Said and unsaid about language use at meetings

This episode is about language choice and language use at meetings at the University of Copenhagen. We all attend meetings, but how do we decide which languages to use when? And how does language choice affect meetings and those who attend them? How can we make sure that language choice at meetings leads to inclusion rather than exclusion? These are some of the questions we address. We also discuss the recommendations for meetings included in the UCPH language policy, and we hear accounts of how meetings are held in different parts of the university and what it is like to attend meetings in Danish if Danish is not your first language. Everyone should be able to take part in meetings at the university without feeling excluded due to language, but this is not always easy to achieve in a multilingual organisation. To work towards a good solution, a first important step is to initiate and carefully frame a conversation on language choice where different voices and perspectives can be heard. The next steps will be to design local principles for language choice and devise a clear plan for how to implement and evaluate them - and to keep the conversation going. There is not a single solution that will fit everyone in every situation, but to find the best compromise, we need to talk to each other about language and dare to say the unsaid out loud. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Host: Katja Årosin Laursen, academic language consultant at Center for Internationalisation and Parallel language Use (CIP), UCPH Guests: Christine Gulstad, academic officer at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences (SUND), UCPH Lisbeth Verstraete-Hansen, head of department at the Department of English, Germanic, and Romance Studies (ENGEROM), UCPH Janus Mortensen, professor of multilingualism and language policy, CIP, UCPH Audio clip 2: Pete Westbrook, academic language consultant, CIP (recorded 26th of October 2023)