JCMC 9 (1) November 2003
 |
NetStudy VEs VOs O-Journ HigherEd Conversation Cyberspace Web Commerce
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Language Choice on a Swiss Mailing List
Mercedes Durham
University of Fribourg
- Abstract
- Introduction
- IFMSA-Switzerland
- Data and Methods
- Results
- Monolingual versus Mixed-language Messages
- "Balanced" versus Mixed-dominant Messages
- Change over Time
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Footnotes
- References
- About the Author
Abstract
This paper examines how the language situation in Switzerland affects, and may be affected by, the choice of languages for Internet use within the country. It focuses primarily on language choices on a mailing list for members of a Pan-Swiss medical student organization. English has become the lingua franca, the preferred language of intra-Swiss communication, within this group. The use of English by list members is charted over four calendar years to determine when and how this change occurred. Qualitative analysis of comments by the members in the e-mails themselves and in interviews provides clues as to why English has become so important on the mailing list. The paper concludes by considering the implications of this case for the linguistic situation in Switzerland in general and for the global spread of English via the Internet.Introduction
The Language Situation in SwitzerlandSwitzerland has four national languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh (see Figure 1 for their distribution), three of which are considered official languages (all but Romansh) and which are used in the government and for federal administration. As shown by Figure 2, which displays the relative size of the languages at the time of the national census in 2000, German has by far the greatest number of native speakers, followed by French and then Italian. This figure only provides the results for what people consider their main language or mother tongue, as the figures for all languages used are not yet available. Generally, people's main language is the same as that of the canton or region in which they live. Which language they chose to use with Swiss nationals from other linguistic regions in the country is more complicated, however.
Until recently, the school system required that students' first foreign language be another Swiss national language, so that German speakers studied French, French speakers German, and Italian speakers studied either French or German. In the past few years, however, English has become more important as a second language. A few years ago, the schools of the canton of Zurich (ZH) decided to make English the first foreign language taught in the classrooms, a situation which received extensive press coverage in the Swiss media. The fact is that a large number of Swiss speakers do not feel at ease speaking in the other national languages and are more comfortable using English.
Figure 1. Regional distribution of the national languages of Switzerland
(orange = French; blue = German; green = Italian; yellow = Romansh)
[Map by Camillo Kohli (2003). ©DHS, Dictionnaire Historique de la Suisse, 2003]
(http://www.snl.ch/dhs/externe/protect/francais.html)
Figure 2. Relative size of the national languages of Switzerland
(reported mother tongue speakers)
(http://www.statistik.admin.ch/stat_ch/ber16/eufr16.htm)
English Use in Switzerland
Despite (or perhaps due to) the fact that there are a number of languages spoken in Switzerland, English has gradually gained ground as a lingua franca. This change is relatively new: "Before World War II the presence of English could be felt only where the citizens of the Anglo-American countries—then above all Britain—came into contact with Swiss citizens" (Dürmüller, 2002, p.115). If English was used by Swiss nationals, it was only to communicate with English speakers and never with other Swiss people. This use of English with non-Swiss people obviously still occurs today, and Switzerland places a large emphasis on tourism. However,
since the end of World War II, particularly since about 1960, the situation regarding the place of English among the languages used in Switzerland has drastically changed ... People in Switzerland are now often more familiar with English than with the languages of their compatriots. English has definitely changed its status, it has moved from the fringes to the centre, from the status of a foreign language to that of an additional language with LINGUA FRANCA function, i.e. a language that can be used for special purposes and for wider communication. (Dürmüller, 2002, p.116, emphasis in original)In addition to its importance as a lingua franca, the presence of English can also be felt in advertising (Cheshire & Moser, 1994) and to a certain extent on the Internet, in that many Swiss Web sites provide pages in English, as well as in French, German and Italian.
In short, the situation at present appears to be that, while Switzerland itself is a multilingual country, speakers themselves are not always multilingual, at least not necessarily in the other national languages. Although a sizeable portion of the population can indeed speak two or more national languages, it would appear that there is an even larger percentage of Swiss people who, even though they have studied another Swiss language, do not feel competent enough to use it. Thus speakers from the various linguistic regions of Switzerland have had to find a different way of communicating with one another. Moreover, as attested in the interviews conducted for this study, many do not feel that it would be "fair" for German speakers to use French, if the French speakers cannot use German and vice versa. Using English puts everyone at an equal disadvantage, as it is a foreign language for almost all Swiss people. The question remains: how widespread is this practice? It is precisely this question that is being studied in the project described in the next section.
Project on Pan Swiss English
The study presented here is part of a larger research project that aims to discover whether a focused form of English may be under construction in Switzerland.1 Focussing is a process through which a language form acquires a series of set norms through intensive contact (LePage & Tabouret-Keller, 1985). The concept is primarily used when dealing with the formation of pidgins and creoles: languages which are born through the contact of speakers of two or more languages using a language that is no one's native tongue. A pidgin is considered to be a language with no native speakers, and a creole is a pidgin which has acquired native speakers (Todd, 1991). The case for focussing in Switzerland is based primarily on the fact that if English is indeed used as a lingua franca, it is being used by native speakers of a range of languages (French, German and Italian). The fact that the three groups are using a language which is not native to any of them may mean that some of the forms they use may be influenced by another language they speak, and thus may differ from native-speaker English.
While the project's interest is partly in seeing what might have caused the shift in language use, its primary focus is on the forms that this potentially new Pan Swiss English might take. Having determined that English in Switzerland is indeed a lingua franca, and is used by many non-native speakers, the project will then seek to categorize unique features of Pan Swiss English. It will also compare these features to those of other non-native varieties of English, to further determine whether focussing is underway.
This paper reports on part of the first phase of the research, namely determining whether the linguistic practices of Swiss speakers involve using English as a lingua franca. In addition to showing to what extent English is used, the e-mails collected provide insight into the English of Swiss speakers. The language choices and situations found on this mailing list might then help generate predictions about how other groups will deal with similar multilingual situations.
IFMSA-Switzerland
The AssociationThe association which is the basis for the analysis of language choice on mailing lists in Switzerland is the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations - Switzerland (hereafter IFMSA-CH). This association consists of a group of students who are studying at the various medical schools in Switzerland (Lausanne, Geneva, Berne, Zurich and Basel—in the cantons of VD (Vaud), GE, BE, ZH and BS in Figure 1). As described by one of the members of the association, its "purpose is to enable international cooperation in professional training and the achievement of humanitarian ideals" [01/19/b—Italian speaker].2 The members of the association help Swiss students find placements in other countries and organize the internships (or clerkships as they are called by the members themselves) of students from abroad. Some of the members also attend general assemblies (GAs) around the world twice a year, and meet members of the association from different countries in order to organize new exchanges with them. The worldwide federation, of which IFMSA-CH is a chapter, celebrated its fiftieth year of existence last year, and is recognized by the United Nations as a non-governmental, non-profit organization (www.ifmsa.org). IFMSA boasts over 80 member countries from all parts of the world; the official language of the association is English.
As in most associations, members hold various positions within IFMSA-CH. Unsurprisingly, it is the members who hold the main positions, i.e., President, Secretary and NEO (National Exchange Officer, who is in charge of supervising all exchanges made) who e-mail most often. Other members are either local exchange officers (LEOs) or in charge of one of the standing committees in Switzerland. At present there are approximately 80 members within the Swiss branch of the association, but only a handful of those take a very active role, at least on the mailing list. Of interest here also is the fact that the presidency is quite often shared by two members, so that from 2000 to 2001 the presidents were an Italian speaker and a German speaker, and in 2002 the presidency was held by two French native speakers.
The universities which the members attend are either German-speaking or French-speaking, as Ticino (TI), the one Italian-speaking canton, does not have its own medical school at present. The members appear for the most part to have chosen to go to a medical school in a university in which courses are taught in their native language; thus the French speakers go to the French-speaking universities (Lausanne and Geneva) and the German speakers choose the German-speaking ones. There are Italian speakers in both French- and German-speaking universities. For this reason, in Table 4 below, the Italian speakers are assigned two main languages: Italian, which is their mother tongue, and also the language they use for their studies (French or German). This does not mean that there are no medical students whatsoever who choose to go to medical school in a linguistic region other than their own; it merely appears that there are no such members within the association.
The fact that the members of the Swiss association come from three linguistic backgrounds means that they had to decide which language to use as their main language, not only on the mailing list, but also at national meetings. Since it was possible to obtain data from the mailing list from the time of its inception until three years later, we can examine how these linguistic choices have taken place.
Another point which needs to be mentioned in the context of their language choice is that on a day to day basis within their Local Exchange Offices, members are unlikely to use English with one another. Students in Lausanne or Geneva would be expected to use French, and those at the German-speaking universities would be expected to use German or Swiss German. It is only when they are communicating with one another that they would find themselves in a situation where they would need to use a lingua franca.
The Mailing List
In May 1999, IFMSA-CH began using a Yahoo mailing list to ensure that all interested members receive information as quickly as possible, and to avoid having to send messages individually. It is probable that a number of e-mails were sent out before the creation of the mailing list used in this study; however, it was not possible to see them, as they were not archived.
On the mailing list, members sent messages from their own account to the mailing list address, which were then forwarded to all other registered members. The format of messages could vary, depending on who had sent them. Some members were able to make use of standard document features (bold, italics, colors) in their e-mails. Although these might not appear in everyone's individual e-mail, they were present in the archives of the mailing list.
More messages are exchanged at times when events need to be organized (transport and registration for conferences) than when each local exchange office is working individually in its hometown; notwithstanding this, e-mails are very frequent. This is shown in Figure 3 below, which charts the total number of e-mails sent over the four calendar years, as well as the number of e-mails in French, German and English sent during that time. It is important to mention here that the Swiss German speakers used High German in their e-mails rather than their native Swiss German, as Swiss German is not generally used in writing. Although the messages are of varying lengths, ranging from just a few words to pages and pages of reports from various international meetings, there are enough longer messages that it is possible to form an opinion of how these students use English. It should also be noted that among the most frequent writers, some do not in fact write more than a sentence or two most of the time, whereas some writers do not contribute to the mailing list very often, but when they do, it is always with extensive messages.
Data and Methods
E-mail CollectionThe total number of messages collected for this study is 996. This includes every message sent between May 1999, when the list was started, and June 2002, a total of 38 consecutive months. Thus, counting the number of messages in each language can show us the relative importance of each language.
It was decided to stop further data collection at the end of June 2002, partly because a large number of e-mails had already been collected, and partly because IFMSA-CH intended to change its mailing list so that, rather than having messages directed to the whole mailing list, it would be possible to send e-mails only to those most directly concerned. Messages concerning a problem in Lausanne, for example, would only be sent to members from Lausanne and the president and secretary. It was deemed that a consequence of this would be to render the need for a lingua franca less important, as the messages would no longer be directed to everyone.
For purposes of simplicity and ease of reference, e-mails were sorted according to the calendar year in which they were written—1999, 2000, 2001 or 2002—and then numbered one by one, with the numbers starting over each year. All the messages contained in the archives of the Yahoo mailing list were looked at and numbered, including those which turned out to be international messages, that is to say, messages sent to all the member countries, and not in fact written by Swiss members. The latter group was then excluded for the purposes of the study. It should be mentioned that although omitted from the study, it is interesting to compare these messages with those written by Swiss students, because they too are frequently written by members whose native language is not English. This provides an idea of what form the English used by the whole association takes. It is, like the English used by the Swiss members, an obviously second language form. The following e-mail is an example of the language production of the Swiss speakers.
Hi guys, you remember at the past meeting in Bern a red map that 'b' gave to 'c', concerning the activities of SCOPH and the presentation of their activity? Well, 'c' (man! such a stupid NEO!!!) has lost it somewhere. Has anybody of the participants of the meeting taken it home? Please, answer quickly! I need that map desperately!Although only messages listed in the archives are examined in the quantitative portion of this study reported in the Results section, others were added to the corpus for the analysis of linguistic features, described in the section on Pan Swiss English. These included messages containing attachments which were not listed in the archive. Furthermore, some messages, which were replies to e-mails sent off the mailing list, contained the original e-mail as well; the original emails were included in the larger corpus.
A lot of THANKS
'c', NEO [01/75/c—Italian speaker. [Features deemed non-native English are underlined ('map' is most likely from the German 'Mappe' meaning folder)].
The usefulness of the mailing list in investigating language choice derives from the fact that each individual member is relatively free to decide what language to use.
I repeat: if you don't feel writing in english, but you feel like sharing something with us, please write in your language, ... it is better that not writing anything! [02/283/b - Italian speaker]An added advantage in looking at a student association is that the students are unlikely to choose English over their native languages because of a desire to market their company or their products outside the country, as is likely the case for some of the Swiss companies that have decided to use English as their main language because of the global importance of English. The students' use of English is presumably purely determined by the fact that it is the most accessible language for all (Crystal, 1998). It is also the case that English is the language of medical science around the world.
The value of studying e-mails in relation to language choice is two-fold. First of all, messages can be counted to determine which language is used most often, and which ones might have been used at the start, but then fell into disuse. Second, quite often members talk about language use on the mailing list, or their language use allows us to infer the reasons for specific uses; this provides metalinguistic commentary on their language choices. These two aspects also determine the structure of this paper: The quantitative results for the use of different languages over time are presented first, followed by discussion of individual e-mails that provide insights into the shift towards English.
E-mail Classification
In order to calculate the percentages of the use of English versus other languages, the e-mails were divided into four categories: messages in English, messages in French, messages in German, and a category of miscellaneous messages. The German in the messages is High German, as Swiss German is not generally used in writing, as noted above. The "miscellaneous" category includes messages which do not belong in the research, as they were not written by Swiss speakers (mentioned above); messages which, for some reason, were sent twice; and messages in languages other than the three mentioned above. A few were in Italian, reflecting the fact that three of the main writers are native Italian speakers. These were primarily short, personal messages. However, the total number of messages in Italian comes to only six, so no separate Italian language category was created. There are few messages in Italian because only a small minority of Swiss people learn Italian as a second (or third) language. In contrast, native French speakers study German at school and German speakers study French.
Some messages cannot readily be classified as in a single language, in that they start off in French or German and then switch to English or vice versa. To ensure that messages containing code-switching (Poplack, 1980) were not following different patterns over time from the bulk of the e-mails, they were considered separately. All messages were sorted into one of three groups: monolingual messages; mixed-dominant messages, where most of the message was in one language with a sentence or two in another language; and mixed-balanced messages, e-mails in which two (or more) languages were roughly equally represented.
Results
Monolingual versus Mixed-language MessagesTable 1 provides a general introduction to the data, and examines the overall frequency of these three types of messages. We can see that in the corpus as a whole, messages containing more than one language are quite rare—only 3.5%; nearly all are monolingual, perhaps a surprising result in a multilingual country. This low percentage of mixed-language messages changed only slightly over the four calendar years studied, reaching its peak in 2002 (5%). In the data as a whole, messages in which one language is dominant are slightly more common than those in which the two are balanced, but the incidence of both categories together is extremely low. At the same time, it is worthwhile to examine mixed-language messages more closely, to see what we can learn about the emerging status of English.
|
Type of message
|
1999
|
2000
|
2001
|
2002
|
Total
|
|
monolingual
messages |
97.0%
|
97.0%
|
97.0%
|
95.0%
|
96.5%
|
|
mixed balanced
messages |
--
|
1.0
|
0.3
|
3.0
|
1.1
|
|
mixed dominant
messages |
3.0
|
2.0
|
2.7
|
2.0
|
2.4
|
|
Total
|
100.0
(64) |
100.0
(235) |
100.0
(332) |
100.0
(251) |
100.0
(882) |
Table 1. Distribution of monolingual versus mixed-language messages over time
"Balanced" versus Mixed-dominant Messages
A closer analysis of the two mixed types is shown in Tables 2 and 3. Messages classified as "translation" in the tables are those in which the additional language(s) did not provide any new information but rather, merely translated the accompanying text. "Person specific'" messages are those in which the change from one language to another appeared to be motivated by a reference to a specific person. "Other" messages are those for which it was not possible to determine the cause of the code switch.
|
"Balanced"
messages |
French/German
|
English/French/
German |
German/
English |
English/French/
German/Italian |
Total
|
|
Translation
|
4
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
5
|
|
Person
specific |
0
|
0
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
|
Other
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
2
|
4
|
|
Total
|
5
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
10
|
Table 2. Distribution of "balanced" bilingual or multilingual messages by languages
|
Dominant
language |
German+
French |
German+
English |
French+
English |
English+
French |
English+
German |
English+
Italian |
English+
French+ German |
Total
|
|
Person
specific |
0
|
0
|
0
|
4
|
3
|
2
|
0
|
9
|
|
Other
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
4
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
12
|
|
Total
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
8
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
21
|
Table 3. Distribution of messages in two or more languages by dominant language
Table 2 shows that there were only ten mixed-balanced messages, of which five merely presented the same content translated into one or more languages. In the following German-French-English example, translation is word-by-word:
... und(et) ich(je) komme(viens) auch(aussi) nach(à) basel(bâle) aber(mais) leider(malheureusement) nur(seulement) am(au) samstag(samedi). ich(i) hoffe(hope), ihr(you) könnt(cän) mir(to me) verzeihen(forgive). 'T'.The fact that a number of e-mails provide the same information in more than one language underlines the extent to which the members place an emphasis on ensuring that messages are easily understood by all.
(die neue nora, die nun endlich die 84 e-mails gelesen hat, die sich in der militär—und ferienzeit angehäuft haben!) [02/79/T]
[... and I'm coming to Basel as well, but unfortunately only for the Saturday. I hope you can forgive me. 'T'. (the new Nora, who finally read the 84 e-mails that piled up while he was away in the army and on holiday!)]
Mixed-dominant messages (Tables 1 and 3) are also very infrequent in the data (N=21). The code switch in many of these messages appears to have been motivated by an intention to address single comments to specific people, as illustrated in the following English-dominant message which contains one sentence of French.
Dear IFMSA-CH Family, the week-end meeting is approaching, here is the list of people who willl hopefully come! (I haven't heard anything from IFMSA-Lausanne,... 'g' and 'q', on veut voir les photos de Malte :-)Although these messages are different from monolingual ones, the overall trend is the same: English is the language chosen most often. Of the five balanced messages in Table 2 (N=5), four include English. The case of the dominant language messages (Table 3) is even clearer; out of 21 messages, 18 include some English and 14 have English as the primary language.3
The meeting place : Hôpital des CAdolles, Neuchâtel, it is a hospital on the hills of Neuchâtel, with magnificent view on the lake :-)... [01/082/b; translation of French part of the message: "we want to see the pictures from Malta." 'g' and 'q' are French-speaking members.]
Because of these similarities with monolingual messages, mixed messages were later coded for the main language used in each (even in mixed-balanced messages, one language was generally used slightly more), and included in the analysis of the spread of English on the mailing list presented below. At the same time, the mixed language e-mails show that a certain degree of code-switching is present in communication among association members, and underline their sensitivity to the linguistic needs of a multilingual audience.
Change over Time
Figure 3 displays the data for each month separately. Figure 4 groups the data by six-month intervals, in order to show the percentage change over time more clearly. Table 4 provides specific results for individual speakers, as well as indicating the gender and mother language of each speaker (e-mailers with fewer than two messages in English were placed in the miscellaneous category).
Figure 3. Spread of English over time: E-mails by month
Figure 4. Spread of English over time: E-mails by six-month period
The change in percentages from the beginning of 2000 to the second part of the year is especially dramatic: English changed from being the main language used to virtually the only language used. Although as Table 4 shows, a majority of the e-mails were written by a small group of people, the rest of the e-mailers do in fact make the same linguistic choices.
|
Speaker
|
Gender
|
Native language4
|
No. of emails
sent in 1999 |
No. sent in 2000
|
No. sent in 2001
|
No. sent in 2002
(through June) |
Total
|
Percentage of
English use |
|
a
|
f
|
Italian/German
|
27 (5)
|
39 (1)
|
66 (6)
|
92%
|
||
|
b
|
f
|
Italian/French
|
5 (7)
|
32 (5)
|
103 (2)
|
53 (4)
|
193 (18)
|
91%
|
|
c
|
m
|
Italian/German
|
44 (4)
|
48 (9)
|
22 (3)
|
114 (16)
|
88%
|
|
|
V
|
f
|
Italian/German
|
1
|
2 (1)
|
3 (1)
|
75%
|
||
|
d
|
f
|
German
|
5
|
5
|
100%
|
|||
|
h
|
m
|
German
|
(10)
|
23 (11)
|
43 (5)
|
7 (1)
|
73 (27)
|
73%
|
|
m
|
f
|
German
|
6
|
7 (2)
|
13 (2)
|
87%
|
||
|
n
|
m
|
German
|
5
|
1
|
6
|
100%
|
||
|
o
|
m
|
German
|
7 (1)
|
7 (1)
|
88%
|
|||
|
p
|
f
|
German
|
10 (1)
|
6 (3)
|
16 (4)
|
80%
|
||
|
r
|
f
|
German
|
5
|
5
|
100%
|
|||
|
@
|
f
|
German
|
2 (5)
|
(5)
|
2 (10)
|
16%
|
||
|
e
|
f
|
French
|
(10)
|
23 (21)
|
5 (5)
|
28 (36)
|
44%
|
|
|
f
|
m
|
French
|
(1)
|
11 (3)
|
35 (1)
|
46 (5)
|
90%
|
|
|
g
|
f
|
French
|
6 (1)
|
6 (1)
|
86%
|
|||
|
j
|
m
|
French
|
6
|
4
|
10
|
100%
|
||
|
k
|
m
|
French
|
5
|
5
|
100%
|
|||
|
l
|
m
|
French
|
6
|
8
|
14
|
100%
|
||
|
q
|
f
|
French
|
2
|
2
|
100%
|
|||
|
s
|
f
|
French
|
2
|
2
|
100%
|
|||
|
u
|
m
|
French
|
(1)
|
2
|
(5)
|
2 (6)
|
25%
|
|
|
w
|
f
|
French
|
1 (1)
|
6 (1)
|
7 (2)
|
78%
|
||
|
&
|
m
|
French
|
3 (4)
|
10 (2)
|
13 (6)
|
68%
|
||
|
*
|
f
|
French
|
(15)
|
6 (16)
|
6 (31)
|
16%
|
||
|
R
|
f
|
French
|
5 (6)
|
5 (6)
|
45%
|
|||
|
S
|
m
|
French
|
6 (1)
|
6 (1)
|
86%
|
|||
|
M
|
f
|
French/English
|
2
|
5
|
7
|
100%
|
||
|
Misc.
|
-
|
(Fr/Ger/Ital)
|
(2)
|
3 (23)
|
1 (3)
|
10 (8)
|
14 (36)
|
28%
|
|
Total
|
10 (54)
|
146 (89)
|
296 (36)
|
208 (43)
|
660 (222)
|
75%
|
Table 4. Number of e-mails in English by individual speaker and gender (e-mails in French and/or German are given in parentheses)
The tide may be turning slightly for English now. That is to say, the other two languages are used more often in 2002 than in 2000-2001. This may be due to the fact that Swiss students have accepted that English can be understood by a wider audience, but nevertheless wish to use their own languages occasionally, as attested by a member who makes a point of using both French and German over English. This case and other reasons for change in language use on the mailing list are discussed in more detail in the next section.
Table 4 also shows the extent to which individual members change their usage. In the earliest messages, most members use their native language (or university language). However, as time goes on, they use English more and more, depending on to whom they are writing, until they reach a point when they use English exclusively, answering even messages written in French or German in English. Indeed, almost all of the members who wrote in the first year as well as the second start to use English more than French or German by the second year. For example, 'h' wrote 10 messages (out of 10) in German in 1999, but in 2000 wrote 23 in English and 11 in German.
There appear to be two reasons for the use of English even when answering an e-mail in French or German. The first is that often, although the message is directed mainly to one person, it may be useful to all members of the association and should therefore be in a language all can understand. The second reason has to do with the importance of English: These e-mails are in many ways an ideal place for the students to practice their English language skills; moreover, as mentioned previously, general assemblies of the world-wide association are conducted in English, and any communication with members from other countries at these meetings is likely to be in English. As one member wrote,
[i]t is important that you know that you are not "obliged" to write in english if you don't want to, and feel more comfortable in another language. But as 'M' said it is a matter of practicity (sic) and speed. And you can also take it as a training to understand the language used in the international meetings and over the various IFMSA mailinglists (if you don't know what I am talking about, visit www.ifmsa.org) [01/283/b, emphasis in e-mail]Table 5 demonstrates that English is the main language for all three linguistic groups. At the same time, Italian speakers write in English more often than the others, probably because they do not have the option of writing in their native language. Moreover, although the Italian speakers belong to a linguistic minority, they are the most frequent e-mailers. However, this has more to do with their importance within the association than their minority status ('a', 'b' and 'c' held the three main positions within the association from 2000 to 2002).
|
Native
language of writer |
% in
English |
% in
French |
% in
German |
Total
|
|
French
|
60
|
37
|
3
|
100% (262)
|
|
German
|
66
|
4
|
31
|
101% (209)
|
|
Italian
|
89
|
7
|
4
|
100% (411)
|
|
Total
|
75
|
15
|
10
|
100% (882)
|
Table 5. Language of emails by native language of writer
There are also some differences in gender, as shown in Table 6. Female e-mailers are more likely to use their native tongue than male e-mailers, if there is an option to do so (Italian speakers cannot do this). However, the high number of e-mails sent by two female members from the French-speaking part of Switzerland during the first year, one of whom was the president at the time, influenced this result, so the difference should not be considered significant.5 The greater use of French by the female members overall, when compared to the male members, is also probably not significant, as only one female German speaker e-mailed in French often (6 out of 8 e-mails), and this too was during the first year, when many of the members of the association were in Geneva. Moreover, the main female Italian e-mailer studied in Geneva, and thus would be expected to use French more frequently than German when not using English.
|
Gender
of writer |
No. of
speakers |
% in
English |
% in
French |
% in
German |
Total
|
|
Female
|
71
|
20
|
9
|
100% (503)
|
|
|
French
|
12
|
44
|
52
|
4
|
100% (149)
|
|
German
|
12
|
51
|
9
|
40
|
100% (86)
|
|
Italian
|
4
|
90
|
8
|
2
|
100% (288)
|
|
Male
|
81
|
7
|
12
|
100% (359)
|
|
|
French
|
10
|
81
|
17
|
3
|
100% (113)
|
|
German
|
9
|
76
|
0
|
24
|
100% (123)
|
|
Italian
|
2
|
87
|
6
|
7
|
100% (123)
|
Table 6. Language of e-mails by gender and native language of writer
Tables 5 and 6 also show that when members choose not to use English, it is generally their own language and not the other main Swiss language that they use. Italian speakers, who do not have the option to use their native language on the mailing list when they chose not to use English, generally use their "university" language.
Discussion
Causes of ChangeWhat are the reasons for the shift on the mailing list towards greater use of English over time? One possible explanation is that there was a dominant or core group of e-mailers who led the shift through their linguistic choices. Tables 4 and 5 show that Italian speakers contributed the largest number of messages (N=411), and that they were most likely to write their messages in English.
It is not surprising that the Italian speakers use English in such high proportions. More than the others, they would have been sensitive to the need to ensure wider understanding: Whether messages were in French or German, they would not have been in the Italian speakers' native language. Those members would have understood first-hand the need to ensure that everyone could understand the messages. This is not because the Italian speakers could not cope with other languages. Of the three groups (within IFMSA and Switzerland in general), it is the Italian speakers who appear to be the most multilingual. The reason for this is that in order to attend medical school, they have to take courses in one of the other national languages.
Yet English is used by all of the linguistic groups, not just by the Italians. Of all the members who e-mail more than once or twice on the mailing list, only one never uses English (this member is included under "misc." in Table 4); every other member uses English at some point. It is also noteworthy that most members who only use the mailing list a few times use English (e.g., d, j, k). Given these facts, it does not seem likely that it is solely because of the Italian speakers that English has become the main language used; English is the preferred language for all three language groups.
It may be the case that writing in a foreign language is advantageous in that it forces writers to use simpler language than they normally would (if only because they lack the knowledge to make use of more complicated forms), resulting in a variety of language that is easier to understand. This idea follows from the assumption that it is best for everyone to be at an equal disadvantage, since if the French-speakers used French and the German-speakers German, their language might be too complex for the others to understand. If both groups use English, presumably neither group will have an advantage.
The general feeling in Switzerland about the position of English vis-à-vis the Swiss national languages must have played a part in the language choice as well. IFMSA-CH's choice to use English as the main language of intranational communication is in no way unusual for the country; many Swiss companies have decided to make English, if not their main, then one of their operating languages. English is seen by many in Switzerland as a necessary tool to further oneself in society, as the decision of the canton of Zurich to make English, and not French, the second language taught in schools demonstrates. Indeed, the project on Pan Swiss English has revealed many other realms where English is used by Swiss people to communicate with other Swiss nationals. The IFMSA-CH students' language choices are consistent with this trend.
As noted above, English is also the language of the medical sciences world-wide: Many of the important journals and textbooks are written in English, and even within Switzerland many medical research groups use English. In the European Union (of which Switzerland is not a member), it has even been said that:
[t]he trend of using English as the teaching medium at continental universities can be seen in almost all scientific areas. It often applies only to single courses, and occasionally to a whole degree....The trend towards an entire degree being taught in English is most visible in business schools. (Phillipson, 2003, p.77)Yet despite these facts, medical instruction in Switzerland is not in English. Some students can, and indeed do, manage without speaking English at all. Medical students in Switzerland attend medical school as undergraduates, whereas it is primarily in postgraduate studies that English is used in Swiss universities (Dürmüller, 2001). Even in subjects such as medicine, English is not used at the undergraduate level.
While all of the above reasons may have played some part in the language selection on the mailing list, the reasons the members themselves give as to why they chose to use English suggest that in many ways the choice ultimately had more to do with language comprehension and the lingua franca function of English in Switzerland.
Language Comprehension
Evidence for the importance of English is found not only in the numbers of e-mails written in English, but also in what is said in those e-mails, and how this influences language choice. The e-mails themselves provide a plausible explanation at the very point when English begins to be used more frequently than the other available languages. As mentioned before, one of the activities of IFMSA members is to attend the General Assemblies that take place twice a year. Only eight or nine members from each country are allowed to participate, and it is important for these members to be selected early in order to book flights and make suitable arrangements. Generally, an attempt is made to send one representative from each Swiss university. In 2000, at a point when the members needed to decide who was going to the GA, and the president was away in New York and could not give much advice, a misunderstanding occurred because some members had already registered, but found they might have to give up their place so that someone from a university with no representative could attend. The president sent the following e-mail:
Le deadline etait le 1er decembre... donc je ne sais pas ce que vous voulez faire... En gros, si Basel a deja fait le transfer on a 9 personnes plutot que 8, mais si ce n'est pas encore le cas alors on perd notre place en plus... Donc si on a 8 place, je pense que soit 'h' soit 'X ' et soit 'u' ou 'e' ne peuvent pas venir... et que Lausanne devrait venir, mais je vous laisse decider... {...} Desolee mais pour l'instant je suis a New York donc ne peut pas beaucoup vous aider... [00/002/*]E-mails went back and forth among members in French and German in an effort to sort out who was in fact registered, and who should give up his or her place. Finally, a member from the university in question wrote: "it's about time that things get clear in this meeting story," and went on to summarize the events as he saw them, in English. The next few e-mails on this subject were in French and German. Then this member wrote again, summarizing the discussion and ending his message by saying "Thank you for your answer, so the actual position is:" This helped him clarify the position but it benefited other people as well, and other members then thanked him: "vielen dank für die aufklärung!! [00/013/h—Thank you for the explanation]." This indicates that the messages in French and German were not immediately understandable by both groups. When the president got back, she then began writing in English as well: "I'll continue in English as '&' started... Sorry for all those strange messages, it would have been simpler if I was in Geneva and I could have phoned you but... life is life! [00/016/*]." She then summarized the entire discussion once again. After this episode, the member who had started using English continued to use it for most of his e-mails, and many of the others who had previously only used English occasionally started using it more often as well.
[The deadline was the first of December...so I don't know what you want to do...Basically, if Basel has already transferred the money we have nine people rather than eight, but if it isn't the case we lose our extra place...So if we have eight places, I think that either 'h' or 'X' and either 'u' or 'e' can't come ... and that Lausanne should come, but I'll let you decide ... {...} Sorry but for the moment I'm in New York so can't help you much...]
Since the main change to English occurred at this time (see time 1 in Figure 3), it seems highly likely that it was in part influenced by these developments. After using both French and German, the IFMSA-CH members had to come to terms with the fact that it was difficult for the French speakers to understand all the German messages, and vice versa. English proved to be a more readily accessible foreign language for both groups. One member wrote, "well i' keep going with english, since my french is even worse... [01/257/h]." In Switzerland, English is the most accessible language across languages; speakers are able both to write it and understand it if someone else uses it, to a far greater extent than other non-native languages.
Another e-mail is also very telling when considering the reasons why English is used so frequently on the mailing list. This e-mail followed soon after the switch to English and was sent in response to another member sending out an invitation to a national meeting in French. The subject of the message was "Switzerland is a multilanguage-speaking country." In this message the member admonishes the others, saying,
please, next time you send a message to IFMSA Switzerland you have to write it in english, or to send it both in french and german. This thing is even more important when you're sending an official invitation for a national meeting like this one. I think you'll understand why.Given that the message sender was one of the very frequent e-mailers, and consistently followed the practice he advocated, it undoubtedly influenced others (this message was posted at time 2 in Figure 3). This e-mail also raises another point: If English is not used, then both French and German are necessary. The feeling that French or German cannot be used alone is also found in much later e-mails by a member who chooses not to use English, if he can avoid it.
[00/121/c, emphasis mine]
Es tut mir leid aber ich kann nicht auf Englisch mit Schweizer kommunizieren... Je suis désolé, mais je ne peux correspondre avec des Suisses en Anglais... [02/147 & 148/u]Although this member says that he does not wish to use English, he does recognize that he cannot solely use one of the Swiss languages. To ensure global comprehension he must write in both. He does in fact try to send all his messages in both French and German, but he does not e-mail very frequently, possibly because of the effort involved in producing dual-language messages. He does hold one of the top posts within the association at present, however.
[I'm sorry but I can't communicate with/ write to Swiss people in English]
Similarly, the member mentioned in example 00/121/c adds as a postscript to a message in German: "Si quelqu'un n'a pas compri mon message, je serai hereux de l'envoyer aussi en français." [01/278/c— if someone hasn't understood my message, I will be happy to send it in French as well]. The alternative to English is two languages—democratic, but less efficient.
The Situation at Meetings
In addition to collecting e-mails from the IFMSA mailing list, I attended two of their national meetings, and interviewed several of the members about their thoughts on language use in Switzerland.
The first meeting, in May 2002, reflected the conclusions of this paper: A large part of it was conducted in English, and when German was spoken, there were requests to change into another language. There were no requests to change from French when it was used; however, conversations overheard afterwards suggest that French was not always readily understood by some of the German speakers. The main speakers at the meeting (who for the most part were the same as the main e-mailers in the study, 'a', 'b', 'c' and 'h'), appeared to be quite comfortable switching from one language to another. In fact, quite a lot of code-switching took place among some of the speakers, with sentences starting in French, switching into German, and ending in English. This is especially interesting, considering that very little code-switching was found in the e-mails. The first meeting was in Basel, which is the de facto headquarters of IFMSA-CH, and was very well represented in terms of languages. About 50 people attended, roughly half of them from the French-speaking universities (Geneva and Lausanne), and half from the German-speaking ones (Zurich, Bern and Basel).
The second meeting (October 2002) was quite different. First of all, it did not take place at a local exchange office, but at a high school that one of the members had been able to obtain permission to use for the meeting. Second, fewer members were present, about twenty in all. Furthermore, the ratio of French to German speakers was highly in favor of the French speakers, about three to one. The outcome of this was that this meeting was conducted primarily in French with the German speakers using German when they wished to participate. The main speakers present at the meeting in Basel had either left the association entirely (having graduated from medical school) or were simply not present at this second meeting.
The meetings serve to remind us that the overall distribution of a group determines to a significant extent its language choices, such that in a group with considerably more German speakers than French or Italian speakers, for example, the main language will likely be German. It seems that only in roughly heterogeneous groups is English is spoken, at least within this association. This undoubtedly explains why more French was used on the mailing list at its inception, when the majority of e-mailers were French-speaking.
We learn from language usage at the two meetings and the analysis of e-mails that English is used when it is important that everyone understand what is said. In smaller groups, or in e-mails to specific individuals, it is not as important to use it, as it is easier for one speaker to ask for further explanation or clarification. These findings support the thesis that English is used as a lingua franca in Switzerland: It is used in cases when the speakers could not otherwise make themselves understood by speaking their own languages.
Pan Swiss English?
In the e-mails analyzed in this study, the main concern of the students is to get their point across, not to write perfect English. There is a communicative urgency, rather than a desire to create flawless sentences, and members are quite willing to admit that sometimes their English is imperfect. When they do not know the exact word in English, they will often replace it with the corresponding one from their own language. Idiomatic forms are translated literally, sometimes accompanied by the phrase, "as we say in French/German."
Because it was necessary to ask permission from the whole of the association to use their e-mails in this study, the corpus contains a few e-mails specifically on the subject of English use, spawned by an e-mail from the president telling them about the Fonds National project and asking them to give their opinion about it. No one was against the data being used, fortunately. In fact, quite a few members were keen to see what their own special brand of English was like. This suggests that the members were aware that their English was not like the Standard English they might hear on TV or the radio or in movies, but that they did not feel it was bad or incorrect, either. One person commented that he thought it was too bad that they couldn't use one of their own national languages on the mailing list, adding that the English that they used, which incorporated structures from the various Swiss languages, might in fact be a type of Swiss language itself:
Je comprends le point de vue de 'c'. Man *muss* aber im fall nicht alles auf english schreiben, but it just so happens that this is what we are (naturally?) inclined to do in order to get the widest audience and understanding at once (justement pour ne pas avoir à faire ce que tu as gentillement proposé de faire à la fin de ton message 'c': traduire pour ceux n'ayant rien capté!). The study might show that we have our own special swissicized variety of english, at which point you can wonder if it isn't also a type of national language, which combines structures, expressions and mindsets of all the other national languages, une sorte de mélange. Whatever. Bin auch nicht gegen das projekt und finde es interessant. [01/280/M- emphasis mine]The English used by the IFMSA-CH members might be said, in some ways, to be its own variety, a type of "swissicized" or Pan Swiss English. What are the characteristics of this variety of English? From e-mails and other sources it has been possible to develop a list of features which are common to most of the writers examined in this study, and which are present in at least two of the three language groups. Although the study of these features is still in the incipient stages, a number of features appear to support the hypothesis that the English of the mailing list is relatively homogenous. The use of informations or infos in place of information or info (roughly 42% of occurrences in the e-mails) is present in the three linguistic groups looked at. This is partly because in French, German and Italian information is a count noun. Another feature being investigated is the over-use of the infinitive in places where a native speaker of English would use an -ing form (i.e., "if you want to stop to smoke," in cases where "if you want to stop smoking" is intended).
[I understand 'c''s point of view. But we don't *have* to write everything in English but {text in English} (precisely to avoid having to do what you kindly offered to do at the end of your message 'c': translate for those who didn't get it!) {text in English}, a kind of mix. Whatever. I'm not against the project and I think it's interesting.]
Another characteristic of the e-mails is the use of items which on the surface appear to be similar to those of a native English variety (British, American or other) but which, when examined more closely, do not always appear in the same contexts. For example, although both will and going to are used to express the future in the Swiss e-mails, will is selected more by the Swiss e-mailers than by native speakers (approximately 97% of occurrences; Durham, 2003). It may be that these features are characteristic not just of Pan Swiss English but of international English (or foreign language English) more generally. Part of the future research for the Fonds National project will focus on determining precisely to what extent these features are shared by other non-native users of English, and which, if any, are unique to Swiss English.
Conclusion
While results from a single mailing list cannot be generalized to the linguistic situation in all of Switzerland, they provide suggestive clues as to why English has gained in importance as a lingua franca in Switzerland over the past few years. English appears to be the most readily understood and accepted language in mixed language groups, the main reason for this being that it is a non-native language for all. The Italian speakers on the mailing list were at the forefront of this change, since as nobody else spoke their native language, they experienced first hand the need to ensure that people be able to understand one another.It seems likely that the mode of communication, the mailing list, also influenced the choice of language used. As long as messages (face-to-face or otherwise) are mainly directed to specific people, there is no need to worry about whether an entire group understands. However, when the aim is to communicate to a broader, multilingual audience, as the Internet makes it easy to do, neither French nor German is able to serve as the main language in the Swiss context, and it becomes necessary to use English. Although it may be possible to use two or more languages for face-to-face interaction (as was demonstrated at the second meeting), it seems that in the case of e-mail, the use of more than one language was impractical and confusing, and precipitated the eventual choice of a single language, namely English.
Undoubtedly, other groups in Switzerland have faced and will continue to face similar problems, as will multilingual groups collaborating online in other cultural contexts. They, too, may choose English as their lingua franca, facilitating cross-language communication and contributing to the increased use of English on a global scale.
Footnotes
1. "Language Contact and Focussing: The Linguistics of English in Switzerland," a research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Project Coordinators: Prof. Peter Trudgill, University of Fribourg; Prof. Richard J. Watts, University of Bern; Prof. David Allerton, University of Basel; Research Assistants: Yvonne Dröschel, University of Fribourg; Mercedes Durham, University of Fribourg; Lukas Rosenberger, University of Bern.2. The messages are coded first for year: '01,' then for message number within that year: '19,' and finally for speaker: 'b.'
3. The only exception to this generalization is in the case of balanced messages, where French/German mixing is most common; however, these are primarily translations rather than code switching.
4. The president of the association provided the native languages of the e-mailing members of the association.
5. Of the 78 e-mails sent in French by female French speakers, 62 were sent by these two members.
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About the Author
Mercedes Durham is a Ph.D. student in English linguistics at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and a research assistant on the Fonds National project on "Language Contact and Focussing: English in Switzerland."Address: English Linguistics, Université de Fribourg, Misericorde, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
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