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The humanities are in crisis; this is what article after article has said. There is continuous talk of the gradual disappearance of the humanities in higher education, as well as the incapacity of these programs to connect with the job market with the same facility as other disciplines. But is that the only problem? Would we have the same situation if the humanities did not speak mainly one language (English)?
The problem of linguistic diversity
When we see a higher education program in the discipline of the humanities, generally, a basic set of skills is included, regardless of whether it is a program of literature, sociology, philosophy, or some other. The majority of these programs promise that upon finishing the degree, the student will have specific skills-set of analysis, interpretation, communication, synthesis, and research. They will be able to express the results of applying these skills either through writing or graphic and mathematical representation of data efficiently.
These are the essential tools of the humanities professional. With these skills the student will be ready to delve into the understanding and explanation of social phenomena; from historical events such as The Great Atlantic Migration and its implications to philosophical currents like existentialism and positivism, being able to understand why the former was popular in dreary times like the WWI and how it practically dethroned positivism as the most established philosophical current. A humanities student should be able to understand the impact of behaviorism on child education, or the influence of novels of courtly love not only on the construction of social customs during the Middle Age but also on that of the Spanish language.
Language is a central element in understanding the basics of social phenomena linked to a particular culture or historic moment, so why are most of the programs, educational content, and support material in English? Why don’t the humanities and social sciences have an educational intent that also includes learning more languages?
In previous articles, we have talked about the value of translation in the educational experience; this is especially critical in the learning of humanities and social sciences. The understanding of mathematical concepts is based on logic, accuracy, and calculation; in the case of the social sciences, it is based on perspective, analysis, and context. This context is significantly limited when academic sources and teaching contents are in a single language (English). To explain the effects of this scholarly gap, we will offer a concrete example.
“Don’t speak Spanish.”
Ignacio Sánchez Prado, professor of Spanish, Latin American Studies as well as Film and Media at the University of Washington in Saint Louis, USA, wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education on the effects of the invisibility of the Spanish language in the departments of Latin American studies in universities. The academician recognized a common front in the face of a devaluation of the humanities, which use to be part of the core curricula but now is optional. However, on that academic front, the Spanish language, and the specific knowledge that it carries have been left behind. “I see my English colleagues as comrades and as partners in our common fight, but it becomes hard to elicit solidarity from people in fields like Spanish when the problems of English monopolize fundamental conversations critical to many other fields.” Dr. Sánchez argues that the integration of Spanish into social science departments and cultural studies is not a matter of canonicality but an uphill battle for representation, in which, very often, they have to face those same English-speaking colleagues with whom they have to cooperate to keep the humanities afloat.
The integration of Spanish as one of the primary languages in academia is not only an issue of social and epistemic justice but also one of offer and demand. The most widely spoken language in the world is Chinese, with 1.3 billion native speakers. There are 460 million people for whom Spanish speakers worldwide, making it the second most spoken language in the world. English is the third most spoken language, with 379 million native speakers globally.
“I see my English colleagues as comrades and as partners in our common fight, but it becomes hard to elicit solidarity from people in fields like Spanish when the problems of English monopolize fundamental conversations critical to many other fields.”
Another piece published in The Chronicle of Higher Education perfectly exemplifies Sánchez’s point. It was written by Simon During, a doctorate professor, and academic expert in literary history, literary and cultural theory, as well as secularism and other disciplines. Dr. During wrote about the influence of secularization of the humanities in their process of devaluation in higher education institutions. According to Sanchez, his analysis is proper. Still, it only makes sense if the reader believes that all the relevant content of humanities was written in English and that the humanities are primary about history, threatening the other disciplines as secondary.
“To date, most of the research has focused on the “centre” versus “periphery” dichotomy [ . . ] and the challenges that non-anglophone researchers face when they try to publish their research,” says Dr. Anna Kristina Hultgren, senior professor of English and Linguistics, at the Open University in the United Kingdom, in her article “English as the Language for Academic Publication: On Equity, Disadvantage and ‘Non-Nativeness’ as a Red Herring.”
The academic practices of researching and publishing, as well as hosting conferences and events, does not help. Research is often grouped according to language rather than their contents, fractionating the collective knowledge of a single area of expertise and making challenging to muster the intention and effort for their translation. Similarly, in the conferences and academic symposiums, the panels are integrated with academicians who have at lea
st one language in common, which is almost always English. Those who do not master it will be grouped on the periphery, convened only in talks in which they can procure translators, or will be restricted to their local areas.
English, as a monopolistic vehicle of communication, facilitates the dissemination of academic content of all the disciplines, not just the humanities. There is no denying that valuable content has reached more people thanks to the standardization of academic disclosure under the English language. However, this commodity comes at a price: How many avenues to knowledge and perspectives are lost when the only path to research is the English language?
Dr. Hultgren acknowledges that nowadays, academia has made a deliberate effort to work on the deficit of non-native English speakers. Still, the stigma continues: in academia, they continue to be referred to as “non-English-speaking academicians” or “second-language research writers.” Both the native language and the work of these academicians are still on the periphery, leading to a communicative disadvantage that enables issues such as epistemic injustice or the delay in progress in various academic fields because there is no English content available.
Hultgren points out that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to such a complex problem. However, one way to move towards more efficient academia in social sciences (one that lends itself to study the perspectives it is nurturing) is to reform the role of languages as a central part of the discipline of the humanities. It is through linguistic diversification that other avenues can be opened to the knowledge of social phenomena, and we can lay the foundations of a more cohesive academic community that works together. English helped us get to a point where educational content could reach more people. Mastering more languages when learning, teaching, researching, and disseminating that content can lead us to the next step: understanding one another as producers of knowledge, as well as comprehending the sources, context, and the substance of the knowledge that we produce.
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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