Loading...
Please wait, while we are loading the content...
Similar Documents
Anglophones: If you Want us to Understand You, You Will Have to Speak Understandably!
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Belina, Bernd |
| Copyright Year | 2005 |
| Abstract | It is a simple fact these days that ‘‘international conference’’ means almost certainly that the conference language will be English. It is today’s lingua franca, as were Greek, Latin, French or German in respective historical times and contexts. This situation can be explained scientifically, praised or bemoaned normatively (if not nationalistically) or dealt with productively. As others may be much better at explaining the rise of the English language to its dominant position and as I am not interested in measuring the qualities of one language against those of another, in this intervention I do not want to deal with the fact that English is used at international conferences, but want to make some simple propositions concerning how it is used. The background for this came from discussions at the International Conference of Critical Geography in January 2005 in Mexico City that took up questions raised already at the previous meeting in July 2002 in Bekescsaba (Hungary). In both cases, the ‘‘language question’’ was on the agenda. The situation may be regarded as somewhat typical for international conferences: on the one hand, English was the language that most (if not all) participants were able to use; on the other hand, this produced uneven communication, with people whose English was not that fluent being excluded from discussions. But then again, the situation was different from your usual international/English language conference: not only were other languages used (French in Bekescsaba, Spanish and French in Mexico City) and translations |
| Starting Page | 853 |
| Ending Page | 855 |
| Page Count | 3 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.0066-4812.2005.00534.x |
| Volume Number | 37 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/45693122/2005b_Belina.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0066-4812.2005.00534.x |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
