Your last sentence perfectly describes the main obstacle a supposed IAL will face in the process of emerging into global usage. It must prove way more effective than the next candidate in order to persuade.
immigration law is a stronger barrier to travel and work permits than languages are.
That’s true. However, I’d say that if the total difficulty is 100%, then immigration law contributes around 55% and language barrier 45%. If you can eliminate the latter, then you effectively make it twice as easier to do it. Moreover, IMO immigration law is kinda ephemeral. Trump was elected and put up some barriers. Biden then went razed them down. Meanwhile, something as basic as language is much more rooted—the US hasn’t changed its official language since its birth.
Western education itself without the signaling value is able to change the lives in developing countries doesn’t have a good base.
I didn’t emphasize Western education anywhere in my post. Chances are you’re biased against Eastern education? Whether education is about signaling or not, isn’t it just better to have more education? I think we can agree on this point.
When it comes for example to China, the way contracts are enforced seems to be much more central than the wording of the contracts when it comes to trust.
Agree! I hadn’t thought about it thoroughly enough, now that you mentioned it. How about a different point? Companies always have to spend resources on the translation process when dealing with foreign partners—in your example, China. But now they don’t have to do it anymore, and thus have more capital to spend on other projects.
English works for that purpose and most fields get centered in a way that makes the important communication English.
English can do the job at an ‘huh, OK’ level. It was patchily built throughout many centuries with not-for-scientific-research mindset. Not to mention when scientist actually go to their colleague’s foreign lab for collaboration, they will face even more difficulties, because in every-day purposes, English is also far from great.
Your last sentence perfectly describes the main obstacle a supposed IAL will face in the process of emerging into global usage. It must prove way more effective than the next candidate in order to persuade.
That’s true. However, I’d say that if the total difficulty is 100%, then immigration law contributes around 55% and language barrier 45%. If you can eliminate the latter, then you effectively make it twice as easier to do it.
Moreover, IMO immigration law is kinda ephemeral. Trump was elected and put up some barriers. Biden then went razed them down. Meanwhile, something as basic as language is much more rooted—the US hasn’t changed its official language since its birth.
I didn’t emphasize Western education anywhere in my post. Chances are you’re biased against Eastern education?
Whether education is about signaling or not, isn’t it just better to have more education? I think we can agree on this point.
Agree! I hadn’t thought about it thoroughly enough, now that you mentioned it. How about a different point? Companies always have to spend resources on the translation process when dealing with foreign partners—in your example, China. But now they don’t have to do it anymore, and thus have more capital to spend on other projects.
English can do the job at an ‘huh, OK’ level. It was patchily built throughout many centuries with not-for-scientific-research mindset. Not to mention when scientist actually go to their colleague’s foreign lab for collaboration, they will face even more difficulties, because in every-day purposes, English is also far from great.