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Denis Wirtz
I get my French fix when I speak to my mother once a week that that's all of us. But I think my Taiwanese students or Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. They get to practice, you know, Urdu, Hindi once a week with their parents. I think we're all in this boat together, I’m afraid.

Vivien
That’s Dr Denis Wirtz, a cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and vice-provost for research at Hopkins as well. I spoke with him about his research some time and that’s a different podcast I am still producing but we also spoke about language and that’s what this podcast is about today.

Hi and welcome to Conversations with scientists, it’s been a while since the last episode. Apologies, I was writing a lot, did a video and then tried to take some time for family. Because work-life balance matters, right? Anyway, glad to be back and glad to be producing this podcast and others, too.

This episode is about a topic that is, in a way, a given in labs and perhaps not talked about a lot: language. Labs speak many languages because principal investigators, graduate students, staff, post-docs, visiting scientists they come from all over and speak different languages, which is of course fine and great.
I did a story about lab languages for Nature Methods and Denis Wirtz is in that story as well as other researchers. A link to the story is in the show notes.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-023-01854-7. https://rdcu.be/doPnv

Scientists tell me about the balance they strike to keep the lab talking and have people feel comfortable to speak in their own language, too as well as English. It’s just that such conversations in one language can exclude others, which is when things can get a bit difficult.
Here I want to share more of what Denis Wirtz told me on the subject of language and how he handles language matters in his lab. It’s a short podcast today, the next ones will be once again longer.
So what happens in a lab when people congregate to speak their native language. That can leave others out of a conversation that may be important for all to hear. But of course some need their fix of their native language and they need to live their own language as well as English. Here’s Denis Wirtz.

Denis Wirtz [2:40]
Because exactly, you do not want to make them all, you know, hide, or even delete, if you will, what makes them interesting an individual right. So I it's interesting because I think I do help my students learn how a story is told and it matters, right? Accessibility is primordial and I am a big believer in Elements of Style, right? It tends to be accessible it this, this fantasy that too many students by the time they graduate either with an undergrad or PhD, the more obscure they are the more seemingly savant they sound. When of course it's the exact opposite.
People will presume if they don't understand what you're saying is not because they're stupid, it's because you're stupid, right? And, and so that I work very hard on. And it's a story of simplification, simplification, without trivializing the discovery they may make, okay? But it's interesting at the same time maybe. So that's the English part, right. The unifying language undeniably is and remains English.

Vivien
The language in science and in his lab is English but of course people will hang out together during the day and speak another language. But in a lab you also want an inclusive environment as well as one that is comfortable for people whose native language may not be English.

Denis Wirtz
Say, a group of there is three French people first you never will prevent them speaking French to each other, it’s just lost cause. But I may take one aside and say keep in mind that you do at the end what you want, I realize you need your fix of French every day, it's all it's all good and nice.
But that then someone else who could be listening in and could provide, could contribute to this conversation cannot, right. And so it's always It's a fine balance. I want to preserve these people feel comfortable just, you know, they don't like I don't know, eliminate what makes them in part, it makes them unique. And at the same time be inclusive, right?

Where I always say it can be distracting to hear a conversation background. But sometimes it's so useful. Because you you're hearing something, and it's like helping you in your work, maybe not today, but one day. And you can't even recall you can't even remember, that was this background conversation you overheard, you have to almost scratch your head:who was talking because what they were saying was so true. Who was oh, it was Bart, let me go to talk to Bart, and he may have a solution for what I'm trying to solve here. And I'm big believer of this.

And at the same time, right. And I tried to create physical space for people to you know, think the big thoughts, to, you know, when they code they need silence. So sometimes you need, you know, headphones. And to strike that balance, I'm not sure I get it right every day, between this open floor, this openness, this common language you're talking about and at the same time, having an ability to be alone and, and be kind of ambitious in the reasoning. So it's, it's such a good question I as you can see, I haven't thought about it.

Vivien
Denis Wirtz its originally from Belgium and speaks multiple languages.

You speak how many languages? Four or more?

Denis Wirtz
You have to, that’s how it works. It's Flemish, German, some but that German is gone. Now it's official, French and English. I say I'm terrible at either of those languages. I get my French fix when I speak to my mother once a week that that's all of us. But I think my Taiwanese students or Chinese there is Indians and Pakistanis. They get to practice, you know, Urdu , Hindu once a week when they talk with their parents. I think we're all in this boat together, I'm afraid. Where it's like, we switched, we could have this conversation in French, it would be a struggle for me, it literally would be a struggle.

Vivien
It would be a big struggle for me, particularly over words and things, but I think it changes the dynamic, right? I think when people switch between back and forth, it is actually good for them to have that identity, both of the identities.

Denis Wirtz [7:01]
Right, I really think so. I really think so. But what I wanted to say it could be different for different universities, But at Hopkins, you know, we’re gonna have kids who are not only extraordinary scholars, but will be completely fluent in English, right and know how to write English often they come already with papers, there was a discussion in Twitter isn't unfair to those and I agree. But how do you how do you select those students then?

I mean, if you have the luxury to be able to pick those students who are already published as an undergrad, fluent in English, say coming from China, just as an example. And Hopkins tends to attract these kind of high caliber students. And so the the issue concern, I don't know how to put it, challenge that you have students who really struggle with the language is a bit less than at a place like Hopkins.
It’s not absent, just to be clear, for instance, I have master’s students. And there they did, I can see the level of language is a little bit, not as high.

And so I'll make a point to, in a very secure way, of course, to present the work more often. With me once a week, as part of group meetings, I have sub-group meetings. So they meet as part of, so they they’ve different like sub-communities, where it's presented in slightly different ways where you're going to have in a sub-group meeting experts in a group meaning fewer experts, you have to learn how to tell your story to a large. And then of course, the conferences, where you may have experts and non-experts and then I always, say to your family, so you have to be able to explain what you're doing. And, and read the body language and if they are unimpressed, because they should be impressed, that tells me that you didn't find a way to sell your, your science.

Vivien
That was Conversations with scientists. Today's episode was with Dr. Denis Wirtz, cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and vice-provost for research at Hopkins. The music used in this podcast is Better by Dizzy licensed from artlist.io.

And I just wanted to say because there's confusion about these things sometimes. Nobody paid for this podcast and nobody paid to be in this podcast. This is independent journalism that I produce in my living room. I'm Vivien Marx. Thanks for listening.