Talk:François Grin

Draft article?
The Grin Report, formally Foreign language teaching as public policy, was written in 2005 by François Grin, economist and professor at the University of Geneva, answering a request by the Haut conseil de l'éducation.

This document attempts to answer the following questions: "What foreign languages ought to be taught, for what reasons, and considering what context?" It considers the economic costs of language policies, as well as their cultural and policy implications. (The report refers throughout to the French situation and to Europe, but it is neither a European report nor a report on the French situation.) It examines three scenarios: the choice of a single natural language, the choice of three natural languages and the choice of a constructed language, Esperanto.

This report is known at the level of Europe and has been the subject of a written question to the European Parliament. However, it has not resulted in real changes in the language policy of any State.

First scenario : all-to-English
The report analyzes the choice of English, although the analysis can be applied to any other national language chosen as lingua franca. The report (page 65) refers to this scenario in the following terms:
 * "It is not the English language as such that is the problem, but the linguistic hegemony, regardless of the language in whose favor it is exercised. [...] If this linguistic hegemony were to work (as is happening) in favor of English, it would be a very bad case [...] for all non-English speaking states of the EU, and even beyond its borders."

The report indicates that for the United Kingdom, one of the Member States where English is an official language, this represents a yearly saving of 17 to 18 billion euros (€290 per inhabitant, which is in total more than three times the UK rebate). This savings would be strengthened with the choice of English as the only language. This figure does not include the additional benefits to native speakers of the only language chosen in a situation of conflict or negotiation occurring in that language. The report further states that the symbolic effects also have material and financial repercussions.

According to the Grin Report, five points give rise to an unfair redistribution:


 * A quasi-monopoly position on the markets of translation and interpretation into English, editing texts in English, teaching English and production of materials for such teaching;
 * Saving time and money in international communication, at the expense of non-native speakers who must make all the effort to speak and understand English;
 * Saving time and money for English-speakers, who need no longer make much effort to learn other languages;
 * The return on investment, in other forms of human capital, on resources that Anglophones no longer need to invest in learning foreign languages;
 * The dominant position of English-speakers in any negotiation, competition or conflict occurring in English.

Second scenario: multilingualism
The trilingual scenario consists of requiring each European citizen to know two languages out of a chosen set of three, e.g. French, German and English.

According to the report, this scenario does not change the costs of language teaching. The multilingual solution tends to reduce inequalities among speakers, but still imposes a burden on those whose first language is not among those chosen. In any case, trilingualism is not stable; it requires a series of accompanying measures without which it risks collapsing into adoption of a single language.

In a Europe with 21 official languages (as of the date of the report), multilingual communication thus cannot be left to chance, and it is convenient to specify here how the multilingual scenario benefits by comparison with the two others.

"Multilingualism" is thus defined as follows: each European resident must master two languages besides his or her native language, from a chosen set of three, in order to ensure that any two Europeans can communicate. Like the adoption of a single language, as discussed above, this gives a privileged status to certain languages.

The multilingual scenario therefore is not perfectly egalitarian: in effect, even if every European does learn two foreign languages, two situations can be distinguished:


 * For those whose native language is English, French or German, it suffices to choose one of the two foreign languages from this group of three, but the other foreign language can be Italian, Japanese or Welsh.
 * In contrast, for a native speaker of Estonian or Portuguese, the two foreign languages must be from the English/French/German trio. Any other language, be it Italian, Japanese or Welsh, must be learned as a third foreign language.

This asymmetry is not without consequences for comparison of the scenarios.

Still, it must be noted that even this restriction does not ensure communication, as would the other two scenarios. In fact, if the multilingualism described here is to be truly distinguished from linguistic hegemony, it assumes that the member States will have taken genuine steps to encourage usage of several languages.

If these measures are not effective, we fall back into the "all-to-English" scenario; but if they are effective one can, almost by definition, expect that those European citizens whose native language is not English, French or German will learn two of these languages in roughly equal proportions.

Eventually, Europeans will belong to three large groups: those who speak English and French ("EF"), French and German ("FD") or German and English ("DE"). What intercommunication can we then expect? To simplify calculation, we assume that these three groups are equal in size.

In a randomly chosen audience of 20 such bilingual Europeans, the probability that at least one person will be excluded by use of one of the trio languages is 99.9%. In other words, it is nearly certain that at least one participant has a repertoire which, while conforming perfectly to the model of the privileged trio, does not include the language chosen for this meeting of 20 persons.

A further problem is the choice of languages for the trio (and the criterion for choosing them). Once that selection is adopted, the problem arises of the trio's stability when new States join the EU; if Russia or Arab states were to join, it would be politically difficult to exclude their languages from becoming official.

Third scenario: Esperanto
The report argues that adoption of Esperanto would save the EU 25 billion euros a year (over €54 per inhabitant). In February 2013 a petition was started at Avaaz.org asking to use Esperanto in the EU following the report's recommendations. The report also notes:
 * The frequent reactions of rejection toward Esperanto make it impractical to put scenario 3 in effect in the short term. However, it can be recommended in the context of a long-term strategy, to be put in place over a generation.  Two conditions, however, are critical for its success: first, a very great effort of information, to overcome prejudices against this language – which in general are grounded in simple ignorance – and to help develop mentalities; second, a true coordination between States toward putting such a scenario into common effect.  85% of the population of Europe of the 25 [i.e., the EU with 25 member states] have a direct and evident interest, independent of the political and cultural risks that linguistic hegemony entails.

One could think, at first sight, that it is only necessary to replace English with Esperanto, replacing "all-to-English" with "all-to-Esperanto". Despite this surface resemblance, the differences between these two linguistic environments are sizable:


 * With the use of Esperanto, all the unfair transfers of "all-to-English" disappear; that applies equally to the "legitimation effect" or "rhetorical effect" (which are not quantified in the study); the symbolic importance of that effect, however, remains major.
 * Learning Esperanto is considerably quicker than learning any natural language; this is true, though to varying degrees, whatever the student's native language may be. The advantage perhaps more evident for native speakers of a Romance language, but exists even for speakers of non-Indo-European languages, despite a vocabulary drawn essentially from Indo-European languages.
 * As Esperanto is no-one's language, and thus easily everyone's language, its spread is less of a threat to existing languages than that of English.

Table
The comparison between the different scenarios is based on the following elements:


 * Definition of a linguistic environment, in the European context;
 * Identification of the benefits, especially communicative, associated with each environment;
 * A very basic definition of the axes of foreign-language-teaching policy that each environment requires;
 * The costs of each policy for the education system;
 * Transfers caused by each linguistic environment, distinguishing, according to the analysis of the previous chapter:
 * The privileged markets;
 * Savings of effort in communication;
 * Savings of effort in teaching foreign languages;
 * The yields from savings made on teaching.


 * ""There is in my opinion no way to estimate, even roughly, the legitimizing effect (thus the undue superior position in negotiation and conflict situations) that, according to the linguistic environments, may accrue to speakers of the privileged language or languages. Until a solution can be found to this sensitive issue, the legitimizing effect (elsewhere called "rhetorical effect", cf. Grin, 2004a) is assumed to be included in the social and cultural dimensions noted above. It should nevertheless keep a crucial importance in any evaluation.""

- Grin

Scenarios 1 and 2 therefore have the same cost in terms of teaching foreign languages. Scenario 3, by contrast, has a lower cost, since achieving a certain level of proficiency in Esperanto is much faster than in any other language and the literature is unanimous in this regard.

In what follows, Grin opted for extreme caution in assuming a 3:1 advantage (rather than 10:1) in favor of Esperanto.

Some comments may help to interpret this table.
 * The net benefit of the Esperantist scenario ought not to be surprising, since it reflects both the efficiency of this language and its fairness. Consideration of equity in the ranking of scenarios should therefore favor scenario 2 or 3.
 * Non-market values enhance the attractiveness of scenario 2, because it promotes the daily visibility of linguistic and cultural diversity, and highlight the defects in scenario 1, which poses the greatest risk of uniformity.
 * The explicit and separate consideration of symbolic dimensions, related to the historic and political roots of European culture and (and to the extent that such dimensions could not be captured through non-market values), reinforces these findings.
 * The amounts reported here are based on one calendar year; they accumulate year by year, and reinforce a dynamic increasingly difficult to reverse, in which such amounts themselves will weigh ever more heavily.

Mr. Grin wonders: If an audit shows the scenario "all-to-English" to be the most costly and least equitable of the three, how does it continue to gain such adherence? How to explain that a preferable alternative, in terms of efficiency and equity, is never seriously considered? What guidance can be envisaged in the short and long term, given the results so far?

Scenario 1 ("all-to-English") presents a serious risk of standardization and can not prevent provincializing other European languages.

Scenario 2 ("multilingualism") is certainly supported – at least at the level of general principles, and in a very a blurred version – by all the talk of European officialdom. However, besides having little apparent significance in practice, this scenario is credible only if it incorporates a tight regulation of communicative contexts. This requires a subtle engineering because it cannot work unless it turns to its advantage the double logic of usability and minimax (or at least neutralizes these forces where they favor English); the process is made more delicate by the perceived artificiality and constraint of such measures.

Report conclusion
Grin concludes that the best strategy among those studied in the long term for language teaching as public policy is to focus on Esperanto (scenario 3). He has not studied other constructed languages.

Discussion of above material
That thing I've just collapsed is virtually the same content at the article Grin's Report. It was added at 08:28, 10 February 2014‎ by a user from the IP address 95.90.118.201. 'Grin's Report', on the other hand, was created at 21:07, 6 April 2014‎ by User:Alekso92. I don't know where the text came from – possibly Grin Report, which was deleted per AfD on 30 September 2013 – but it seems unlikely that two authors could have written the same content. Perhaps Alekso92 forgot to log in, but it's likely there is some kind of copying going on here. Cnilep (talk) 08:49, 12 May 2014 (UTC)


 * That's not my IP. Yes, the text is a copy from the Speedy deleted Grin Report. The reasons I created a new Grin Report article under a different name are: I don't know how to reopen the "debate" in the original one (I'm quite new here). I read it when it was being deleted, and I think that can't be called a "debate". I can't get the register of that debate, but I remember it wasn't fair (too many wanting to delete it VS one that didn't want) and a linguistic professor in Germany made a mistake and wrote is opinion in the discussion thread (he wanted to keep the article), so his voice and arguments were not heard. The conclusion why this article was not worth keeping in Wikipedia was not the importance of such information but because someone didn't find enough theses on the internet about. Is that a real criterion or is it the report conclusion they do not like? I'm sure there's printed books (and unpublished thesis) that talk about it. I have in my room a book "El esperanto: lengua y cultura" (=language and culture) and I bet the author would mention this report if that book would have been published a year later (so in 2005). Should the Wikipedia community delete every single article that do not meet the criterion? I'm glad to read you propose something which doesn't cause the deletion of this piece of information. I would accept merging it with the author's article, but I'd like it would be link to the other language versions of "Grin Report" and to the links Grin Report. The source of this article is essentially the report itself, written in French. Alekso92 (talk) 10:51, 12 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The record of the deletion discussion is at WP:Articles for deletion/Grin Report. If you'd like to request that a decision to delete an article be reversed, you can ask for a Deletion review. Sometimes an administrator will agree to place a deleted article in user space; see Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to provide copies of deleted articles or Requests for undeletion. Be aware, though, that if the only information about the report is from the report itself, it may not satisfy Wikipedia's General notability guideline. Notability is indeed a real criteria for content on Wikipedia. I noted at the 2013 deletion discussion that I couldn't find much independent information about the report, but I haven't looked for more recent coverage.


 * Another editor, User:DGG, has suggested that content currently in Grin's Report be merged into François Grin. Cnilep (talk) 01:22, 13 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I have deleted it. Please ask at Deletion review. You may have a case for getting the decision to delete the original article reversed; the external links include a couple of discussions of the report. The criteria for having an article do amount to: it has been written about a lot (and/or talked about a lot on broadcast media or in films): here is a general summary with links to specifics. Again, the deletion discussion was here: Articles for deletion/Grin Report. Make your case. Yngvadottir (talk) 05:33, 13 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Based on the first step: Before listing a review request please attempt to discuss the matter with the closing admin as this could resolve the matter more quickly. I show my argument with 2 links from official institutions (I think that can be called "notable"): the report is mentioned in the page 70 of a report from the CSPM in 2011 (created by the Europe Commission) here and here(European Economic and Social Committee)


 * It's difficult not to think that if this report would have favored English rather than Esperanto it would be thought much more "notable", it would have never been deleted and there would be plenty of articles about it in journals, etc. The fact that it has been deleted is depriving 300 to 600 visitors every month, that are supposed to think it is "notable" as they visited the article. http://stats.grok.se/en/201211/Grin_Report Alekso92 (talk) 13:15, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * As both and I told you before, our notability criteria are based on others having written about it, rather than on abstract importance. That was the basis of the discussion at WP:Articles for deletion/Grin Report; speculation that the decision was based on something else is not useful, what is useful is finding additional independent sources, which you say you have. The text appears above in the collapsed section, so you are free to merge some information from there into this article, the article on François Grin. However, if you instead still wish to get the Grin Report article undeleted, you need to follow the steps at deletion review, as you were advised last May ... and that means you should be speaking to the admin who closed that discussion, . You have not edited their talk page. Yes, it would be a good idea to try that first; if you prefer, proceed directly to deletion review. You need to follow that path because once an article has been deleted after a community discussion, it can't be recreated in the same form except as a result of a review of that decision. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:06, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

As discussed above at length, it is not appropriate to simply restore the deleted material. There was consensus among editors to delete the article at two different titles; recreating it here seems to me an illegitimate attempt to circumvent that discussion. I can find no coverage in reliable sources that are independent of Grin or his employers discussing this report. It therefore does not appear to be "notable" as defined by Wikipedia policy. If you disagree, please discuss the matter rather than repeatedly overriding others' contributions. Cnilep (talk) 00:43, 4 July 2016 (UTC)