Memoirs of a Dinosaur Language and Internationalization at a Danish University 1974-2013 Hartmut Haberland 3 October 2013 CIP Symposium
Memoirs of a Dinosaur
Language and Internationalization at a
Danish University 1974-2013
Hartmut Haberland
3 October 2013
CIP Symposium
Kabul, June 24, 1924
“Om kvelden var det modtagelse i den
britiske legation, der jeg foruten tysk,
engelsk, fransk, italiensk og svensk
(med en halv svensk russer) også måtte
forsøke mig med persisk, pashto og
hindustani.” Georg Valentin von Munthe af Morgenstierne’s diary
(Ringdal 2008, 331)
(Mortensen and Haberland 2012:192)
Differential language choice
Hamel (2008) distinguishes between language choice in
academic production (recherche scientifique),
dissemination (diffusion) and education (formation), but
leaves out administration.
In Denmark, academic language choice has varied
according to areas like textbooks, teaching and exams.
Danish came in first in research (C18) and Latin lasted
longest in exams (C19). (Mortensen and Haberland 2012,
180)
Language choice is also different between academic
disciplines (Kuteeva and Airey 2013 for Sweden).
(Rainer Enrique Hamel 2008, 196)
(Rainer Enrique Hamel 2008, 196)
(Rainer Enrique Hamel 2008, 196)
“The way we were”
(1974)
� my own language background in 1974
Altsprachliches Gymnasium in Germany:
Latin (8 years), English (actually only 3 years in
all), Classical Greek (6 years), French (3 years)
Afternoon or early morning classes on the basis
private initiatives of teachers: Modern Greek (1
year), Russian (2 years)
Self-taught: some Norwegian
At the university I had read:
L. L. Hammerich: “Introduktion til tysk grammatik”
(1935)
Hjelmslev: “Sproget”
Carl Hjalmar Borgstrøm “Innføring i
sprogvitenskap”
read (but hardly understood) Hjelmslev’s “Omkring
sprogteoriens grundlæggelse”
A philosophy professor made me read an Italian
book on Plato’s Gorgias
Colleagues (in German program)
Klaus (German, had lived in Sweden, spoke
German, Swedish and Danish and some English)
Karen (bilingual Dane from Flensburg)
Tamar (from Vienna, had lived in Norway and
Israel, spoke Danish, Norwegian and English)
Klaus (1975) (German, spoke French and English)
‘International’ colleagues (in other language
programs)
Robert (had taught in Algeria, spoke good German
and French, but preferred English)
Ulf (Swede, spoke good German, English and
Danish)
Team teaching with Ulf
Students: “Hartmut, det er jo flot at du taler dansk,
men agt dig for Ulfs svecismer. Der findes ikke
noget der hedder diskurs på dansk. Diskurs, det er
svensk. På dansk hedder det diskussion.”
(team-teaching, autumn 1974; class in grammar
for students of all language programs (Danish,
English, French, German))
Experience of Danish as a lingua franca
In 1975, I met Jacob Mey in Lugano at a course in Computational
Semantics organized by the (ISSCO) Fondazione dalle Molle in
Lugano. (This is when I was invited to be his co-Editor of the
Journal of Pragmatics.)
On the first evening, we were a group of eight people who used
Danish as a lingua franca:
A Dane from Southern Jutland working in Odense
A bilingual Swede/Dane from Copenhagen
A (French speaking) Belgian working in Odense
A Polish doctoral student from Odense
An Indian doctoral student from Odense
A German with links to Southern Jutland, and
A German working in Roskilde
A Dutchman/Norwegian working in Odense
Experience of Scandinavian receptive
multilingualism
‟Get three languages for the price of one.”
Summer courses (e.g. in Mullsjö)
Nordic Conferences of Linguistics
Rolig-papir series (from 1974)
A series of working papers is a better mirror of
actual language use and preferences than peer
reviewed channels.
Authors were “members of ROLIG”, but also
guests.
1974 de 1, dk 2
1975 dk 3
1976 dk 1, en(sv) 1
1977 en(sv) 1, en(de) 1, en 1, de 1, sv 2
1978 dk(dk/sv) 1, dk(de/dk) 1, sv 1, en(mult) 1, dk 1
1979 dk 1, en(de/sv/fi) 1
1980 en/de/dk 1, de 2, dk 1, en(sv/fi) 1
1981 dk 1, sv 1, dk(dk/sv) 1, dk/de(nl) 1
1983 dk/fr(da) 1, en(en/sv/fi) 1, dk 2
1984 de 1, no/da(de/nl) 1, en(de) 1, dk 3
1985 en(en/sv/fi) 1, en(de) 1, de 1, dk 1
1986 dk 1, en(dk) 1
1987 en(dk) 1
1988 en/dk 1, de 1
1989 en(en/sv/fi) 1, dk 1
1990 en/dk(en) 1
1991 dk 1, de 1, en(ee) 1
1992 en(no)
1993 en(dk) 2, en(it) 1
(L1 of author(s) in parentheses)
Rolig-papir: languages used 1974-1993
German 8
English 22
Danish 27
Swedish 4
French 1
Norwegian 1
Rolig-papir: languages 1974-1993 French (1) and Norwegian (1) only used by non-L1
writers, Swedish only used by one L1 writer
German, English and Danish used by both L1 and
L2 writers (but a preference for English)
ROLIG-papers: front/back matter
“*udsolgt/out of print” (from the start)
Front page mixes Danish and English
Ordering information in English and Danish
“International Cultural Studies”
(1989)
International Cultural Studies
Original program draft: 50% English, 25 %
French, 25 % German
Course work very soon only in English
Project work increasingly so
Student project work: language choice
1989-2007
(Mortensen and Haberland 2012, 188)
International Cultural Studies
Teacher’s group:
Local teaching staff
International guest teachers often e.g. Italians
teaching in French or English
Students from Southern Europe working in
German and French
Since end-90s mainstreaming into English
“Fully institutionalized
internationalization”
(2012)
Internationalization projects
Local students: preparation for
individual internationalization
Staff: multilingualism, multiculturalism
Administration obliged to keep
benchmarks and observe balance
between incoming and outgoing
students
Were we different in 1974?
Exceptions are also part of the whole (Tove Bull
2012)
“If we want to understand the sociolinguistics of
globalization, we cannot be satisfied with analyzing
general tendencies alone. We also have to look at
exceptions, contradictions and oppositions to what
is considered normal, mainstream, and
unmarked.” (Bull 2012: 56)
Why the transition from
the national language and the other
languages
to
the national language, « l’anglais et des
autres langues » (Hamel 2008, 200)
at the universities, and why exactly then
(end of C20)?
The changed role of English at the
universities should not be considered as
‘natural’ or ‘obvious’ in any way, but
something that needs explanation.
Language change in academia
Der Sprachenwechsel ist nie, auch nicht in den
Wissenschaften, ein bloßer Austausch eines
arbiträren Zeichensystems gegen ein anderes. . . .
Fur die Wissenschaften des 18. Jahrhunderts war
der Sprachenwechsel auch mit einem
Funktionswandel der Universität und einer
Neubewertung wissenschaftlicher Inhalte
verbunden. (Schiewe 2000: 91–92)
[Language change is never, not even in academia, a
mere replacement of one arbitrary sign system by
another. . . . For scholarship in the 18th century,
language change was related to a transformation of
the function of the university and a reassessment
of academic content.]
Explanatory models
Linguistic imperialism (Phillipson)
Hegemonic projects (Haberland 2009)
Hegemony
Hegemony is not a way of succumbing to
outer pressures. It is the way in which
“common sense” frames the existing social
world and its practices as “natural” and “self-
evident” (Antonio Gramsci), or
a way in which persuasion outweighs
coercion in the organization of dominance
(Ranajit Guha)
“English is currently expanding in
Europe in hegemonic ways, as a result
of internal and external pressures, but
in each western European country,
whether this amounts to linguistic
imperialism is an empirical question
that probably would be answered in the
negative.” (Phillipson 1997: 238)
Language diversity has often been seen
both as an unavoidable reality and
(theoretically) as an asset, but also as a
nuisance.
– witness the search for an ideal
language and attempts at defying Babel
(« L’homme qui a défié Babel », Centassi
and Masson on Zamenhof).
Market thinking (commodification and
competitiveness of university studies,
globalism (Manfred Steger, Ulrich Beck))
seems to demand the use of one
international language.
A view from the administration
“English-language study programmes
attract the best foreign teaching staff and
students and create a unique international
research and study environment which will
help kickstart an international career for
our students.” (ASB Dean Børge Obel,
quoted in Bak 2007).
Having one language for
internationalisation and one for local
uses has its clear advantages ….
but … « constituer la langue légitime,
c’est constituer toutes les autres
langues comme des patois » (Bourdieu
2012)
Have we come to the point that Danish
universities only recognize two « langues
légitimes », Danish and English?
References
Bak, Hanne Frank 2007. Kickstart your English. Interview with
Dean, Børge Obel, Aarhus School of Business.
http://www.asb.dk/omos/institutter/erhvervsoekonomiskinstitut/n
yheder/nyhed/artikel/kickstart_your_english/ (accessed February
10, 2012); in Danish
http://studerende.au.dk/studier/fagportaler/bcom/aktuelt/nyhede
r/nyhed/artikel/kickstart-your-english/ (accessed September 21,
2013)
Bourdieu, Pierre 2012. Sur l’Etat. Cours au Collège de France, 1989-
1992. Paris: Seuil (http://www.monde-
diplomatique.fr/2012/01/Bourdieu/47168) (accessed October 20,
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Bull, Tove 2012. Against the mainstream: universities with an
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Guha, Ranajit 1997. Dominance without hegemony. History and
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http://esperantic.org/dosieroj/file/hamel-langues.pdf
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