INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NATIONAL LANGUAGES IN SCIENCE AND HIGHER EDUCATION

(National languages in academic research and higher education)

On 29–30 August 2011, an international conference was held in Tallinn, National Languages in Science and Higher Education, devoted to:

academic language policy;

an analysis of the languages used to teach students at universities in different countries and fields of science, write dissertations, and publish scientific journals;

research into the quality of the language of science and its development in the modern, globalizing world.

The conference was organized by the Centre for Academic Estonian at Tallinn University together with the Institute of Estonian Language and Culture. The conference’s spiritus movens was Dr Peep Nemvalts. More than thirty scholars took part, from other Estonian higher education institutions and from Belgium, Great Britain, Latvia, and Finland. There were also overseas guests from Mexico and the United States of America. The keynote papers were delivered by Professor Kirsti Siitonen of the University of Turku and the author of these lines.

In her paper “The Finnish Language in Higher Education, the Humanities and Natural Sciences,” Kirsti Siitonen surveyed language-policy strategies that each university should develop. In Finland, this work is undertaken by the Institute for the Languages of Finland (KOTUS), which encourages universities to develop and publicize their own higher-education language policies and to share best practices with other universities. Since universities are autonomous, no law or directive can be imposed; however, a system can be created to encourage higher education institutions to adopt a moderate, sensible policy that does not restrict the rights of the Finnish language. The paper also presented and commented on statistics showing how Finnish is used in preparing teaching materials, writing dissertations, and publishing scientific articles. Practical recommendations were also provided on how students in various disciplines at the University of Turku are taught to write scientific Finnish, since they are seriously lacking such skills. The situation

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at Finnish universities varies, but, as became clear in later discussions, it is quite complex. Along with the Netherlands and Denmark, this country leads Europe in the number of higher-education programs, dissertations, and scientific publications in English. Finnish-language specialists are dissatisfied with this and see a negative impact on the development of Finnish and the elaboration of its concepts.

The paper “The Language of Science in Lithuania: Challenges and Opportunities” examined the situation of the Lithuanian language from several perspectives: it discussed new requirements for Lithuanian following its adoption as an official EU language; presented the key Lithuanian language policy documents in science and higher education; considered problems concerning the quality of the language of science and terminology, and the search for ways to address them; and drew attention to the supervision of textbook language initiated and carried out by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language. The audience was particularly interested in the part of the paper revealing how the Lithuanian language of science is developed at foreign higher education institutions and research establishments—that is, at centres for Baltic and Lithuanian studies, where Lithuanian is not only taught but also used to write dissertations, publish scientific journals, and write articles and monographs. The author of the paper drew on materials and insights provided by Irena Smetonienė, Chair of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language.

Two more papers came from Lithuania: Nijolė Linkevičienė, Ana Ruskan, and Birutė Ryvitytė’s paper “A Tool for Studying Academic Writing,” which examined the possibilities of the Corpus of Academic Lithuanian (CorALit), and Ana Ruskan’s paper “Evidential Adjectives in Lithuanian Academic Discourse,” which demonstrated the use of CorALit in conducting a specific study.

Peep Nemvalts and Triin Roosalu presented the first results of a broad study into how the national language, when used in academic discourse, shapes our perception of the world (the cognitive aspect) and forms of linguistic expression. The scholars draw on the work of Kees de Bot, developing his ideas in the context of the Estonian language. The study is very interesting, and its results show the value of a national academic language. When the position of any one language in academia weakens, not only does terminology suffer, but our perception of the world through language changes and the range of forms of linguistic expression diminishes.

There was discussion about how to create a balance that would preserve multilingualism in European science and higher education while enabling the most effective exchange of new knowledge produced by scholars working in different languages, since it is very important for scientific development to be vigorous. Incidentally, Leas Höckerstedt of the University of Helsinki, who also teaches at the Jesuit Konknni Kendr of Thomas Stephenson, ins-

Tarptautinė konferencija Nacionalinės kalbos mokslo ir aukštojo mokslo srityse

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stitute, Goa, India, delivered a paper entitled “English in Higher Education—and What Next?” about the language situation in India (22 official languages), and, jokingly, put Europe to shame: so few languages, yet the problem cannot be solved.

The conference abstracts have been published online (see http://www.tlu.ee/files/arts/10106/NatAc818599b30c9375d860436bf2b929fef2.pdf).

It was gratifying to see how much our neighbours care about the status of Estonian as a language of science in the international arena. The participants constantly felt the attention of the rector of Tallinn University. Shortly after the conference, a discussion was organized for the intellectual community, which the author of these lines also attended; the cultural publication SIRP reported on it (see http://www.tlu.ee/files/arts/10106/NatAc818599b30c9375d860436bf2b929fef2.pdf).

The conference raised topical issues and was very much needed. This topic should also be pursued further in Lithuania.

Received 2011 12 12

JOLANTA ZABARSKAITĖ

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

5 P. Vileišio St., LT-10308 Vilnius

[email protected]

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