Protectionism as in government and business protecting local industry against cheaper goods from other countries. It would be surprising to know that even though I am mostly a liberal fellow, I do agree with the evidence brought forth in previous discussions that protectionism does more harm than good (as an aside, this is why I support universal health care and free education for displaced workers everywhere)
But it concerns me that the seemingly popular “English only” movement in the USA is really a nasty close relative of the protectionism movement.
One element that is ignored many times by the opponents of diversity in languages is the bad effect “English only” has in business:
One could made the point that government should behave differently from businesses, but it seems to me that the limitations that are apparent in business that follow “English only” rules, appear also in governments that adopt those rules.
I have plenty of reasons to criticize globalization, but learning other languages will be important for the future of businesses in a global scale. It is English only business and governments that will be left behind.
Speaking as an arrogant American who never bothered to learn a language other then English, I think everyone else should learn English and stop complaining.
Can you clarify the debate? Are you saying that English only policies in the gov’t spill over into English only policies in business? If so, your first cite seems to imply that it doesn’t.
Well, I recommend to read the whole cite, but the main point is that besides being silly, the attempts to impose “English only” in local governments do appear in part as a reaction for other languages appearing in businesses. In the long run, this is a waste of time and money. The sad thing is that English only movements think that government is one element in their efforts to influence businesses, on the whole they are wrong, but it is also silly to assume that an official government position will not influence business:
I suspect that these possibiliities have occured to English-only advocates and they are not happy about them.
This author appears to believe not only that government agencies should be permitted and encouraged to provide services in other languages (a view I agree with), but that courts should be able to require businesses (and presumably government agencies) to translate contracts (and I would imagine other documents) into languages other than English.
What do I think about what? Aside from your implication that allowing people the liberty to do business with foreigners is somehow a non-liberal position there are three things that come out of your OP.
[ol]
[li]Multilingualism in government. This is a lively debate ongoing in a lot of countries. On the one hand, for non-speakers of the dominant language, lack of translation makes many essential services unavailable. If you can’t understand your doctor or the 911 dispatcher can’t understand you then it’s gong to get very messy. Inability to access the education system will cripple your ability to get a job. On the other hand, translating everything discourages the learning of the majority language and leads to ghettoisation. In the UK there are apocryphal tales of second or third-generation ‘immigrants’ who speak no English and are therefore trapped in a tiny portion of society (and the economy). Also, the cost of running everything in multiple languages is huge, and there are big benefits to everyone having a lingua franca they can use for communication.[/li]If you look at countries like Belgium and Canada, you can see how toxic the language issue can become. On the other hand I believe Finland accords equal legal status to Swedish and Finnish, most people are bilingual and it is a non-issue despite Swedish being the first language of about 5% of the population.
[li]Internationalisation in trade by USA-based companies. Are you sure that all of these companies actually WANT to do business abroad? Sometimes it’s not worth the aggravation. Even in Europe many many companies only do domestic business because of the issues with language, taxes, shipping, legislation etc. when dealing with customers abroad. But I certainly agree with you about the awful setups of some sites that claim to be international but only offer shipping to CONUS. Or which want SSN# or Zip code from UK customers. Or cannot process non-US credit cards. I could go on all day. However, putting on my empathy hat I have to say I would struggle to set up a site in the UK to serve customers from the US or any other country, and the language issue isn’t as easy as you think. For a start, it’s not a one-off cost since you will then get customer emails and so fort that need translating. And given that French speakers from France, Belgium and Canada sneer at each other’s use of language, it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of them were complaining about your particular use of language. You’d certainly get emails from some of your Spanish customers demanding Catalan, or complaining about non-Castillian usage. So I think a lot of companies are dipping their toes in the water, or just trying to pick up a handful of extra sales at low cost, while focusing their attention on the worlds largest and most homogenous market. And a lot of the rest are full of PHBs, obviously.[/li][li]The lengths to which the loonies will go if not regularly laughed at by the general population. I think there must be a law somewhere along the lines of there is nothing, no matter how sensible, which cannot be exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness by someone who takes it too seriously. Language laws are a prime example of this sort of insanity, but I think the citizens of Dade county may have reached some sort of international top 40. I’d like to say ‘Only in America’ but Europe is a factory for this kind of nonsense.[/li][/ol]
And as regards Europe becoming a leader in international marketing, I am truly sceptical. In my experience it’s just another giant headache for businesses to deal with, along with all the various cultural sensitivities, government regulations and og knows what. It’s not that unusual to see European companies resorting to selling things in their own language and English, since so many people speak it as a second language.
Of course they will; that’s the whole purpose. Why should a government spend money, or force citizens to spend money, to promote cultural fragmentation? When has that ever been in the interest of a nation? If you want to come to the U.S., great. But don’t expect us to learn your language.
Pressed for time, but the author of the first cite replies thus:
But, I am trying to keep the focus of this discussion on the business side of things.
The problem is that big corporations will be the only ones getting the benefits of doing business overseas, I have to point out that getting rid of trade barriers also means that one is shooting their own foot by ignoring other languages, I see the future as many displaced in the US, losing many opportunities because of insisting of only knowing one language. Globalization is what big corporations and government have decided to do so. regardless of my opinions if that is a good idea, it is now backward to ignore the changes that are coming up.
Well, not quite like that, I would increase the unemployment of workers that are displaced by the international treaties, please take into account that I am talking pragmatically here, liberally speaking I still have some choice words for the powers that be.
I only see what is happening as benefiting only the big corporations, if globalization is here to stay, the function of the government should be to facilitate the entrance to those international markets to small business and individuals. This will involve items like subsidies to get high speed communications to everybody, help with translations, ensuring honest trading not just for big corporations etc.
I think it’s great for kids to study foreign languages and cultures, and the government ought to do more to encourage this. America is probably less competitive in international markets than it could be because of monolingualism and cultural ignorance.
But I don’t think the “English-Only” laws have anything to do with this. They are directed toward language use here in the U.S., in purely domestic situations, not at international affairs. It doesn’t strike me as inconsistent that the government could mandate a preference for English whenever practicable, yet encourage foreign language study in schools.
Many who oppose “English-Only” laws really believe that people should be able to go on speaking their native languages as long as they want, and if this creates a hardship on the government or businesses, then taxpayers should pay for language assistance, up to and including 24-hour interpretation in any language at no cost to the foreign speaker. In other words, the government should pay to create permanent language enclaves requiring permanent subsidy. If someone is going to argue that this will help America compete in international business, it seems an awfully high price to pay both financially and culturally.
Do you disagree with the general point of language barriers leading to economic and social marginalisation, or are you pulling me up for not separating unsupported speculation from proveable facts (other than by labelling it as such?).
If the latter, it’s a fair cop, I should have either left it out or expanded on it a bit further. This kind of extreme case is indeed apocryphal, but based on the degree of segregation which can occur occasionally, it probably has a kernel of truth.
And yes, I do know what apocryphal means. Or at least I partially did, since I wasn’t aware it was also used as a synonym for ‘fictitious’. Thanks for that.
Every day and in every way, etc.
Well, uh, maybe because those taxpayers and citizens want it that way?
People speak different languages, and if it will make everybody’s life better if that doesn’t block their access to the government. Who benefits if Oksana misreads something on her driver’s test, can’t get a license and has to take a job at the McDonalds she works near despite being a skilled worker? Who benefits if Jose doesn’t know his kids can get access to free lunch at school and so they go hungry when food is tight? Who benefits when Fatima can’t figure out her income tax forms and has to go to someone in the community to translates, who scolds her for working outside the home and pushes her to return to being a housewife?
In short, strange as it may seem, translateing stuff often helps immigrants become more autonomous and intergrate themselves into American society. In theory the government and it’s programs are there becuase we want them to be there, and it doesn’t make any sense to put up roadblocks to them for some parts of the population.
I don’t have a problem with the government providing services in Fatima, Jose or Oksana’s native language if the government chooses to do so for whatever reason . I have a very big problem with the idea that they have a right to services in their native language. And perhaps my problem comes specifically from living in NYC. It’s not terribly expensive to provide services in two or three languages. It’s very expensive to provide them in over 100 languages. And if Jose has a right to the information in Spanish, then the speakers of the the other languages also have that right.I also have a problem with the idea that it is a business owner’s responsibilty to provide translations into any of those languages.
I’m confused - the OP was in regard to a particularly deranged law that made it illegal to use any other language than english, meaning that it would be illegal to e.g write to Jose in spanish warning him that he may be carrying an infectious disease and should go to a clinic, even if he only reads spanish. Creating an obligation to use multiple languages is obviously not the same as allowing people to make the choice to use non-english languages if they feel it is appropriate. What you are talking about is more analogous to the Quebecois language issues in Canada.
There are also perfectly valid reasons for countries choosing to mandate bi-lingualism. The most obvious one is to draw the sting out of the really poisonous ethnic issues that can come up if two groups are arguing about which should be the langage of a country - make them both the offical langage and you can move on. It’s expensive but cheaper than partition or civil war.
The obvious problem is complexity - because no-one is willing to let their language be ‘downgraded’ the EU now has 21 official languages :eek:
So a Polish-speaker can write a letter in German to a Portugese-speaking EU offical and has the right to an answer in Polish. Since this is quite likely to happen via translation through english or french, it gets ridiculously unwieldy.
In a country as diverse as the US (336 langages) it would get even more unmanageable - best to stick to Americanish with a few small exceptions where expedient.
there are three things that come out of your OP.