An academic’s success is no doubt built partly upon his or her ability to convey ideas to other individuals through the written word. This is especially true in the social sciences and humanities, I think. For those entering American Ph.D. programs from abroad, getting up to speed in high level English is critical. After so many years spent in post-secondary education, I’ve come across many foreign students for whom English is a second language. I’ve been impressed with those who have mastered English to the level that they’re able to follow and participate substantively in academic discourse conducted in English.
Then there’s the case of my friend Rover (not his real name) from Japan.
Rover is about to earn his doctorate in international studies. His spoken English, though better than it was six years ago when he first moved to the United States, is not up to par, in my opinion. Alright, that’s understandable. I’ve known more than one person whose abilities in written English outstripped their abilities in spoken English. If given some time to reflect and compose, they could put down words on paper nearly indistinguishable from those written by a native speaker. At first, I thought Rover was just that kind of person. He had me edit a biographical blurb that was going into a conference program. It was nearly perfect and I was totally dumbstruck. I couldn’t reconcile his mangled spoken English with the bubbly and fluid self-description I had just read. I concluded that Rover must be one of those people who, when it comes to English, had mastered the written word, but not so much the spoken word.
Well, over the next five years, I came to learn a few things: 1. Rover has no interest in improving his English. 2. Rover doesn’t listen to suggestions to improve his English. 3. When Rover gave me something to edit, it had already been looked over by at least one or two other native speakers. 4. Rover must have at least a couple ghost writers because what I’m seeing just doesn’t add up.
I guess this brings me to the real point of this post. I’ve studied 4 or 5 foreign languages over the course of my life (not including English or Thai). When I studied Japanese, I had close friends who spoke Japanese fluently. Sure, sometimes I would have them look over my work, but the thing is that even after they had pointed out mistakes and made some edits to my essays, no one would ever confuse what I submitted with the work product of a native Japanese speaker.
But what if they did? What if my assignments for Japanese class were so heavily edited by native Japanese speakers that my essays and what not were not only indistinguishable from those written by native speakers but also written in complex literary Japanese? Would this be acceptable? Assuming that the ideas included were mine, would it be some sort of misrepresentation? Okay, maybe the example is not precisely on point, but this is what goes through my mind when I think about ol’ Rover who’s about to get his freakin’ Ph.D. from an American university.
I’ll try to make my point by showing you just what I mean. Below is an excerpt from Rover’s written academic work followed by excerpts from his e-mail messages to me. All excerpts are from about mid-2008 and after.
The strategic use of trade policy reinforces alliance connections during both wartime and in peacetime by conveying alliance members’ various security concerns. As to regional trade pacts, I advance an institutional argument by focusing on institutional change, performance, and demise. Implementation of trade liberalization in these pacts depends on the nature of the international context. By this I mean informational uncertainty from market volatility, power distribution, and levels of economic interdependence. A variety of dispute settlement measures (DSMs) are used to promote trade cooperation in regional trade pacts, but their institutional performance is also affected by this international context. I have discovered that when international circumstances lead to trade stimulus and trade liberalization, regional trade pacts are more likely to experience a high degree of institutional change or to become totally inactive because DSM’s are inherently imperfect.
Whether or not you understand the nature of the research, the level of English used is what you’d expect from a Ph.D. candidate in international affairs. Okay, so you say that Rover writes pretty well for someone who I don’t think is very fluent in English. Welp, then take a look at these snippets from his e-mails to me:
1. Hi my friends, Yohei (3rd year graduate) and I am working as a reader position for the IR149. If we have less than 168 students, only one of us or neither of us cannot receive the fall quarter fee remission.
2. Do you receive the bill from Time Warner Cable every month? I think I have not received it recently.
The rent includes the fees for cable TV and internet and I do not need to pay anything. But I am wondering whether they stopped sending the bill. When my current room made moved in, he made a call to the Gas company to disconnect his previous account. Then, he told his new address which is my appartment address. An telephone operator changed the account name. If the company remove life-line plan for the gas, I have to open the account again and activate it to save money. It is a little bit terrible work.
3. I found your falling coin in my car. The passenger seat could not move perfectly because it was stuck by your 10 cent. Fortunately, I picked up your coin though it took a half hour. When you are in my car, please be careful of your coins. I do not want to have the same trouble.
Welp, what do you think? Were these snippets all written by the same person? Yes, I know that people don’t write e-mails in the same voice as they use in academic papers, but shouldn’t there at least be some connection in terms of consistency in English usage and ability? I, and many of my colleagues, find much humor in the disparity between the English in Rover’s e-mails and in his papers. To be sure, the ideas in the papers are Rover’s own, but we think he has a couple of ghost writers. The problem is that we can’t figure out who they are. Another question is about misrepresentation. Is Rover misrepresenting himself somehow in his job applications by using English that he couldn’t reproduce by himself while alone in a room with a pen and paper? In the case of many graduate students who speak non-native English, there’ll be some discrepancies, but I gotta say that this is by far the worst case that I’ve ever seen.
Like I said, Rover is not receptive to suggestions for long-term improvement and fluency in his English, so he doesn’t get much sympathy from me. But maybe I should throw Rover a bone before he gets boned on the job market.
