School of International Organizations Hosts Academic Salon — Can International Relations Be Heard? Grasping the Global Politics of Language
On the morning of March 31, the School of International Organizations (SIO) hosted an academic salon. Vincent Pouliot, a renowned scholar in the fields of international relations and international organization studies, and Professor at the Department of Political Science at the Université de Montréal, was specially invited as the keynote speaker to share his insights on the topic "Can International Relations Be Heard? Grasping the Global Politics of Language."
Before the event, Li Hui, Dean of the SIO, and Bao Huaying, Vice Dean, met with Professor Pouliot. They extended a warm welcome to his visit, introduced the school's overview and development history, and engaged in in-depth discussions with him on topics such as curriculum development, student cultivation, discipline construction, and international cooperation.
At the beginning of the salon, Professor Pouliot pointed out that language constitutes the fundamental medium through which we understand the world, yet the discipline of international relations has long lacked sensitivity to this fact. The modern sovereign order is inherently built upon the territoriality of language, and the liberal international order was realized precisely with the help of English as a global lingua franca. However, the reason international relations fails to "hear" the political significance of language lies behind a threefold barrier: the structural dominance of Anglo-American academia, the deep-rooted "Myth of Babel," and a "linguistic turn" within the discipline that has never truly materialized.
Professor Pouliot further introduced the manuscript he is currently writing. He proposed that from the linguistic domination strategies during the colonial era to the creation of systems such as official languages and simultaneous interpretation by the League of Nations and the United Nations, and to the revolutionary impact brought by current artificial intelligence translation, international organizations have always been core participants in global language politics. He specifically noted that although AI translation is convenient, it may lead to a loss of cultural richness and the erasure of political connotations during the translation process by algorithms.
During the discussion session, faculty and students engaged in lively debates on issues such as the decline of French in EU diplomacy, the political balance in multilingual Switzerland, the impact of AI on translation practices, and the correlation between linguistic diversity and biodiversity. Professor Pouliot emphasized that understanding the global political landscape of language serves as a unique window for re-examining international relations and its multiple social forces.
This salon was hosted by the School of International Organizations and organized by the school's Graduate Student Union, attracting the participation of numerous faculty and students from both inside and outside the university.