Can Scholarly Communication Be Multilingual? A Glance at Language Use in US Classical Archaeology

Classical archaeology is one of the few humanities in which several European languages, above all English, German, French and Italian, are used for specialized communication, in particular for scholarly publications. From previous research, it appears that non-English speaking archaeologists tend to feel a certain discomfort at the lack of impact of publications written in languages other than English. This article aims to analyze the attitudes of US classical archaeologists towards multilingualism and reception of non-English research publications. A survey of US university archaeologists was conducted, which demonstrates that they are convinced that scholarly communication in the field must remain multilingual, thus showing an attitude similar to that of their European colleagues. As for reception of non-English archaeological literature, language barriers seem to be growing, both in teaching and research, due to current US language and library policies.


Introduction
Nowadays, English is widely considered to be the vehicular language in international scholarly communication, and the reasons for its dominant position in the academic world have frequently been discussed (see, for instance [1]).Sociolinguistic research has concentrated mostly on reconstructing the development, which lead to the actual linguistic situation (thorough documentation in [2]) and on analyzing problems and disadvantages for non-native speakers, as well as for communication in general that arise from the supremacy of English [3][4][5], while less consideration has been given to the dwindling number of humanities, which continue to be multilingual.

OPEN ACCESS
A certain interest in the topic may be observed in the German-speaking countries, where the future role of the mother tongue has been a subject of debate for some decades.The central point of that discussion are complaints about the lost impact of scholarly German in scientific and technical disciplines, which is readily contrasted with its persistence in human and social sciences [6].German linguists frequently emphasize the particular character of specialized communication in humanities, as well as their typical variety of paradigms and strong rootedness in specific macrocultures; consequently multilingualism is cited as a precondition for productive research activities in those fields [7,8].In recent years, similar arguments have been adopted occasionally, also in Italy and in the Hispano-American area, thus giving evidence of an increased linguistic self-esteem [9][10][11].Some scholars criticize the concept of an academic lingua franca as a whole, arguing in favor of a language policy in order to strengthen the position of languages other than English [12][13][14].
In this context, a key role is played by certain 'small' and traditionally multilingual disciplines, which in German are often referred to as Nischenfächer ('niche disciplines').These include classical philology, theology, philosophy and musicology, as well as Egyptology and Islamic studies ( [15], p. 76; [16], pp.31-46).Recently, we conducted a thorough research on the linguistic situation in classical archaeology with regard to the German and Italian speaking areas [17][18][19].Our bibliographical research and a survey of university archaeologists (by means of an online questionnaire) showed the following:  Several European languages (mostly English, German, Italian and French) are normally employed in classical archaeology, particularly for publications.In addition, there are some, so to speak, 'minor' languages in use, which are associated with some countries where much archaeological field work is done (Modern Greek, Spanish and, recently, also Turkish). A multilingual concept of specialized communication in the field is prevailing among scholars.
Researchers (but even students) are expected to learn foreign languages in order to gather necessary information for their studies.The idea of only one scholarly language is firmly rejected by nearly every archaeologist questioned in the survey, both Italian and German speaking. The grade of self-esteem, however, as well as views about the future language use are found to depend on the different macrocultural trends.German speaking classical archaeologists emphasize the importance of historical and present-day scholarly literature in German and express the conviction that specialized communication in the discipline will remain multilingual in the foreseeable future, while Italians fear particularly for the prospects of their own mother tongue.
The general situation appears to be characterized by various asymmetries, which may in a way contradict the idyllic picture of the linguistic reality sometimes painted by the advocates of multilingualism.First of all, it seems that speakers of 'minor' languages are often compelled to turn to one of the 'big four' (English, German, etc.), in order to let their voices be heard.Second, it is obvious that language barriers in classical archaeology have not completely been removed; the concept of multilingualism in this context is referred to the active use of the mother tongue and to a certain passive knowledge (reading ability) necessary for research purposes.Third, even German archaeologists (who seem to be the most persuaded by multilingualism) would seem to feel uncomfortable with the situation of their own mother tongue, lamenting an increasing lack of reception of their publications in non-German speaking macrocultures, due to the limited diffusion of knowledge of that language.To counteract this tendency, many of them suggest the production of abstracts in English, the occasional or additional publication of research results in English, as well as translations, which should guarantee worldwide interest and reception.
We may therefore suppose the existence of a growing pressure on 'niche discipline' researchers to turn to English.Future development will be dictated by not only the interaction of personal and social factors, such as the diffusion of language skills, which permit one to write complex verbal texts in English, but also by the prestige and supposed reception of non-English texts.In this context, it is the English speaking part of the academic community, sometimes overtly accused of a "bibliographic chauvinism" ( [20], pp.[10][11], which may lead to a "skewed accumulation of scientific knowledge" ( [5], p. 342), that plays a crucial role.So, we would like to pose questions about how much importance is attached in the Anglophone academia to scholarly literature written in languages other than English.Have non-English contributions a prestige and standing comparable to that of English ones, at least in certain disciplines?To what extent do English speaking researchers read non-English books and articles?How do they perceive the linguistic situation and eventual language barriers?Are they aware of the multilingual reality of their discipline, and what is their attitude towards multilingualism?To address these issues, in this contribution, we will present the results of a survey about language use and its perception in US classical archaeology.

Linguistic Situation and Opinions about Language Use in US Classical Archaeology (Survey)
The survey was conducted in May and June 2012 and is based on a questionnaire comprising 21 questions and sub-questions sent by email to approximately 160 classical archaeologists currently employed at US universities.Only 35 forms were completed and returned, so the response rate is lower than would normally be the case in such surveys, but the results provide at least an impression of general attitudes to the linguistic situation in classical archaeology.In the first section, questions related to the respondents' mother tongue and academic career were asked; it appears that seven of them came originally from non-English speaking European countries (Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Italy).For the present analysis, only the 28 questionnaires, which were filled out by genuine English speaking participants, are taken into consideration.Nineteen of these are male and nine female, which may roughly correspond to general sex distribution in academia.As for the respondents' age, some information can be drawn from the year they presented their Ph.D.: most of them finished in the 1970s or 1980s (seven and 11 participants, respectively; only one1 did his Ph.D. in the 1960s) and, thus, should represent a sample of scholars who are quite advanced in career and characterized by a lifelong experience in (bibliographical) research.Fewer are the younger scholars who did their Ph.D. in the 1990s or 2000s (five and four participants, respectively).Due to the restricted number of participants, however, a differentiated consideration of subgroups did not appear advisable.
The first question block, comprising 11 questions (Table 1, Figures 1-10), aims at describing the perception of language use, while in the second one, with seven questions (Figures 11-17), the attitude towards multilingualism and future prospects is being investigated.The questions have been formulated to avoid direct reference to the participants' personal qualities (e.g., their language skills), while the possibility has been given to provide free comments (with an explicit invitation to do so at the end of the form); anonymous treatment of data in the publication has also been guaranteed.

Language Use and its Perception
The idea of a multilingual discipline emerges already from our first question regarding the most important scholarly journals (Table 1).About half of the responses (67 of 131) are related to journals edited by institutions belonging to non-English speaking countries, above all Germany, but also France, Italy and Greece.Here, we noted an evident bias to ascribe a more incisive role to the journals published by Anglophone institutions than is the case in non-English speaking areas, but for the rest, the image appears to be similar to the results of our surveys conducted in Italy and in the German speaking countries ( [18], pp.56-58; [19], pp.73-76), both as regards the weight attributed to the various language areas and the single journals, which have been named, thus proving a strong coherence within the academic discipline.
As for the language of the articles published in the journals, it should be noted that many of them accept, at least theoretically, articles in different languages; furthermore, the nationality of the editing institutions does not always correspond to the country where they are physically established, thus conferring their journals a somewhat international character.For example, the Römische Mitteilungen (RM) are published by the German Archaeological Institute in Rome and included between 2001 and 2007 a total of 52 articles, 25 of which were in German, 21 in Italian and six in English.In most cases (and particularly in Anglophone areas) it can be observed, however, that the language used in journals corresponds to the official one of the relative institution.
Table 1.Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question: "Which are, in your opinion, the most important scientific journals in classical archaeology (not more than five)?" (as for the abbreviations used here, see [21]).

Country [=nationality of the editing institution] (number of responses) Journals (number of responses)
USA ( 51) AJA (21), JRA (15), Hesperia (11), other (4) Germany ( 41) AM (12), JdI (11), RM (10), AA (6), other (2) GB ( 16) JHS (6), JRS (4), BSA (4), other (2) France (11) BCH (6), RA (3), MEFRA (2) Italy ( 7) AntK ( 1) The next questions (Figures 1 and 2) regard language use in US universities and, more precisely, the scholarly literature held to be important by university professors for teaching purposes and/or student level 'research'.Most professors require students to read works in foreign languages (Figure 1), and the languages (Figure 2) correspond exactly to those requested by their European colleagues ( [18], pp.58-59; [19], pp.77-79): German, French, Italian, Modern Greek, Spanish and Turkish, depending-as some of the respondents point out-on the concrete research theme or field.Differently from European countries, in US archaeology, a distinction is sometimes made between graduate and undergraduate students (in Germany, e.g., foreign languages are usually required for all students), because the language barrier is felt to be a problem, as emerges from some additional comments on the topic, like the following: Rarely; as the majority of my classes are freshmen survey classes (100-level), most of the students do not have a sufficient mastery of foreign languages to allow them to read non-English scholarly papers.
We (US faculty members) can require (and do require) graduate students to learn foreign languages.However, your survey fails to account for the majority of the students that we teach: undergraduates.Almost none of them knows German, certainly not German and French and Italian.This makes it very difficult to teach a class that incorporates the most important and the latest research.If classical archaeology in American is to remain a vibrant field, we must attract very bright undergraduates.We can only do this by presenting them with the best literature and the most important debates in the field.However, this is usually impossible, because of the language barrier.
In addition, it is apparent from the second comment that quality of archaeological research and teaching in US universities may be considered to depend on the reception of works in foreign languages.This picture becomes more complete when we take into account the next two questions, which refer to language use for publications in classical archaeology and its dynamics as a whole (Figures 3 and 4): German is seen by the respondents to be as important as English, even if it appears to have been used less than two decades ago, followed by French and Italian, while the use of some other languages (above all Spanish and Turkish) is increasing-a result that corresponds quite well to the ideas of European archaeologists ( [18], pp.60-62; [19], pp.80-82).Some of the US respondents provide additional comments on these questions, which serve to highlight once again the necessity of reading archaeological literature for research purposes, with reference to the concrete subjects to be treated: It is not possible to study Roman architecture or sculpture without German, as well as English.Many excavation reports are in French or Italian or modern Greek.
[…] there is not one language more important than another, particularly in the subfields.You can't be a Romanist (as I often am) without Italian; for Archaic Greece, it drops down the list.In my Anglophone world, command of French, German, Italian are seen as indispensable.
[…] If you work (conduct fieldwork or contextually based studies) in Greece or Italy and since current fieldwork is dominated by local archaeological authorities and universities in those countries, then it is paramount that you read Greek and Italian (most basic reports are in these languages); and then English, French and German for the basic fieldwork of the foreign schools.The most comprehensive handbooks and compendious, synthetic and descriptive or synoptic studies are written in German (e.g., sculpture) and French (e.g., architecture); most theoretical approaches and culture histories are in English and so on.[…] The next survey section (Figures 5-10) regards the central point of our research, which is the effective reception of non-English archaeological literature in US academic research.The image painted by participants on that respect appears to be much more optimistic than that of the situation at the student level: most scholars think their colleagues remain well-informed about non-English publications (Figure 5), as they read even entire papers in the most important foreign languages (Figures 6 and 7).Some additional comments provided by the respondents repeat views similar to those that we have seen before, but reveal also the particular problem that US scholars, due to actual library policies, sometimes find it difficult to obtain the necessary scientific information for research: always.for any professional and serious archaeologist.yes, always if the archaeologist wants to stay abreast.good ones always.most not enough.beginning grad students are not as well prepared as in the past.I think many try to stay abreast, but not all succeed.US university libraries have had their budgets cut severely and foreign publications are often the first to go.Free access to digital publications would help enormously.To some extent, American scholars are at the mercy of the buying policies of their university libraries.Librarians prefer to buy books in English; they don't mind buying books in French too much, because they probably studied French at some point; it is much harder to get them to buy in German and especially Italian.The argument is that the students will not read those books, and it makes no sense for the library to buy for only one person (i.e., the person requesting the book).It becomes harder and harder for scholars in US institutions that do not have a dedicated program in archaeology to keep up with non-English publications, unless we receive regular circulars from non-English publishers.Non-English publications seem also to be published in shorter runs and to go out of print faster, so we often miss getting them when they are available. […] The next questions (Figures 8 and 9) refer to the language barrier, in particular to the development of language skills in US classical archaeology during the last 20 years.The general feeling is that knowledge of foreign languages in that period has not increased, but rather slightly decreased (Figure 8).
As for the tendency regarding various languages, the participants have provided relatively few responses, which, thus, should be interpreted cautiously (Figure 9).It appears, however, that some of the respondents feel the knowledge of traditionally widespread languages, such as German and French, has decreased, while that of others, like Italian, Modern Greek, Spanish and Russian, is thought to have increased.The general situation of language skills in US academia is described in greater detail in the following comments, which highlight some specific problems of the actual situation: Decreased; all languages; with the extensive use of translatable programs, such as Google, personal knowledge of foreign languages has been reduced.Now, people are increasingly having their computers translate for them, thus circumventing the need to know the language personally.The absence of serious language training in pre-graduate US education is endangering the postgraduate study of classical archaeology in the US.[…] Students do not receive serious language training in middle school, are not required to learn or to develop their language skills in college and we are under increasing pressure to get graduate students through the Phd [sic] in 6 years.Unless they have somehow bucked the trend and acquired languages earlier, in spite of these impediments, it is impossible for them to do a serious degree in classical archaeology (with proper language training) in that period of time.In my youth, students were still expected to have some at least passing knowledge of a foreign language to enter or at least to graduate from college.[…].
The last question of this section (Figure 10) is related to the prestige attributed to non-English publications in US academia (as we saw before, in some European countries, the prestige of English is actually growing).Most respondents hold the view that in scholarship, no concrete differences are made between English and other publications, suggesting, thus, that the prestige of a publication does not depend on linguistic factors.Responses to the question "As far as you know, non-English publications in US academic practice are considered as more or less important than English ones (e.g., in selection procedures, evaluations and assessments)?"

Views and Opinions about Language Use and Multilingualism
The first two questions of this section regard views about the peculiar character of specialized communication in the humanities in contradistinction to the sciences and about the relevance of the linguistic features of written texts (Figures 11 and 12).As we saw before, putting emphasis on the specific aspects of communication and writing in humanities may be considered a typical attitude of the advocates of multilingualism, and the responses to the questions show that most US archaeologists follow that tendency, being, thus, in line with the opinions they expressed in the first section of our survey.The following questions (Figures 13 and 14) refer to the opinions on what should be the attitude of classical archaeologists, in particular English-speaking ones, to language learning and reading of publications in foreign languages.Nearly all respondents are strongly convinced of the necessity of language skills (Figure 13), and many of them would applaud their English-speaking colleagues who read more non-English publications (Figure 14).Also, these views seem to correspond to the general bias we found in the answers to the questions of the first section.Our survey concludes with three questions (Figures [15][16][17] relating to opinions about the future of multilingual communication in classical archaeology and about the objectives of eventual language policies.It is noteworthy that opinions about the eventual exclusive future use of English for communication in classical archaeology are highly divided (Figure 15): about half of the participants declare to have no defined opinion.A majority of the rest, however, leans to a monolingual view, thus evidencing the idea that the general tendency will lead to a generalized use of English.

Figure 15. Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English
). Responses to the question "Do you agree with the following statement?-Inthe future, English will be the only language used for scientific communication in classical archaeology." The few additional comments to this question reflect those different opinions, underlining that the process of linguistic unification will, in any case, take a long time and/or encounter some obstacles: Having a shared scholarly language makes international research and cooperation much easier.English has begun to play that role across the last thirty years, but it'll be a long time before it becomes the only important language in the field (perhaps another thirty years).
I doubt it will come to this.In Greece, the move is in the opposite direction, with journal [sic], such as AEMTh, taking a central place for regional studies.A more uniform picture results from the answers to the following questions regarding the 'political' attitude towards language use of non-English speaking scholars and eventual measures, which could induce them to turn to English (Figures 16 and 17).Nearly all participants do not feel their colleagues are obliged to use English, and a vast majority rejects even the eventual promotion of English as a scholarly language by specific policies, thus evidencing the idea that the general tendency is to turn to English, which should not, however, be additionally supported.The numerous (and sometimes extensive) additional comments to the last two questions, as well as the final comments to the whole questionnaire, show a series of arguments and recurrent discourse patterns, which may be summarized as follows: (1) a vehicular language would be useful, but (2) not politically (or ethically) correct and (3) would not resolve the problem of consulting earlier scholarly literature, which does exist anyway, as classical archaeology has been multilingual from its beginnings, having produced various academic traditions, which must be respected.(4) Non-English speaking archaeologists have to cope with hard difficulties when writing complex academic texts, which are not in their mother tongue (inducing also the risk of what is called 'bad' English), thus (5) the use of English as a vehicular language should be limited to communication in international congresses.(6) Younger European scholars, however, who could be interested in the US academic job market may feel under pressure to produce publications in English.Some of the comments, which express such thoughts, are the following: While I'd be delighted if everything were written in English (and, whereas English is a fairly good scientific language because [sic] of both its extensive vocabulary choices and its grammatical specificity), I think it extremely arrogant to force anyone to write in other than her/his native tongue […] I still believe that it is important for classical archaeologists to be multi-lingual.Requiring English is a form of 'cultural imperialism'.
Scholars should enjoy the freedom to publish in whatever language they wish to publish.This is an element of academic freedom.
Obviously, it would be more convenient for those of us who use English natively, but practically, this cannot work.Not having to read a foreign language would make archaeological work much easier for anyone.However, there is no ethical way to argue that one language should be given preference.With all of us being required to read scholarly material in whatever language it appears, all of us face the same challenge.Moreover, even if one could enforce such an exclusion, it would not address the vast body of scholarship in various languages, which one still has to deal with.Thus, little would be gained by decreeing that from now on, only one language can be used.
Classical archaeology has been an international, multi-lingual discipline from its beginnings in the 18th c.The field would not benefit from changing this, and even if everything were written in English from now on, students and scholars would still need to read the older publications.
I don't think your study takes into account the need of scholars to examine old publications.We will always have to learn French, German, Italian, Russian, Greek, etc. to look at the primary data collected in the 19th and 20th centuries […] I have had the job of editing submissions in English from scholars for whom English is not the mother tongue.I would have preferred them to have written in their mother tongue!Even if English is used increasingly in academic publishing, reading recent articles is only a small part of a scholar's job.He/she should be fluent in German, Italian and French.
Although it would be most convenient for us (and our students) to have everything published in English, I respect the right of foreign nationals to use their own language(s)-not least because sophisticated communication in the humanities is difficult enough without the extra burden of doing it in a foreign tongue.If non-English speakers want their voices and ideas to be heard, read, disseminated and discussed, however, as a matter of practicality, these languages should be restricted to the four or five listed above.Conferences are another matter.
We have seen at conferences that English is becoming a way for Italian, French, German, Turkish, Israeli, Greek, etc., scholars to communicate with one another: having English as a second language helps enormously to share information, across all the language communities.For the languages not well studied at all internationally for the humanities, like Polish or Dutch or Arabic or Hebrew, etc., publishing in one of the four major scholarly languages (English, French, German, Italian) is indispensable to make an impact, in any case […] North America, and to some extent, the UK and Australia, remains a source of graduate training grants and jobs that young scholars from around Europe [sic] and the UK wish very much to penetrate to get a good degree and a job, especially from the countries with the most corrupt and restricted systems for job procural and promotion: for career, being able to speak scholarly English and perhaps even to write in it (or pay a translator) is increasingly valuable for the survival of brilliant young people […] The US job market, although not great at the moment, may offer more opportunities than the European market, in which case, there is pressure on potential European applicants to publish in English, both to demonstrate their language skills and to get a careful read from committees reviewing their dossiers (committee members are frequently not in classical archaeology-we are not as specialized here as in Europe) […]

Conclusions
In summary, from our survey, it appears that the attitude of US classical archaeologists (at least of those who responded to our questionnaire) to multilingualism is surprisingly similar to that which is known to be of European scholars.Most of the participants are persuaded that specialized communication in the field at the moment cannot and should not become monolingual for a number of reasons firmly rooted in scholarly tradition and in the peculiarities of research practice, such as the frequent reference to older specialized literature, and the crucial importance of field work in classical countries, whose own languages are used for publications.As for the future development of multilingualism, opinions are not unanimous, and that may be due to a general idea that attributes to English a leading role in all key sectors, such as the economy, technological and scientific research and development, a tendency, which could continue to strengthen the position of English in a long-term perspective, notwithstanding particular situations in specific academic disciplines.Similar opinions were found also amongst German and Italian speaking scholars, a majority of the latter openly expressing strong concern about the mid-term future of their mother tongue ( [18], pp.73-75; [19], pp.101-04).In my opinion, the structural characteristics of research organization together with the strong multilingual conviction of language users in different macrocultures give a certain guarantee for classical archaeology to remain multilingual (at least for language use in publications) for the foreseeable future.
US classical archaeologists, however, in their answers to our questions underline some difficulties, which they encounter in academic teaching, in particular to undergraduates, due to a progressive loss of language skills in US school education.Furthermore, some of the respondents lament material obstacles to remaining abreast of the newest research results, because libraries refuse to buy literature written in languages that are understood by few users.From that point of view, US archaeology is felt to be in a certain way at risk of going towards a peripheral position with respect to European research.To prevent this, in my opinion, enhanced language and library policies would be needed in the US.
Returning to our initial main issue regarding the grade of reception of archaeological literature in languages other than English, it appears that some direct or indirect loss of impact on US academia, due to language barriers and their effects in practice, must be lamented.In spite of all declarations of belief in multilingualism, it seems evident that archaeological literature in English has more chances of being read both by researchers and students, at least in the US, even if the survey method applied for the present paper is not able to provide hard data about the concrete consideration of non-English literature by US archaeologists.Other research based on citation analysis could achieve this, as does an interesting study, which has recently been conducted about citation behavior in some US journals belonging to the fields of philosophy, linguistics, classical philology and history [23].From that research, it appears that the use of non-English literature by US humanities scholars has not decreased during the last decades and we may suppose that a similar tendency prevails in classical archaeology.Communication barriers in the scientific community could, however, be more easily overcome by the most open access information possible about what happens in other macrocultures, for example, using reports in English on research in non-Anglophone countries, as has recently been suggested by Ulrich Ammon ([5], pp.350-52).Non-English-speaking archaeologists are particularly sensitive to the reception problem, as is demonstrated by the following comment provided by a European researcher who is currently working in a US university: Many of my colleagues in the US are indeed fighting hard against the loss of knowledge of foreign languages among students and, generally, against a tendency in the American academia to acknowledge or even establish English as the only academic language.[…] And since I am teaching in the US, it became very obvious that there are no explicit attempts to establish English as the global academic language in classical archaeology, but rather, an overall development to privilege English scholarship on reading lists, in bibliographies, in footnotes, in the acquisition policy of libraries, etc., a tendency, which is very obviously not based on an assessment of the international importance or the amount of scholarly contributions in English, [but] resulting from an increasing neglect of consulting international scholarship, as well as from the inability to read any foreign languages.

Vice versa, it is interesting to see what a US archaeologist thinks about his European colleagues' attitude towards language use:
As an American classical archaeologist who has lived and worked in Germany for a number of years, I am acutely aware of the issue you are investigating.In my view, the Germans are complicit in the demise of German as a scholarly language by being overly eager to give papers and publish in English.
Reading these comments, one could wonder who is to blame: the English-speaking archaeologists or the non-English speaking ones.Be that as it may, at this point, it might anyhow be reassuring to note that both US and European classical archaeologists are supporting multilingualism.

Figure 1 .Figure 2 .
Figure 1.Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question "Do you require your students to read archaeological literature in languages other than English (e.g., for their thesis)?"

Figure 3 .Figure 4 .
Figure 3. Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question "Which languages are actually mostly used for publications in classical archaeology (in order of importance)?"

Figure 5 .Figure 6 .Figure 7 .
Figure 5. Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question "As far as you know, do US classical archaeologists keep themselves informed about new non-English publications in their field?" problem in working in other languages is the cost of the publications-academic libraries are not buying materials as they used to, especially if the work will 'only' benefit a couple of researchers at a University, and materials are costly for an individual, even if one can find out about them[…]

Figure 8 .
Figure 8. Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question "Do you feel the knowledge of research-relevant foreign languages on the part of US archaeologists has increased or decreased during the last 20 years?" [22].

Figure 9 .
Figure 9. Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question "Do you feel the knowledge of research-relevant foreign languages on the part of US archaeologists has increased or decreased during the last 20 years?-If so, in which ones?"

Figure 10 .
Figure10.Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question "As far as you know, non-English publications in US academic practice are considered as more or less important than English ones (e.g., in selection procedures, evaluations and assessments)?"

Figure 11 .Figure 12 .
Figure 11.Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question "Do you agree with the following statement?-Specializedcommunication in humanities is different from that in exact sciences."

Figure 13 .Figure 14 .
Figure13.Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question "Do you agree with the following statement?-Classicalarchaeologists should know foreign languages, in order to be able to read publications written in languages other than their mother tongue."

Figure 16 .Figure 17 .
Figure 16.Survey of US classical archaeologists (mother tongue English).Responses to the question "Do you agree with the following statement?-Non-Englishspeaking classical archaeologists should publish the results of their research activities in English."