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tional rankings. Even though the methodology of some rankings may be dodgy and their heuristic value debatable, at the end of the day no university aiming to position itself on the international playing field can completely ignore these rankings or turn a blind eye to administrative/organisational problems that result in a lower ranking. Banal as it may sound, counter-measures include making sure that an institution is clearly identifiable and that all achievements, especially publications, are clearly attributable to the university. This—another truism—can only be guaranteed when all departments, centres and institutes use the same wording both in German and in other languages (primarily English). Responsibility for such fundamental decisions cannot lie with the translation service. Of course, suggestions can be made after consultation with other units, such as, for instance, the marketing department, the international office and other strategic sub-units. At the end of the day, however, these decisions need backing from the university board since they have to be implemented on a university-wide level. Here, a difference between a corporate work environment and an institution of higher education becomes discernible. While the problem as such occurs in both contexts—i.e. the need for consistent terminology/corporate wording and the subsequent implementation— the ways how this can be achieved differ to a considerable extent. Likewise, the establishment of linguistic conventions in a university context calls for a different (communication) strategy than is the case in, say, a globally-operating corporation. This is due to a number of reasons: —At many universities, the need to pay very close attention to issues such as corporate wording and to engage in international marketing activities arose at a comparatively late stage and was, in some cases, probably even kick-started only as recently as the Bologna Process. In contrast, the need to compete on an international market has been a challenge to many industrial corporations for a much longer time. Therefore, one may conceivably argue that the awareness of the enormous importance of a consistent corporate wording is still somewhat lower in a university context and that it may take greater efforts to convince individual stakeholders to ‘bend’ to the new rules.1 —Although most institutions of higher education now dispose of professional management structures including a qualified board, clearly defined authorities and clear-cut decision-making processes, universities nevertheless have traditionally been governed more ‘liberally’ than companies in order to guarantee ‘freedom of research’. This tendency is strengthened by the fact that there are two parallel hierarchies, one of them headed by the Kanzler, who is responsible for all administrative departments, the other one headed by the Rector or President, who is in charge of all academic departments. This specific set-up and general culture make it more difficult to introduce corporate wording which is binding for all members of the university: even though it would, in principle, of course, be possible to ‘force’ professors to use a certain wording, such a step would counteract the consensus-oriented culture and is therefore frequently avoided. —A related problem arises when individual decisions impinge on the already cited ‘academic freedom’. This holds, for instance, true with regard to the names of academic departments and chairs. While the question of the correct name sometimes represents a contested field already in German, the problem may become even more accentuated in English since discussions about the idiomatic quality of a specific formulation easily turn into a bone of contention—especially when it comes to the question of whether a single word (and sometimes even a single vowel, depending on British or American spelling) inscribe the chair professor in an academic tradition they want or do not want to be associated with. Moreover, in contrast to the majority of corporate units, the chair holder or director of an academic department often acts as the ‘face’ of the unit in question. He or she therefore tends to have a vested interest in what the unit is called and often considers a wording which places or is perceived to place them in a different academic discourse or context as detrimental to their research activities.
1. While there is no sufficient data to corroborate this assumption, a comparison between university websites and company websites in English is a first indication that ‘international marketing’ is an aspect which has frequently been treated as an ‘add-on’ rather than a ‘must’ at many German universities and is only starting to be tackled both professionally and comprehensively.
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