Why has it to be culture in the first place?

There is no single human being, who is not affected by culture, but there is also no single human being, who has an overview about "culture". The reason for this can be called with one word "superdiversity" (Arnaut et al 2017), which is yet another word for heterogeneous concepts. This blog concentrates especially on the linguistic aspects of culture, which are itself highly complex. Fortunately science (in broad sense, with includes here humanities as well) provides us with the means to explore deeper layers of culture and unveils its complexity. Especially ethnographic studies (more in Paltridge & Startfield 2016) possess the means to show instrumental aspects of culture, which offer valuable tools to Companies or other Institutions (e.g. publishers). One illustration seen at my own University

(Chukyo University in Nagoya, in the entrance of Building No.5): The picture gives an impression about  Linguistic Landscapes in Japan, a field about which already research exists (Backhaus 2007, Blommaert 2013). But what does it mean, "Linguistic Landscapes in Japan"? Although there are some characteristic patterns in Japan, especially the predominant use of Japanese throughout Japan there are also important differences inside the country. While there is maybe no culture of the building No.5 of the Chukyo-University, there is a culture of that  University, which relates to this picture, because there are languages, which are taught in the Faculty of International Liberal Studies (only Russian is unfortunately missing). Therefore this picture is an expression of the local culture. Whereas this very description is in English has an explicit relation to global culture. "English" has here the status of a lingua franca language, here some backgrounds about Lingua franca (Blog "Meditations"), especially for English (The history of English). In this moment of history, there is still (and again) struggle for the role of progressive Internationalists and its culture (Mafalda Dâmaso, The progressive post). While "culture" can be magic concept, for addressing the connection between local and translocal issues it still an open question, how a global culture could look like.
 
References:

• Arnaut, Karel / Karrebaek, Martha Sif / Spotti, Massimiliano (2017), Engaging Superdiversity: The Poisis-Infrastructures Nexus and Language Practices in Combinational Spraces. in: Engaging Superdiversity.Recombining Spaces, Times and Language Practices, Bristol: Multilingual Matters 
• Backhaus, Peter (2007), Linguistic Landscapes, A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo, Multilingualism Matters  
• Blommaert, Jan (2013), The Sociolinguistics of Globalization, Cambridge University Press 
• Paltridge, Brian & Sue Starfield (2016), Ethnographic Perspectives on English for Academic Purposes Research  in: The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes, Hyland, Ken / Shaw, Philip (eds) p 378-393

     

German in the US: Fachsrpache

Looking at German in the US, there is actually not so much left from the German language in the USA. There are also a considerable amount of people learning it, but considering the fact that the Germans were  one of the largest group of immigrants in the US (see: Wp: History of Immigration to the US and also Schiffmann 1996, Google-books, p. 210-241). With regional differences the until WWI German Instruction in the US was possible, which could maintain German as a heritage language. But with the Meyer vs. Nebraska (Wp) ruling of the Supreme court only Language Education in English was legal. 
Germans are good language learners and when they live in a new country they adapt, therefore German in the German-Studies in the US is gone.I do not mean the German learning and teaching at schools in the US, this is still different. But if there is a German-US cooperation in any form the German part is normally not insisting on the German language. Why should they? German with an academical background can speak the language. So why learning German in the first place? Of course for living in Germany, German is still a valuable asset, especially for living in Germany a longer time or making a career in Germany. But why should an academic with a background in history, social science or cultural studies should learn German? My answer for this would be language for special purpose (Fachsprache). But is this really true and to what extend? The problem for language for special purpose is our days is that an overview is really complicated, at least on the disciplinary level. It is therefore very difficult for one author (like me) to judge this generally. I can give only my opinion on that in 3 areas:

• Systems theory (Social Sciences, especially N. Luhmann)
• Political Philosophy (especially Hannah Arendt)

Systems theory is popular on both sides of the pond (about this word, from World Wide words), it originated in the US as General Systems Theory (Wikipedia gives a redirct) and one of the most recent and elaborate versions is the Theory of Social Systems of Niklas Luhmann, which is also based partly on the Social Systems theory of Talcott Parsons (Wikipedia has backgrounds). Although Luhmann published also in English and a lot of his works are translated into English, his reception in the inner circle countries (esp. US and UK) is still limited, compared to Germany, where he reached a quite interdisciplinary audience.
 

My personal revaluation for this was reading the insightful Identity & Control (Google) from Harrison C. White (Wp), which is among other topics also develops a thick descriptions of institutions (Chapter 5: Institutions & Rhetorics). White claims in this that there that Luhmann has only a very limited theory of institutions. I was very surprised,, because Luhmann was "Verwaltungswissenschaftler", which is translated with mangement science or better with organizations science. But his works about Organization were not translated at this time, which is in parts different now, because Luhmanns opus magnus on this field "Organization & Decision" (Google) translated 2018.        

The political Philosophy of Hannah Arendt is in itself multilingual. Although she was writing only her early works in German, important parts of the German philosophy (Kant, Kritik d. Urteilskraft) are an important foundation of her work. Moreover she translated parts of her writings into German and some books are quite different ("The Human Condition" and the German translation "Vita activa"). Hannah Arendts writings have a broad reception in the US and in Germany. It is without doubt that the political theory of Hannah Arendt changed because of her live in America (see the book-review about the book "The state I am in"), but important parts can't be understood without central German concepts ("Urteilskraft" as "judgement" or "power of judgement" in English). But the new edition of Hannah Arendt's complete works (Gesamtausgabe, see Link) is offering a chance for a bilingual project on a high reflective level. The implications for this are also far-reaching, not only a head count of learners, but the implications of the language can be seen as important. Of course these implications are quite complicated to meassure, but if it can be shown that it is useful to have German in a multilingual mix of languages this would unpack a lot of potentials for the German language in the US and worldwide.