, you can also subscribe in DIGEST
>> mode. This sends out a single email once a day containing the entire day's
>> postings. To change your settings go to
>> http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/options/globaloutlookdh-l You can request a
>> password reminder from this page if you have forgotten yours.
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> globaloutlookdh-l mailing list
> globaloutlookdh-l@uleth.ca
> http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/globaloutlookdh-l
>
> You are currently subscribed to this list in NON-digest mode. This means you
> receive every message as it is posted.
>
> If this represents too much traffic, you can also subscribe in DIGEST mode.
> This sends out a single email once a day containing the entire day's
> postings. To change your settings go to
> http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/options/globaloutlookdh-l You can request a
> password reminder from this page if you have forgotten yours.
>

_______________________________________________
globaloutlookdh-l mailing list
globaloutlookdh-l@uleth.ca
http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/globaloutlookdh-l

You are currently subscribed to this list in NON-digest mode. This means you receive every message as it is posted.

If this represents too much traffic, you can also subscribe in DIGEST mode. This sends out a single email once a day containing the entire day's postings. To change your settings go to http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/options/globaloutlookdh-l You can request a password reminder from this page if you have forgotten yours.

 


_______________________________________________
globaloutlookdh-l mailing list
globaloutlookdh-l@uleth.ca
http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/globaloutlookdh-l

You are currently subscribed to this list in NON-digest mode. This means you receive every message as it is posted.

If this represents too much traffic, you can also subscribe in DIGEST mode. This sends out a single email once a day containing the entire day's postings. To change your settings go to http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/options/globaloutlookdh-l You can request a password reminder from this page if you have forgotten yours.

 


_______________________________________________
globaloutlookdh-l mailing list
globaloutlookdh-l@uleth.ca
http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/globaloutlookdh-l

You are currently subscribed to this list in NON-digest mode. This means you receive every message as it is posted.

If this represents too much traffic, you can also subscribe in DIGEST mode. This sends out a single email once a day containing the entire day's postings. To change your settings go to http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/options/globaloutlookdh-l You can request a password reminder from this page if you have forgotten yours.

 


_______________________________________________
globaloutlookdh-l mailing list
globaloutlookdh-l@uleth.ca
http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/globaloutlookdh-l

You are currently subscribed to this list in NON-digest mode. This means you receive every message as it is posted.

If this represents too much traffic, you can also subscribe in DIGEST mode. This sends out a single email once a day containing the entire day's postings. To change your settings go to http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/options/globaloutlookdh-l You can request a password reminder from this page if you have forgotten yours.

 


_______________________________________________
globaloutlookdh-l mailing list
globaloutlookdh-l@uleth.ca
http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/globaloutlookdh-l

You are currently subscribed to this list in NON-digest mode. This means you receive every message as it is posted.

If this represents too much traffic, you can also subscribe in DIGEST mode. This sends out a single email once a day containing the entire day's postings. To change your settings go to http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/options/globaloutlookdh-l You can request a password reminder from this page if you have forgotten yours.