Reply to Land of Snarls:
No. There is nowhere I know of where you can read about my case because there was a de facto media ban by the government on reporting about it. Hence, local fat cats such as Shawn Crispin followed the likes of Matichon in closing their eyes about a clear and important instance of the Thai judiciary being caught playing politics by invoking the same regulation to both accept my complaint AND reject my case i.e. it suited them to go fishing, not to land any fish. If you contact the Central Administrative Court for details on Case# 889/47 you will either get stonewalled or just the bare bones i.e. no meat. However, I have an email address at [email protected] so i may be able to provide some case notes.
BTW: As I come from the same town as Downer and Hicks, the Howard government went along for the ride too(Downer was in a very shaky electoral seat) , so my career in Australia is screwed too because my colleagues at Flinders University were coerced into not replying to any of my dozens of letters/emails, so no referalls or references for jobs in Oz either.
As Orwell said: “If the party could reach back into the past, and say of this or that event, ‘It never happened’, how much more terrifying was that than mere death or torture.”
Reply to LSS: Sure – there may be a few examples today, but not many I would think. But sometimes I think that people are too precious about the need to preserve languages, and too critical of English’s dominance – a relic of the era of linguistic nationalisms and postcolonial angst. And ironically most of the main academic critics are native English speakers or people raised and educated in an English speaking academic environment. In fact, as more non-native English language speakers enter the medium of English language discourse one might expect that English, far from being a mode of “imperialism”, will become democratized, because it will no longer be the language of an Anglo-American global elite.
Srithanonchai, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments in #43. I was just saying that German-lover’s comment in #39, to me, seemed to come “out of left field”. (By the way, is using a baseball idiom too Amero-centric? If so, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!)
Republican, the term “linguistic imperalism” comes from the work of Robert Phillipson. His book Linguistic Imperalism, helped popularize the field known as “Critical Applied Linguistics”.
I do think that linguistic imperalism does exist in the world today, even according to your definition that includes threat of violence; the actions of certain American missionaries in hill-tribe country comes to mind, as does the Summer Institute of Linguistics’s (cumthe CIA) spotted history in Central and South America.
However, your criticisms, which seemed tied with the “appropriation theory” school are certainly valid, and are a better description of the role of English and EFL/ESOL teaching in mainstream Thai society.
P.S. Srithanonchai, I do want to continue our discussion concerning Thai sociopedagogy, but I’ve been very busy as of late, and when I have free time, the last thing I want to talk about is “work”. 🙂
I think that problems associated with the global dominance of English are certainly worth discussing, analysing, and debating. But calling this “imperialism”? If “imperialism” is to have any analytical use then surely, taking its historical manifestation, among its meanings must be included the use or threat of violence to force people into submission. But is that the reason why people across the world today learn English? Apart from the argument that the many – the majority? – of people who learn English do it willingly because of the opportunities it affords them, the ability to understand English also opens up a world of ideas that may in fact help the user to resist or overcome other forms of domination, other “imperialisms” (hence the concern of the Thai king and conservatives to preserve the purity of the Thai language).
Arguments about “linguistic imperialism”, of course, goes down well among the embittered lefty-cultural studies types schooled on Said and the subaltern studies gurus. But it seems to me that today in most places in the world English is not replacing local languages but adding to them. Most of the world is or will soon be bilingual, if not trilingual, except for the poor native English speakers ofthe Anglophone countries themselves. It is these people who, one would think, will increasingly find themselves at a disadvantage in the global marketplace when they have to compete with fellow English speakers who not only are willing to work at a lower wage but who also have a second or third local language that will give the user and his employer a local market advantage.
xWhy do they have to have different fees for “Thai residents” and “Non-Thai residents”? And what does it mean? All are residents in Thailand, while the distiction is between “Thai” and “Non’Thai”? Or do people living in Thailand are “Thai residents” (whether Thai or foreigner), while people living outside of Thailand are “Non-Thai” (whether Thai or foreigners)? Why should the poor people from Laos, Cambodia, Burma, or Vietnam pay the steep $150?
The ICTS had “transnationalized world” as its main theme. Put in another way, it was (or should have been) about the globalization of social and cultural structures and how this process works out on a specific territory the people of which imagine to have a set of “indigenous” social and cultural heritage (Thailand). Languages are part of cultural structures. Thus, if we take the main theme of the ICTS seriously, “linguistic imperialism” (and its role in the transfer of social and culture structures from the centre to the periphery) is just as relevant as medical, economic, scientific, political, legal, or educational “imperialism.”
Potentially interesting. What would be more interesting is if people put their papers online after the conference so everyone could read and gain from their ideas, rather than putting ominous looking “Please do not quote this article” notices on every page, and then ten years later, they publish something remotely looking like the paper in some obscure journal that no one reads.
I won’t attend, despite being directly involved in such matters in my daily work, because I have **more pressing uses for my salary** (which never seems to be enough for my family despite sufficiency economy philosophy, which actually could improve life if people actually took it seriously, in fact what HMK is really doing IMHO is directing his subjects to **Buddhist thinking on matters such as moderation**, see “Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism” (2003) Ellison Banks Friendly, the point made over and over gain ad nauseam in this blog, that when powerful and rich people, like generals, for instance, tell people to lead a “sufficient” lifestyle it looks self-serving and hypocritical, well that’s obvious).
I know people might laugh, but **learning English through Pali** might be a good idea. My former monk friend at work has an astounding vocabulary in Thai from his study at Mahachulongkorn Buddhist University and this conceptual structure could be mapped to English with some good pedagogy.
Thanks Teth – Two posts in 6 months is hardly blogging, but rather it’s a place to record some favorite comments by other bloggers (for future reference if I need them)
Unfortunately, I’m not that much of an original thinker to run my own blog, but posting the odd comment on other peoples blogs is a good hobby for a lazy person like me.
Note (by Nicholas Farrelly):This message is from an individual who has been posting repeated messages using the names of prominent New Mandala contributors. It is not a message from the “Republican” who has been a regular commentator on New Mandala for over a year. It is posted here for the interest of readers but I should clarify that such repeated attempts to hijack the discussion will not be tolerated. There will be no further warnings.
To ‘an observer’
You are in such a wrong place. We are not welcome any one that think in a different way form us.
Yes, you are so right we are much more pure and superior than those royalists in Thailand or Thai people in general.
No, we don’t want to use our real name. We enjoy saying bad things about these inferior people behind their back.
We don’t want to encourage any sensible discussion, we love rumors, distrust, biases, and negativity. We can treat them with anything in any forms. They are sub-human any way.
If you support free speech as you have been saying, allow my idea to be posted.
PPP (from the website ppp.or.th): Oh, how can we thank you enough for running this website. If you need any financial help please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to attend, for reasons more personal than professional. I’m eager to see what comes out of the conference though.
By the way, such a shame that they chose to have the conference at the Twin Towers Hotel; the place smells like a giant ashtray.
Nganadeeleg, I see that you’ve acquired another hobby! Good luck with your blog! (Although it appears that I am behind on this news seeing as you’ve been posting since August of last year, I’ve somehow just noticed the link on your name and belated congratulations anyhow.)
maybe too blind by your perception, you don’t read things with an open mind and take it for what it is, rather for what you would prefer it to be, so you can claim the moral high ground and score points.
No, sir, its more that I am unfamiliar with Mariner and what he posts. You, however, didn’t manage to avoid the high horse when criticizing me either. Surely with your open mind, you did not assume that sarcasm is unable to fly above others heads. As for “sarcasm laden”, Mariner’s post was far more understated and satirical (if it is, and I still debate that until I get to see more of Mariner’s posts) than your regular sarcastic piece for you seem to underestimate the ignorant and delusional views I’ve experienced (and once held on to). Sometimes the lines are very difficult to spot won’t you say?
RE: scoring points, please find out where it is that I attack Mariner to score points. I questioned what I believed were to be his views and put forward those questions. I’d like to think that I argue with people not for the benefit of observers, scorekeepers, or the “I’m-more-anti-monarchist-than-thou” brigade but to iterate, argue, and exchange views with whomever it is I reply to. But as this is a public forum (of sorts) I must also listen to your criticism and to others’ comments about what I say.
have they (or you) even gone so far as congratulating Thongchai on this historic ICT where they *gasp* debated the role of HMK, and the discussion, while not open, was a step forward in the direction of debating Royal roles in public discourse.
I haven’t been criticizing how anti-royal academics are and personally do not want to join that debate. I haven’t congratulated them yet, so let me do that now. Yes, it is a step forward for more openness and rational discussion and infinitely more courageous than what I am doing here and yes their actions deserve this praise.
One question would be, was this a predominately Jinghpaw affair, or were there large numbers of Maru, Lashi, Atsi, Lisu and Rawang in attendance as well?
Sorry, that’s a bit sensationalist. Maybe I should rephrase: did you find that the festival was celebrated with greater ebullience than in previous years? It’s just I remember reading about the kids with toy guns and the particular emphasis on militaristic symbolism from Mandy Sadan’s thesis extract.
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Thai studies conference open forum
aLSS: No need to mea culpa, just explain what “out of left field is.” 🙂
Time for academic frankness
Reply to Land of Snarls:
No. There is nowhere I know of where you can read about my case because there was a de facto media ban by the government on reporting about it. Hence, local fat cats such as Shawn Crispin followed the likes of Matichon in closing their eyes about a clear and important instance of the Thai judiciary being caught playing politics by invoking the same regulation to both accept my complaint AND reject my case i.e. it suited them to go fishing, not to land any fish. If you contact the Central Administrative Court for details on Case# 889/47 you will either get stonewalled or just the bare bones i.e. no meat. However, I have an email address at [email protected] so i may be able to provide some case notes.
BTW: As I come from the same town as Downer and Hicks, the Howard government went along for the ride too(Downer was in a very shaky electoral seat) , so my career in Australia is screwed too because my colleagues at Flinders University were coerced into not replying to any of my dozens of letters/emails, so no referalls or references for jobs in Oz either.
As Orwell said: “If the party could reach back into the past, and say of this or that event, ‘It never happened’, how much more terrifying was that than mere death or torture.”
Thai studies conference open forum
Reply to LSS: Sure – there may be a few examples today, but not many I would think. But sometimes I think that people are too precious about the need to preserve languages, and too critical of English’s dominance – a relic of the era of linguistic nationalisms and postcolonial angst. And ironically most of the main academic critics are native English speakers or people raised and educated in an English speaking academic environment. In fact, as more non-native English language speakers enter the medium of English language discourse one might expect that English, far from being a mode of “imperialism”, will become democratized, because it will no longer be the language of an Anglo-American global elite.
Thai studies conference open forum
re: Srithanonchai and Republican
Srithanonchai, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments in #43. I was just saying that German-lover’s comment in #39, to me, seemed to come “out of left field”. (By the way, is using a baseball idiom too Amero-centric? If so, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!)
Republican, the term “linguistic imperalism” comes from the work of Robert Phillipson. His book Linguistic Imperalism, helped popularize the field known as “Critical Applied Linguistics”.
I do think that linguistic imperalism does exist in the world today, even according to your definition that includes threat of violence; the actions of certain American missionaries in hill-tribe country comes to mind, as does the Summer Institute of Linguistics’s (cumthe CIA) spotted history in Central and South America.
However, your criticisms, which seemed tied with the “appropriation theory” school are certainly valid, and are a better description of the role of English and EFL/ESOL teaching in mainstream Thai society.
P.S. Srithanonchai, I do want to continue our discussion concerning Thai sociopedagogy, but I’ve been very busy as of late, and when I have free time, the last thing I want to talk about is “work”. 🙂
Thai studies conference open forum
I think that problems associated with the global dominance of English are certainly worth discussing, analysing, and debating. But calling this “imperialism”? If “imperialism” is to have any analytical use then surely, taking its historical manifestation, among its meanings must be included the use or threat of violence to force people into submission. But is that the reason why people across the world today learn English? Apart from the argument that the many – the majority? – of people who learn English do it willingly because of the opportunities it affords them, the ability to understand English also opens up a world of ideas that may in fact help the user to resist or overcome other forms of domination, other “imperialisms” (hence the concern of the Thai king and conservatives to preserve the purity of the Thai language).
Arguments about “linguistic imperialism”, of course, goes down well among the embittered lefty-cultural studies types schooled on Said and the subaltern studies gurus. But it seems to me that today in most places in the world English is not replacing local languages but adding to them. Most of the world is or will soon be bilingual, if not trilingual, except for the poor native English speakers ofthe Anglophone countries themselves. It is these people who, one would think, will increasingly find themselves at a disadvantage in the global marketplace when they have to compete with fellow English speakers who not only are willing to work at a lower wage but who also have a second or third local language that will give the user and his employer a local market advantage.
Royal language conference in Bangkok
xWhy do they have to have different fees for “Thai residents” and “Non-Thai residents”? And what does it mean? All are residents in Thailand, while the distiction is between “Thai” and “Non’Thai”? Or do people living in Thailand are “Thai residents” (whether Thai or foreigner), while people living outside of Thailand are “Non-Thai” (whether Thai or foreigners)? Why should the poor people from Laos, Cambodia, Burma, or Vietnam pay the steep $150?
Thai studies conference open forum
The ICTS had “transnationalized world” as its main theme. Put in another way, it was (or should have been) about the globalization of social and cultural structures and how this process works out on a specific territory the people of which imagine to have a set of “indigenous” social and cultural heritage (Thailand). Languages are part of cultural structures. Thus, if we take the main theme of the ICTS seriously, “linguistic imperialism” (and its role in the transfer of social and culture structures from the centre to the periphery) is just as relevant as medical, economic, scientific, political, legal, or educational “imperialism.”
Royal language conference in Bangkok
Potentially interesting. What would be more interesting is if people put their papers online after the conference so everyone could read and gain from their ideas, rather than putting ominous looking “Please do not quote this article” notices on every page, and then ten years later, they publish something remotely looking like the paper in some obscure journal that no one reads.
I won’t attend, despite being directly involved in such matters in my daily work, because I have **more pressing uses for my salary** (which never seems to be enough for my family despite sufficiency economy philosophy, which actually could improve life if people actually took it seriously, in fact what HMK is really doing IMHO is directing his subjects to **Buddhist thinking on matters such as moderation**, see “Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism” (2003) Ellison Banks Friendly, the point made over and over gain ad nauseam in this blog, that when powerful and rich people, like generals, for instance, tell people to lead a “sufficient” lifestyle it looks self-serving and hypocritical, well that’s obvious).
I know people might laugh, but **learning English through Pali** might be a good idea. My former monk friend at work has an astounding vocabulary in Thai from his study at Mahachulongkorn Buddhist University and this conceptual structure could be mapped to English with some good pedagogy.
Thailand’s coup by stealth
Thanks Teth – Two posts in 6 months is hardly blogging, but rather it’s a place to record some favorite comments by other bloggers (for future reference if I need them)
Unfortunately, I’m not that much of an original thinker to run my own blog, but posting the odd comment on other peoples blogs is a good hobby for a lazy person like me.
Thai studies conference underway
BTW, just to be perfectly clear that last paragraph of mine was NOT sarcasm a la Mariner.
Thai studies conference open forum
For that matter, LSS, I don’t see how discussing Thai-studies issues in German would make it any less a case of lingual imperialism.
Gotta love your replies, btw!
Thai studies conference open forum
Note (by Nicholas Farrelly): This message is from an individual who has been posting repeated messages using the names of prominent New Mandala contributors. It is not a message from the “Republican” who has been a regular commentator on New Mandala for over a year. It is posted here for the interest of readers but I should clarify that such repeated attempts to hijack the discussion will not be tolerated. There will be no further warnings.
To ‘an observer’
You are in such a wrong place. We are not welcome any one that think in a different way form us.
Yes, you are so right we are much more pure and superior than those royalists in Thailand or Thai people in general.
No, we don’t want to use our real name. We enjoy saying bad things about these inferior people behind their back.
We don’t want to encourage any sensible discussion, we love rumors, distrust, biases, and negativity. We can treat them with anything in any forms. They are sub-human any way.
If you support free speech as you have been saying, allow my idea to be posted.
Many voices on New Mandala
And this just in from the same individual –
PPP (from the website ppp.or.th): Oh, how can we thank you enough for running this website. If you need any financial help please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Royal language conference in Bangkok
Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to attend, for reasons more personal than professional. I’m eager to see what comes out of the conference though.
By the way, such a shame that they chose to have the conference at the Twin Towers Hotel; the place smells like a giant ashtray.
Thai studies conference open forum
re: German-lover
Yes, Anglosphere linguistic imperalism is a reality, but I don’t see how it’s germane to the discussion concerning the ICTS.
Perhaps you can enlighten me?
Many voices on New Mandala
The victim complex is certainly interesting.
What’s struck me was how s/he continually claimed “we” were spreading lies and rumors rather than striking at “us” with evidence.
On the whole, very entertaining.
Thailand’s coup by stealth
Nganadeeleg, I see that you’ve acquired another hobby! Good luck with your blog! (Although it appears that I am behind on this news seeing as you’ve been posting since August of last year, I’ve somehow just noticed the link on your name and belated congratulations anyhow.)
Thai studies conference underway
No, sir, its more that I am unfamiliar with Mariner and what he posts. You, however, didn’t manage to avoid the high horse when criticizing me either. Surely with your open mind, you did not assume that sarcasm is unable to fly above others heads. As for “sarcasm laden”, Mariner’s post was far more understated and satirical (if it is, and I still debate that until I get to see more of Mariner’s posts) than your regular sarcastic piece for you seem to underestimate the ignorant and delusional views I’ve experienced (and once held on to). Sometimes the lines are very difficult to spot won’t you say?
RE: scoring points, please find out where it is that I attack Mariner to score points. I questioned what I believed were to be his views and put forward those questions. I’d like to think that I argue with people not for the benefit of observers, scorekeepers, or the “I’m-more-anti-monarchist-than-thou” brigade but to iterate, argue, and exchange views with whomever it is I reply to. But as this is a public forum (of sorts) I must also listen to your criticism and to others’ comments about what I say.
I haven’t been criticizing how anti-royal academics are and personally do not want to join that debate. I haven’t congratulated them yet, so let me do that now. Yes, it is a step forward for more openness and rational discussion and infinitely more courageous than what I am doing here and yes their actions deserve this praise.
Manau festival in Myitkyina
One question would be, was this a predominately Jinghpaw affair, or were there large numbers of Maru, Lashi, Atsi, Lisu and Rawang in attendance as well?
Manau festival in Myitkyina
Sorry, that’s a bit sensationalist. Maybe I should rephrase: did you find that the festival was celebrated with greater ebullience than in previous years? It’s just I remember reading about the kids with toy guns and the particular emphasis on militaristic symbolism from Mandy Sadan’s thesis extract.