what can we do?

Some Reflections in times of the Corona-Pandemic (updated version)
In these times it difficult not feel helpless and vulnerable. But what could one possibly do about this? Of course the situation is the same everywhere, so these reflections should be seen as optional, more about this later. Because of Social Distancing (Wp), which means in most of the cases means staying home, a lot of human being having now more time than before. How can this time be used?

1. Watching/Reading the news. I am telling this "my" students, the students, who study Intercultural Communication with me. 
2. Taking action. Blogging  is my of doing it. There are other possibilities: Global citizens (HP in English for further explanations), supporting the UN (R. Falk Blog 3/4/2020) or Friday for Future Japan (of course in Japanese)   
3. Learning a new language or using English for better understanding of global facts, like global warming, loss of biodiversity or other elements of the ecological crisis (Wp) or waching Planet of the Humans (Youtube)     
4. Learning about mankind's quite desperate situation on earth in non fiction: "Loosing Earth" (Wp, soon on Apple TV), but more fatalistic, than political criticizes Naomi Klein (in the Interzept)     
5. The Guardian tells that there no fictions about climate change but I I have my doubt about this. I think that some anime like 'Children of the Sea' (海獣の子供 in Japanese) or "weathering with you" (in Japanese: 天気の子) are reflecting about ecological changes, in poetic way. But these films are of course no active reflection of the topic.       
6.  Using our money from the stimulus package (Guardian 7/4/2020). 10000 Yen is indeed not so much, it is better than nothing, but for a lot of people, who lost their jobs or working less, it is only a small help. Will it help the economy in Japan? There have packages before (2013, Guardian), but their effects has been limited. 

This is of course my personal point of view. Although I am no professional politician and also no (political) Journalist, I think that reacting politically is very important in this pandemic. The pandemic will cause enormous economic problems, which could also slow down our reaction to the climate crisis. A lot of people are already arguing, that we have to return to the normal economic situation and then (after a few years maybe) we can do something against the ecological crisis. But then it is too late. I am convinced that the Covid-19 crisis could also be used as chance for changing our economic system and enlarging our resilience capacity, because the climate crisis is not over. IF mankind would reform its economical system to more sustainability, which is also taking some years, the CO2 blown into the atmosphere for several years will still impact the climate for years to come. So even we act now, the challenge is very big, but this Covid-19 crisis could be a change for a change to the better. What do you think?

Zooming in

The new normal of the Corona Pandemic is Videoconferencing. While Video in the form of Youtube or Netflix has been around for a while, but is getting more important in the times of lock-down, Zoom was not very popular before the Pandemic. The Wikipedia (Wp)-Article about Zoom, which I checked as a first research step showed that the Company was founded 2011 and is a public Company (Wp) since 2019. Both is my eyes very recent, although the structures in the online business are changing very fast. But what make Zoom interesting for Applied Linguistics and Language Policy? There are several reasons:

1. Language teaching
2. Knowledge production, in different settings 
3. Research about Interaction 

Language teaching only briefly here, although language teaching is still an important part of my Job at the Chukyo University. Teaching German in Japan, which is a bit remote language in Japan, is much more efficient by using the internet. Though there are already a lot platforms for internet learning, platforms for online interaction are still in short supply. I am using Skype (Wp) for language learning (and very occasionally for teaching).
Knowledge production is maybe more related to writing (research articles or books), but speaking and spoken interaction is of course also included, that is what Seminars are (more or less) all about. The concept of a Seminar (Wp) is related various different learning cultures (as can be seen in the article), but the core concept evolved form University teaching and means an exchange of knowledge and options for advanced students and researchers. Normally Seminars are of course `offline` i.g. the participants are gathering for discussion at one place, very often an university, but also Institutions are playing an important role here. But online seminars have very important features, which are useful for teaching and research. Modern Seminars are very often an integration of conventional and digital features. Conventional features would be talking or writing on a white board. Digital features would audio or video reception. In an online Seminars all features are now digital, also the former conventional ones. There is for example are Whiteboard features in Zoom, which is of course a simulation of the conventional feature. And the whole interaction process in the seminar, which is by the way going on two channels in Zoom (but also in Skype) is now digital. The two channels are the transmission of a live video, which also can include other materials (like a text or a power point) and the chat channel of Zoom or Skype. And having the recorded features (as a Video) means all participants can see the Video once more. Only them, no other can see this, because there is a password protection for seeing the Video. This Video can`t be downloaded so easy (it is not impossible but you would need special software for this). I will give my students some time to see the Video again and after a time I will block it and only if a students wants, she or he could see the Video again. The content of the Video can also be used for further research (the same as written texts). But that means only the content not the Video in itself. For using the content, a transcription is created and then the content will be used as an anonymized text. Then parts of this text will analyzed. The same happens, with written content, where some features of the text will be analyzed.
Summing up, Zoom enables teachers (and researchers) to analyze communication more thoroughly. But also for students slower communication means more knowledge, if they are willing to invest the time to analyze their communication after the seminar.

References:
Baraldi, Claudio & Giancarlo Corsi (2017), Niklas Luhmann: Education as a social system, Springer 
Filipi, Anna & Numa Markee (2018), From research to applications, Pedagogical considerations in language alternation practices, in: Conversation Analysis and Language Alternation, Ed. by Anna Filipi & Numa Markee, John Benjamins Publishing Company  
Gardner, Rod (2013): Conversation Analysis in the Classroom, in: The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, Sidnell, Jack /Stivers, Tanya (eds), Blackwell Publishing

   

Why Language Policy for Fighting Climate Change等?

There is very famous scene in Film Spirited away (千と千尋の神隠し, Wp has more), where the main Chihiro looses her name and is from now on called Sen, which is one of the reason Chihiro is afterwards a slave of the witch Yubaba. Naming something and also re-naming is power. This applies to all languages, but especially English is very important, being the language of the American Empire (the OECD states) and the major language for Global exchange. The Global Fight for Climate Justice needs English as a tool for Global Exchange. But other countries with other National languages than English can and should contribute. I will argue here specially for German in Japan, which is still part of Job (teaching German as Foreign Language in a University in Japan, among other Subjects). The German "Energiewende" (energy transition, Wp has more) is far from perfect, but other countries (including Japan) can contribute from experiences in Germany. This Meme (Wp for more) used here is related to a character is used here in Nagoya, by the local electricity provider  (here is a Link, to Google the character can't desplayed here). Actually the Memes in this drawing (thank you Shinko)

are related to three political spheres, first to the EU, especially to Germany, where the population is still reluctant to create Corona-bonds (Politico has more, reading the article thoroughly shows, that Merkel is not for Corona bonds). The second political sphere is the US, with the notion of the new Green New Deal (Klein 2019). And the third space is of course Japan being able to create important Memes for the future of this planet. 

References

Klein, Naomi (2019), On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal    

Politics on Earth day

Happy Earth day to everyone! In fact Judith asked me to show her a Zoom side for the discussion of the earth day and I only can say there are a lot, but there no side for the the earth as a whole. There are many discussions going on in many parts of this Earth.This is the central page of the Earth day (Link), the Wikipedia-page (Earth day) shows the history of the celebration. But this article shows also that the branding "Earth day" originated in the USA. Because of the worldwide impact of the English language and the cultural soft power (Wp) of the USA, the Earth day on 22.April is now known internationally. But what has the international environment movement and especially the US environment movement really reached after 50 years? The US has a President, who denials Global warming and is not taking part in Paris agreement of climate protection. The global warming is accelerating and CO2 in atmosphere has reached an overcritical level since several years. While there are several opinions on the fact, when there was a window of opportunity to really overcome, a lot of observers think it already to late to fight global in the boundaries of 1.5°1.5 Celsius, as the Paris agreement from 2016 (Wp) recommends (see Klein 2014, McKibben 2019 for an overview of this discussion). A global warming exceeding 1.5° would hit countries in the Global south especially hard. Especially Africa is affected and of course also all coastal regions are also to hit. This are facts, they are proven by several scientific analysis. But why are some people, like Trump, are denying these facts? Giving them not the benefit of the doubt, because this is no trial, but a political analysis, they are about to enforce the Social Darwinist slogan from the survival of the fittest on the whole earth (see Hobsbawm 2012 for Nationalism and Social Darwinism). This is actually not particularity new. The 19. century was affected by this ideology and until the 20th century this ideology was very dominant. Only a short time of history is marked by a different ideology, the ideology of cooperation and mutual assistance. How successful was (and is) this ideology? This is still not decided, but what is sure, that the earth day is part of this bright ideology of mutual assistance and deserves a celebration. And in times of Covid-19 Pandemic this celebration is course different, because big gatherings of people are dangerous. And of course there are a lot of virtual gatherings, I yesterday went, the biggest maybe "Earth day live", from the central page. But we need more, we need a worldwide political force, giving legitimacy for the Earth. And that could only be the General Assembly of the United Nations. The UNPA campaign shows Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Link), who did only serve one term as Secretary-General of the UN. Does this ring a bell? Trumps decision to cut funding of the WHO should be seen in this background (CNN). While the US has been important for the environmental movement of the planet the movement should be acting more international and find allies outside the US-Empire. Happy earth day for the whole planet! 
References: 
Hobsbawm, E. J. (2012), Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Canto Classics), second edition
Klein, Naomi (2014), This changes everything: Capitalism vs. the climate, Schuster & Schuster, auf Deutsch: Die Entscheidung: Kapitalismus vs. Klima  (2015, Fischer)
McKibben, Bill (2019), Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?, Wildfire

                

Texts in the VUCA-World

A Report about an Transdisciplinary Project about Mediation (1)
Do know the VUCA-World? (Wp has more) The features of this world are:

• volatility
• uncertainty
• complexity
• ambiguity

in short, the world of the Covid-19 Pandemic. What can do be done for going in a better world? My answer is quite simple: Writing texts! Texts, which are creating meaning can express complexity and they also able to map ambiguity, because ambiguity is a pattern of multicultural situations. Writing in English about the VUCA-world, with lot's of different cultures, needs methods to handle ambiguity. One keyword in this context, is mediation; it is not a method, it more a strategic inventory to negotiate meaning and to frame it in a text. Obviously this is also done in this blog. However, the report (see subtitle) is about ways to get others to write meaningful texts. 
Up to know there have been official documents (application for a research grand = Kaken) and presentations about the project in front of stakeholders: students and researchers of various disciplines (as shown in this webside). However, this it is the first text to deliver a progress report. It was planned to present initial findings of the project at the international AILA conference 2020 in Groningen, Netherlands. Because of Covid-19 Pandemic the conference is postponed to the year 2021. Therefore it seems to be a good idea to use this blog and post about the research, focusing on different aspects of the research.
The initial idea of the research was to collect data about teaching in a World Englishes context. The notion of 'World Englishes' (Wp has more, not only for the Japanese situation, see: D'Angelo 2011) has been a reference in several articles here, in our context it means the writing of texts (final thesis) in English, in the content of Liberal arts. That means the students are on purpose free to choose their own topics. The scientific texts are following scientific standards for Essay and they can be called a written deliberation on a choosen topic. So, how can the students escaping the VUCA-world with their text? Of course they can't, but they can, they address the VUCA world, they reduce some of the complexity in a certain self-chosen frame and they learn about ambiguity, because they writing in English and thinking in Japanese. These 'stress conditions' produce highly interesting results.
Reference:
D'Angelo, James (2011), Japanese English? Refocusing the discussion, in:
Asian English Studies (Journal of the Japan Association For Asian Englishes-JAFAE) Vol. 15: 99-124.          

European Unity: Languages & Money

Blogging about language policy can't ignore Europe. Several reasons:

• the European language policy Multilingualism with Plurilingualism
• several World languages originated in Europe
• Europe (esp. the EU) is a key player in the Globalization (Bradford 2020)
• the concept of a monolingual state was carried out first in Europe (Heinrich 2012 is showing the french beginnings of monolingual language policy)

But how to proceed in the contemporary situation? The Covid-19 Pandemic is characterized by strong considerations about the 'public sector' (see Louis Meuleman in his IISD-article) especially seen in relation to the 'failure of Europe' (Politco & SChMP). But has there really be a failure of Europe? Some European countries i.e. some EU-member countries have reacted differently and here clearly visiable that the EU countries do not form a common society (see Lingua Policy of 20/3/2020). The health policy has been in the responsibility of the national governments and of course it is always easy to scapegoat Europe, but in my Europe as European Union did not fail in the Covid-19 Pandemic, at least up to now. But there other issues: Money and Languages and they are linked. In the Euro financial crisis after 2008 imposed Austerity mechanism especially on Greece, but also other countries are involved and even Germany has a strong austerity fincial policy, which is however not imposed by other countries, but by there own government. Also other countries are enforcing Austerity policy, which they call 'fiscal discipline' (the ECB has more) and there has also been strong objectives against this policy (Euroobserver). Actually there a strong North/South division on this issue. But has this to do with languages? There is only a small common public space in Europe, the different languages are effectively blocking a common European deliberation about financial affairs. While it is relatively easy to describe the situation, it quite complex to show an easy exit strategy. A common European language seems to be necessary for deliberation and observing the language situation on the ground (eg. with Eurobarometer an EU-Link, about the statistics, see also languageknowledge.eu) and that common language can only be English now. It seems to be an abstract and distant discussion during the pandemic, but in progressive Internationalists should keep in mind that the compromise the EU reached yesterday (Guardian has more) is only a first step and also letting a lot of questions open. This is the time for a discussion about an European Green deals, in various languages.       
References: 
Bradford, Anu (2020), The Brussels Effects. How the European Union Rules the World, Oxford University Press 
Heinrich, Patrick (2012),  The Making of Monolingual Japan: Language Ideology and Japanese Modernity, Multilingual Matters, Bristol     

climate Justice: economy in focus

Acting against Climate chance can't be done without a clear roadmap for climate justice. This is not a tivial ambition, because the struggle for distribituve justice (Wp has more about it) has been in the twentieth century a matter of the national state. But now we have to look on a transnational focus and that in a situation, the globalization process is slowing down, now even faster because of the covid-19 crisis. In some ways the Covid-19 crisis is already fostering environmental considerations, one example would be the slow down of the Oil-production (Guardian has backgrounds). But this only sign of a worldwide economic depression, with no substantial changes in the course of the economy, this is not 'degrowth'! (the correspondent blog-post explains the concept with backgrounds). This economic depreesion is indeed worisome: the gigantic Covid-19 rescue package from the US government could lead to more injustice in the US. (see the report on Democracy now, for this). Matt Stoller, research director of the American economics liberty project could have a point here, but would could be done to promote climate justice? Bloomberg opinion is arguing Dumping Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet (Noah Smith) and is pledging for eco-industrialism. There are obviously other views on this: John Molyneux is arguing in the blog-post "Socialism is the only realtic solution to climate change", in the blog climatecapitalism that an essential change is inevitable. I personally also think that fundamental economical changes are necessary, but how to organize such changes? In the Covid-19 pandemic several societies change radically seeing them under health-pressure, in some cases the government providing basic financial security (Guardian Australia). But how long will these changes last? And, what happens to world if mankind would disrupt the capitalistic economy? Capitalism is not without success: Green energy is now cheapter, as Ramez Naam argues, but the transformation is far from done. But transnationals changes are indispensable, without them climate justice, which means a sustainable transition in economy can't happen. This diagram from based in general of the work of the World Inequality Database and this diagram (pdf-download) it is used in the book of Thomas Piketty (2020, see reference). It clearly shows the problem, if only the US would go to more equality, without the other countries. And because of the Covid-19 pandemic it seems very unlikely that the US is getting a more equal society, right the opposite is likely to happen, which leads to the obvious conclusion that the ongoing crisis not only dangerous for the live of some many people, it is also not a crisis helping to address the problems of climate change. There two reasons for this: This crisis is not helping with (climate) justice and the answer on the complex problem of climate change has to come in a systematic way. I think only organizations would be able to address this, in the way that only organizations are able to address the problems of the Covid-19 pandemic.                        


Reference:
Piketty, Thomas (2020), Capital and ideology, Harvard University Press, URL for all Graphs (in English, opens a new window)