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)
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