No.019 - On research communication in non-Japanese languages

On research communication in non-Japanese languages

Yo-Ichiro SATO

Executive Director, National Institutes for the Humanities (NIHU)

A university in Tokyo convened a symposium titled “Thinking about the Whaling Issue.” Megumi Sasaki, the director of the documentary film “A Whale of a Tale” [“Okujira-sama: Futatsu no seigi no monogatari”] also took the podium with a talk entitled “Justice beyond Justice” [“Seigi no mukō no seigi”] (http://okujirasama.com/). Going beyond the issue of whale meat as a food, Sasaki argued that the antithesis of what one culture considers to be justice might not be “evil,” but rather another justice. I have been inspired by Sasaki’s words and believe that a similar problem may underlie the language we choose to use when communicating our research as humanities researchers at Japanese research institutions.

Trained as a geneticist, when I was younger, I took it completely for granted that the results of my research should be made available in academic papers written in English. However, since I was exclusively concerned with when, where, and how rice plants, which are anthropogenic in nature, descended, the specter of humanity was never far away.In that sense, my research areas of interest also fell under the humanities.

None of my English language manuscripts I submitted were accepted on the first try. For the most part, it was a process whereby I would receive some comments from the reviewers, rewrite the paper accordingly, whereupon it would be accepted and published. But occasionally I had papers rejected even after they had been rewritten. I would be frustrated by the rejection and would file away those manuscripts in stacks, and in many cases the manuscripts would never again see the light of day. Sometimes I feel they were dismissed unreasonably by senior reviewers wondering “what nonsense is this young nobody going on about?” – a practice not uncommon even in Japan. However, I also feel that there were sometimes reasons that are more difficult to explain. These were the manuscripts rejected as “unreadable” or “poorly written” even after they had been edited by native English speakers who were also experts in my research area. Why were my manuscripts judged as such?

It is said that when we think, we do so in our mother tongue. If so, then it is possible that the logical reasoning and the route we have taken to reach our conclusion will vary slightly depending on the language in which we articulate them. Perhaps our conclusions may also change in some subtle fashion. An academic paper conceived of in Japanese and written in Japanese should be expected to include something inherently Japanese.

If so, must we communicate our humanities research that contains “something inherently Japanese” in a non-Japanese language, such as, English? My answer is “Yes.” Even in the case of the “Justice beyond Justice” talk I alluded to above, there are some who will not acknowledge that there could be alternative forms of justice. At the risk of being misunderstood, this is nothing other than the doctrine of monotheism. Providing different perspectives to even those who would regard other religions as heresy that alternative forms of justice exist, that other logical thinking are possible – is this not the obligation of the scholarly humanities? And in accomplishing this, whether we like it or not, we have little choice but to communicate in the English language.

There is no need to use logical reasoning that is specific to the English discourse. What I am trying to say here is that when people outside Japan face outlooks, beliefs, and ways of doing things that are different from their own, it is our duty to take an approach that encourages those people to accept these as another justice, rather than thinking of these differences as heresies or something difficult to accept. I feel that the need for English-language research communication in the humanities lies here.

Of course, English should not be the only means of communication. There are non-English speaking audiences, such as those people who have taken part in our fieldworks conducted around the world; these participants are one of the most important audiences we should reach out to. In that sense, when considering which language to use as a means of communication, in addition to Japanese and English, we should also consider the languages used in the societies and local communities of our field studies.

As one of the inter-university research institutes, it is NIHU’s responsibility to organize wide-ranging collaborative research that a single university would not be able to accomplish on its own. I feel that the same is also required for international collaboration and research communication. In academic disciplines relating to Japanese culture, especially, I would venture to suggest that research communication in multiple languages seems to be becoming increasingly important. In other words, research communication in non-Japanese languages is an endeavor to convey how ideas are developed and arguments are made in the Japanese discourse - something we would not direct our attention to if we were communicating in Japanese.