For the
last fifty years it has been the custom in international conferences
in the world of social education and childcare to translate the major
speeches and some of the other sessions into English, French, German,
sometimes Spanish and maybe the language of the host country.
There
have been good reasons for this practice. Not only have there been
groups of countries which use these languages as their mother tongues,
such as France, Belgium and parts of Switzerland which speak French,
but there are countries which have close cultural ties with them,
such as Romania with France, or which have in the past been colonies
of French-speaking countries, such as Quebec, Algeria and other north
African counties which were part of the French Empire, or Congo which
was under Belgian control.
By using
these main languages, most people attending conferences could understand
the proceedings. There were, of course, also countries such as China
with large populations which were not generally represented at these
events. When they were involved, there sometimes had to be two stages
of translation. I recall one meeting where Ethiopians were speaking
Amharic, which was translated into Hebrew and then from Hebrew into
English, and on into French for those who could not follow any of
the other three languages. It made for delayed laughter when there
were jokes, and I am sure that some of the sense got lost in the process.
However,
over the last ten years or so there has been a steady shift towards
the use of English in international meetings. In the recent Congress
of the International Federation of Social Workers in Copenhagen, French,
German and Danish were on offer as well as English, but when the speaker
was using English, a glance round the hall showed that, of the 750
delegates, only a very small handful were using headsets.
Simultaneous
translation has its drawbacks. The quality can be very variable. FICE,
for example, has had the good fortune to have the same two interpreters
for nearly thirty years now, and they are both competent and highly
knowledgeable about their subject matter, but others are less fortunate.
Conferences can be wrecked by poor translation, and there have been
times when inexpert interpreters have used incorrect terminology or
when they have not kept up and have missed out crucial parts of speeches,
whether through their own incompetence or the speed of the speakers.
I also remember one conference where there were insufficient headsets,
and those without had to make do with their own thoughts.
What
is more, translation is expensive. If you pay a fee and travel expenses
for a speaker, you should get an extra speech. If you pay for an interpreter
you only get a wider audience.
So the
point of this article is to ask whether the time has come to hold
international conferences for people who work with children and young
people only in English. The reasons for the idea are simplicity, directness
and cost. The main argument against is that some people would be excluded,
but once it is known that international events are always conducted
in English, it will be an encouragement to the few who are not sufficiently
fluent to learn.
Following
on from conferences, it will make sense for all serious journals to
be published in English, or at least have summaries of their articles
in English. Doctoral theses and major reports would also need to be
translated - if not written - in English, and advanced teaching could
be undertaken in English as well. All major texts would need to be
translated so that an English version would be available.
The outcome
would be a profession which shares a common language, where worldwide
communication would be direct, and where people would need a maximum
of one second language in order to communicate with everyone else.
Any language could be selected for this purpose, but it appears that
English is becoming de facto accepted as the world’s lingua
franca.
What
about other drawbacks? One would be that, although English is a very
flexible language with a big vocabulary, it would need to be expanded
further to ensure that it could cope with concepts in other languages
which are not yet part of common usage. One obvious way, which English
has adopted for over a thousand years, is to absorb terms from other
languages. Whether they are villas, igloos, condominiums or bungalows,
they are all part of the English language now.
Of course,
this issue is not just a matter of terminology. People think in different
ways in different cultures and languages, and we would need to find
ways of communicating the subtleties and complexities of thought which
help us understand human behaviour. But English is used in many forms
already, and should be capable of adaptation.
There
would also no doubt be ongoing problems about different uses of terms.
American, South African, Australian, Scottish and English English
all differ. As Sir Winston Churchill once said, “America and
Britain are two nations divided by a common language”. But this
is a problem in every living language, and trying to define words
so that their meanings cannot be expanded will kill a language. It
is a problem to be lived with and exploited, so that additional nuances
of meaning are grasped and concepts are extended.
And what
about those who see the use of English as a sort of imperialism which
they resent, whether it carries memories of the British Empire or
smacks of the spread of Americanisation through television, films,
computer language and McDonalds? Historical connotations attach to
every living national language in the world, and the only way to avoid
is to use Esperanto. It is an easy language to understand, but how
many people can speak it? Perhaps the past is something we all have
to live with, if we are to be pragmatic.
There
is, after all, a less recognised side to this issue. From an English
viewpoint, we have to acknowledge that our language has been hijacked
by a few billion other people, and we no longer have sole possession
of our own tongue to reflect our nationalism. It has been stolen -
or borrowed, used, added to, modified and changed for ever. We in
England cannot control it. It is for the world to use now.
The current
surging tide of English-speaking presents an opportunity to the profession.
If we share a single language (whether as mother tongue or second
language), the quality of communication should be improved.
What
is more, if we recognise that interpretation is expensive in our conferences
and decide to share a single tongue, what a model for cost-saving
we could present to the European Union and the United Nations!
