Discussion
Finding no words:
exclusion in academia
My story is about the sometimes missing links between
research, written language policies and practice
in academia. Last year I got an invitation to a seminar
about a planned structural reform at our university.
As an employee, I have registered to the event and
waited for further details from the organizers. What
came was quite surprising: I got a message written
only in Finnish, including the part that is about not
supporting people who do not speak the language. In
my translation, the letter stated the following:
"We have been asked in what form we would serve
those who do not speak Finnish. Unfortunately, we have
no resource to provide materials and organize workshop
participation in English, not even partially, with the exception
of the Friday presentation about the reform at the
Estonian university, which will be held in English."
To understand the second part of the message, it is
important to add that a presentation was given by an
Estonian scholar who was given the chance of using
English. Naturally, the discussion after her presentation
was also in English. So what were those lacking
resources that made it impossible to organize the
workshops or other programs in English, at least partially?
Were the staff members not fluent enough in
English? No, because they happily discussed complex
professional questions with the Estonian expert.
Is there a lacking language policy at the university
that would give guidelines for organizing events for
the whole staff, including international members?
The answer is again 'no': our new language policy
document has been accepted on 22 April 2015 (it is
available online: www.jyu.fi/hallinto/strategia/en/JY_languagepolicy).
The document celebrates the diversity of students
and staff, it promotes intensive dialogue between
Finnish and international staff members and it officially
establishes Finnish and English as the working
languages of the university.
Of course, the recommendations of the language
policy do not automatically mean that every single
event should be bilingual, and using English is not
an obligation. Using English (if necessary) may appear
in many forms, including on-site interpretation
which does not constrain anybody's right to use
Finnish. Since structural reforms at a university with
thousands of employees sounds quite relevant for the
whole community, including 'international people',
full access to discussions should have been given to
everybody in the spirit of the official language policy
document. In reality, something else has happened.
International staff members reacted to the lack
of support in English in various ways. Many of them
have cancelled their registration. Others travelled to
the venue because they thought they could use at
least the coffee breaks for networking, but they did
not participate in any official programs, so they have
accepted their marginal position and tried to capitalize
on the informal occasions. Isn't it interesting that
English works in the hotel lobby smoothly but it is not
offered as an option in the official program because of
the lack of resources?
So what was my decision? I decided to attend the seminar
and try to follow the discussions. I have been
living in Finland for more than two years so now I can
somehow understand at least the main points of a
lecture or a conversation. I enthusiastically learn Finnish
- I was even presented as a successful Finnish
learner in our 2014 university yearbook. I thought I
could use the seminar as a mini language course - so
my decision was also about finding informal ways of
doing something rather than getting involved in the
official program.
I was sitting around a table with colleagues who
were well aware of my fragmented and limited capacities
in Finnish; however, none of them showed any
sign of the slightest effort to include me in the conversation.
What I always find very funny in similar situations,
even at meetings of linguists, is that people ask me after the discussion whether I could get anything
out of it. If they know that I am not fully competent
in Finnish, why do not they ask me beforehand?
And why did not I ask the others beforehand? Of
course I am always part of the practices of exclusion
by remaining silent and thus let the others do what
they want. If they do not want to include me, then I
do not force them to change their mind. Is it the correct
way of politeness or is it only the avoidance of
conflicts from my part?
At lunch, I shared my frustrations with a colleague.
She told me: "But anyway, you should have
told something in English". And yes, she was right:
I should have asked the others to speak in English at
least partly because I could only catch keywords from
the discussion. Imagine that you are sitting at a meeting
and you understand the following: "something
something budget something somewhere somebody
40,000 EUR something university committee and
the head of the department". How can you make a
comment on this? Can you vote at a meeting with this
amount of information? So this was exactly the case at this seminar on structural reforms. For example, I understood
that at some point they were speaking about
immigrants, education and exclusion. Being an immigrant
excluded from the very discussion I did not
find it a good idea to add anything, not even in English.
Maybe this would have been the best moment to
remind all of us to the absurdity of the situation but I
did not take the opportunity.
Other reasons why I did not ask for switching to
English come from my previous experience. First, of
course, the most recent one: after reading in the information
letter that no support will be provided in
any form, I thought it would be a waste of energy to
try. Second, I have tried to ask for bilingual meetings
many times before and those initiatives have more or
less failed. For example, at some meetings I get the
points of the agenda in English so I know that "aha,
we are now talking about budget".
But, as I mentioned, knowing the topic itself
does not really help. Another type of reaction to my
requests is that "when the topic will be relevant for
you, we will switch to English". I wonder why some
colleagues do not find it problematic that in these
situations power relations are constructed in a very
asymmetric way. That is, it is them who decide what
is relevant for me and it is them who can decide when
to include me in the discussion. How do they know
for sure that I would be unable to contribute to those
topics that they keep strictly in Finnish?
So what to do? Managing a huge multilingual workplace
such a university is indeed challenging. However,
negotiating language policies and implementing
them in a flexible way would make the barriers between
the 'Finns' and the 'international staff' less visible
and would create a working environment that is
much more comfortable for everyone included in our
academic community. I hope that sharing my experience
invites others to tell theirs so that we can initiate
or extend such negotiations.
Tamás Péter Szabó
postdoctoral researcher
- Painetussa lehdessä sivu 42
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