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Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

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ial boards and referee<strong>in</strong>g systems. In order to counter such trends, she proposedthree strategies. First, ‘we should ban monol<strong>in</strong>gualism <strong>in</strong> geography’. Second, aneffort should be made ‘to translate more books and articles <strong>in</strong>to English. Thirdly,she advocates the development of ‘truly <strong>in</strong>ternational journals where “Other” voicescould be heard… by open<strong>in</strong>g up academic journals to languages other than Englishand… by… enlarg<strong>in</strong>g the pool from where referees are chosen on the basis of nationalityand languages’. In such ways the cultural-l<strong>in</strong>guistic ghettos could be brokenand more genu<strong>in</strong>e <strong>in</strong>tercultural exchange take place.However, her views were challenged by another native Spanish-speak<strong>in</strong>g geographer(Rodríguez-Pose, 2004). He ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>s that the adoption of a common <strong>in</strong>ternationallanguage is the most effective way of exchang<strong>in</strong>g ideas and promot<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>tercultural understand<strong>in</strong>g. In the modern world, people simply have to masterEnglish or run the risk of rema<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g isolated with<strong>in</strong> restricted national communitiesdoomed to cultural decl<strong>in</strong>e. Indeed, he suggests that ‘switch<strong>in</strong>g to English isperhaps the only viable way of preserv<strong>in</strong>g the rich national academic traditions thatGarcia-Ramon mentions…’ (Rodríguez-Pose, 2004: 2). He cites the examples of theTijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie and the Geografiska Annaleras examples of where the decision to use of English projects the work of Dutchand Swedish geographers to the rest of the world, while publications <strong>in</strong> French andSpanish <strong>in</strong> the Bullet<strong>in</strong> de l’Association des Géographes Français and the Boletín dela Asociación de Géografos Españoles rema<strong>in</strong> geographically isolated from <strong>in</strong>terculturalexchange. As a French speaker, the author of this paper has just received an <strong>in</strong>vitationto the excellent annual Festival Internationale de Géographie held <strong>in</strong> St Dié,France. The theme of the conference is ‘Le monde en réseaux’ (‘Global networks’).The language of the conference is French; a count of participants present<strong>in</strong>g papersreveals some 132 French academics, 2 Spanish, 1 American, 1 Dane and 16 Italians(Italy is the ‘guest country’ this year).ConclusionThis short paper can only <strong>in</strong>troduce an enormously complex problem and encouragegeographers to th<strong>in</strong>k more about the l<strong>in</strong>ks between geography, languages and <strong>in</strong>terculturaleducation. As educators, they should encourage people to question moredeeply how their understand<strong>in</strong>g of the world around them is moulded by theirl<strong>in</strong>guistic limitations and support those, not least <strong>in</strong> the English-speak<strong>in</strong>g worldwho are fight<strong>in</strong>g to promote foreign-language study. As researchers, they can make amajor contribution to understand<strong>in</strong>g a fast chang<strong>in</strong>g world by mapp<strong>in</strong>g and expla<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>ggeol<strong>in</strong>guistic changes. In this article, we have touched upon the spatial diffusion ofEnglish <strong>in</strong>to an <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g number of l<strong>in</strong>guistic doma<strong>in</strong>s around the world as well asthe spatial flow of translations from one l<strong>in</strong>guistic community to another. Many otheravenues of geol<strong>in</strong>guistic <strong>in</strong>vestigation are open, not least analysis of the persistentand, <strong>in</strong> some cases, <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g l<strong>in</strong>guistic diversity <strong>in</strong> Europe. Underneath the superficialveneer of ‘global English’, a multitude of languages rema<strong>in</strong> vibrantly alive <strong>in</strong>complex geographical mosaics and still dom<strong>in</strong>ate the lives of most citizens. This isa reality which English-speak<strong>in</strong>g geographers <strong>in</strong> particular should never forget.297

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