CAREERS

The Language Question

Do English-only policies promote or undermine inclusivity in the lab?

BY SHAWNA WILLIAMS

I
n January of this year, Megan Neely,
the director of Duke University’s bio-
statistics master’s program, made
international headlines after urging
students not to speak Chinese to one
another while in the building where the
program is housed. Two other faculty
members had complained to her about
hearing students speaking Chinese “very
loudly,” she wrote in an email to students
in the program, and had asked to see
photos of the program’s students so they
could remember them in future intern-

学
ship interviews or if they asked to work

物
with them on master’s projects. Neely

生
warned the group to “keep these unin-
population
tended consequences in mind when you ecology
choose to speak in Chinese in the build-
ing.” Once public, the email drew wide-
spread condemnation, including from
China’s foreign minister. Neely soon
apologized and stepped down as pro-
gram director, although she remains on
Duke’s faculty.
The incident put a fleeting spot-
light on language-related questions that,
while common in the wider academic
community, are seldom topics of pub-
lic discussion or guidance. As of 2017,
nearly 233,000 graduate students and
35,000 postdocs from other countries
were studying in science, engineering,
and health fields on temporary visas in extent to which faculty can or should ent approaches to the matter. “It’s a very
the US, according to a National Science regulate that balance, are highly rele- difficult thing to go about solving.”
Foundation survey. While that survey vant to those working in the sciences. Yet
did not touch on country of origin, the there are no agreed-upon answers, and A nuanced issue
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Institute of International Education has
put out statistics showing that Chinese
nationals make up the largest share of all
international students in the US (under-
graduate and graduate), followed by Indi-
ans, South Koreans, Saudi Arabians, and
Canadians.
So the questions of when it is appro-
priate to speak a language other than
English in an academic setting, and the
few universities issue advice on the mat-
ter, leaving staff and students on their
own to navigate a minefield of sensitivi-
ties about identity, inclusivity, and power
dynamics that surround communication
in the lab.
“It’s a very complicated issue, the lan-
guage thing,” says K.C. Liu, a biostatisti-
cian from China who has been a member
of labs in Canada and the US with differ-
In her January email, Neely wrote that
the faculty who complained to her were
“disappointed that these students were
not taking the opportunity to improve
their English and were being so impo-
lite as to have a conversation that not
everyone on the floor could understand.”
The Duke faculty members weren’t
alone in their thinking. A chemistry
professor at a university in the north-

5 4 T H E SC I EN TIST | the-scientist.com
eastern US tells The Scientist that he
had similar reasons for instituting an
“English-only” policy in his own lab sev-
eral decades ago. (The professor agreed
to be quoted on condition of anonym-
ity, given fears of repercussions after
he learned of the incident at Duke.)
He says he felt that people overhear-
ing a conversation in a language they
couldn’t understand would assume they
were the topic of discussion.
The chemistry professor also thought
that, given the dominance of the Eng-
lish language in the scientific commu-
nity, requiring non-native speakers to
practice their English would help them
further their scientific careers. The pro-
fessor says he used to let members of
his lab know of his expectation that
they speak English—and unlike Neely,
he didn’t regulate what language they
spoke in other areas, such as break
rooms. If he heard someone speaking
another language in the lab, he’d ask the
person to stop. After learning about the
fallout at Duke earlier this year, the pro-
fessor says he discontinued his policy.
Not everyone feels uneasy overhear-
ing conversations at work in a language
they don’t understand. Paula Ladd,
a researcher at Seattle-based diag-
nostics company MEP Labs, who has
worked in labs at Purdue University,
Indiana University, and other institu-
tions, says she isn’t bothered by it at all.
But she has occasionally seen uncom-
fortable situations arise around lan-
guage, she adds—for example, one per-
son berating another in a language the
listener doesn’t understand. She adds
that expectations that English be used
can lead to misunderstanding; in one
lab Ladd worked in, a PI urging a lab
member to speak English during the
workday sparked a false rumor among
nonmembers that the lab “only takes
Americans,” she recalls.
There are also logistical issues to
consider in conversations about lan-
guage at work. In the case of a laboratory
environment, safety is a top priority.
The chemistry professor who chose to
remain anonymous says that ensuring
lab safety through clear communication
was another top consideration for him
in deciding to have an English-only
policy. But it’s not certain that restrict-
ing language use really does improve lab
safety: Abbas Benmamoun, a linguist
who is originally from Morocco and
serves as Duke’s Vice Provost for Fac-
ulty Advancement, suggests that safety
would actually be enhanced if students
are able to use their own language to
ask a clarifying question about instruc-
tions delivered in English.
You can’t prohibit people
during their free time and on
their breaks from speaking in
another language.
—Lisa Stephanian Burton, Ogletree Deakins
Indeed, students may not yet be
equipped to communicate in English
in all situations, says Benmamoun. He
thinks Neely’s email reflected a failure
to recognize that nonnative speakers
who’ve become proficient in academic
English in their home countries may
not be similarly well-versed in the lin-
guistic register needed for social interac-
tions with colleagues or fellow students.
“It takes time to master different regis-
ters of the language,” he says.
Liu adds that it’s important to recog-
nize that an English-only policy could be
perceived differently depending on who’s
instituting it and to whom it applies. She
says she has only once been part of a lab
where languages other than English were
discouraged. That was at the University
of Washington, in a lab with multiple
Chinese members headed by a Chinese
scientist. Liu saw the policy as “gracious”
to those in the lab who couldn’t under-
stand Chinese, she says, but adds that
she would likely have viewed it differ-
ently if the professor hadn’t been a mem-
ber of the group whose language use was
being restricted. “I think it’s a matter of
. . . power dynamic, and who is socially
in the position of power.”
Sparse guidance
In the aftermath of the email incident this
year, Duke has begun to speak with faculty
throughout the university about the issue
of language, and to develop guidelines on
how best to foster inclusion in different
contexts such as the classroom or the lab.
“We thought, okay, we probably
should have a discussion, at least to
raise awareness about the complexity of
language use in social and professional
contexts, [and] what it takes to mas-
ter a particular language,” Benmamoun
says. Those conversations are ongoing,
he notes, adding that it will be important
to make sure international students have
adequate support in mastering English.
“We need to look at what resources we
provide for them, what opportunities
for them to use the language. We are not
there yet.”
Duke appears to be an outlier
among higher-education institutions
in to addressing the issue head-on. Of
63 other research Wuniversities que-
ried about whether they had policies or
guidelines for faculty on use of English
in the lab, The Scientist could find no
other instance of a US university that
has worked to develop such protocols
around whether a principal investiga-
tor can impose restrictions on speaking
a language at work that’s not understood
by everyone who might overhear. Eigh-
teen answered that they have not, while
44 did not respond.
One of the institutions that did
respond, the University of Texas at
Austin, wrote that all employees are
reminded during staff training of the US
Equal Employment Opportunity Com-
mission’s policy that people are permit-
ted to speak any language at work, a
spokesperson writes to The Scientist in
an email. There are exceptions to that
rule, though, says Lisa Stephanian Bur-
ton, an employment lawyer at Ogletree
Deakins law firm in Boston. On the
job, it may be legal to require English
be used for reasons of business neces-
sity, she explains. In a lab setting, an
employer might determine that the use
of other languages would impede safety
1 2. 2019 | T H E S C IE N T IST 5 5
CAREERS

or communication with coworkers. But
requiring the use of English in common
areas is more likely to be deemed dis-
criminatory, Burton adds. “You can’t
prohibit people during their free time
and on their breaks from speaking in
another language.”
We thought, okay, we proba-
bly should have a discussion,
at least to raise awareness
about the complexity of lan-
guage use in social and pro-
fessional context.
—Abbas Benmamoun, Duke University
When any language-related poli-
cies are instituted, it’s important for a
supervisor to make expectations and
the reasons for those policies clear to
everyone so that individuals don’t feel
singled out, Burton says. English-only
policies also benefit from flexibility, Ben-
mamoun adds. If students slip into their
native language because they’re unsure
of how to express a thought in English,
the professor could use this as a learning
opportunity, taking the student aside to
tell her the phrase she needs rather than
admonishing her, he suggests.
From Liu’s perspective, though,
mandating that English be spoken in
the first place is “usually not as produc-
tive as it seems,” she says. “When people
communicate with each other and kind
of work things out organically, it usually
works better.”
Natalie Mullen, director of the
Institute for Cross-Cultural Training
at Wheaton College in Illinois, has
researched how multilingual interna-
tional students use language on campus.
She says she agrees that it’s unnecessary
for lab heads to set such an expecta-
tion. “From my research, the [interna-
tional] students . . . were hyperaware
of not making the monolingual English
speakers uncomfortable with not being
able to understand,” she says. “We have
to ask ourselves . . . Who thinks that it’s
a good idea that there should be a lan-
guage policy in the lab and why, and
who’s going to benefit from an English-
only language policy?” Restricting lan-
guage use wouldn’t benefit the research
being done, she argues, “because you
want people in a lab to be able to com-
municate with each other as best as pos-
sible about the work at hand.”
Benmamoun emphasizes that lan-
guage-related practices are also just one
piece of the puzzle in ensuring that inter-
national students, along with everyone
else, feel fully included in the workplace.
(See “All Welcome,” The Scientist, June
2019.) At the beginning of the fall 2019
semester, for example, he ran a workshop
for faculty whose classes include a large
proportion of international students. For
many of those students, “English is not
their first language,” Benmamoun says.
“They probably grew up with a different
education system, different expectations
of the teacher and of the students, and
all those things.”
A “Best Practices for Inclusive Assess-
ment” document that his office recently
developed recommends providing a
variety of ways for students to partici-
pate in classroom discourse—including
avenues of communication to accom-
modate non-native English speak-
ers, as well as people with English as a
first language who might not be com-
fortable speaking up. The overall idea,
Benmamoun says, is “basically mak-
ing [language] part of what we mean
by having an inclusive lab, an inclusive
classroom, an inclusive learning and
research space.” g

GOING ALL-IN ON ENGLISH

The US is far from the only country to grapple with language issues brought about by the internationalization of academia. In the Netherlands,
for instance, a burgeoning number of English-only degree programs has sparked debate. As of the end of last year, three-quarters of mas-
ter’s degree programs and 28 percent of bachelor’s degree programs are taught entirely in English. The organization Beter Onderwijs Nederland
(Better Education Netherlands, or BON) filed a lawsuit last year to halt what Annette de Groot, a linguist at the University of Amsterdam and
advisor to BON, considers a rush to anglicization.
BON lost its suit, but continues efforts to slow or reverse the English tide, de Groot says. While she’s in favor of bilingual higher edu-
cation, she has concerns about the trend toward English-only programs. “The difference in expressibility, in comprehensibility between
the second language—even though it is strongly developed—and your native language . . . it’s very noticeable,” she says. “That means that
when the second language . . . becomes the language of instruction, instruction suffers.” Furthermore, she says, Dutch-speaking students
entering all-English programs “will not develop the Dutch language to [an] academic level.” As a result, “Dutch as a language of science
and culture will in the end disappear.”
On the flip side, offering English-only degree programs has enabled Dutch universities to attract international students—a positive phe-
nomenon, argues Association of Universities in the Netherlands spokesperson Bart Pierik. “Dutch universities are really very high up in inter-
national rankings. For example, all our universities are in the top 250 from the Times Higher Education index,” he says. Many Dutch students
are also drawn to English-only programs because they believe a strong grasp of the language will help further their careers, he says. His asso-
ciation is working to help universities mitigate downsides, by recommending, for example, that instructors have a certain level of English profi-
ciency in order to teach in the language. Overall, Pierik says, “it’s an enduring challenge for us to strike the right balance between being inter-
nationally relevant, competitive, and being rooted in [Dutch] society.”