Setting the language of Rs error messages

Hi,
My R has been installed on a Ubuntu linux computer in Germany. The error 
messages I get are in German, for example:

In min(magnitudes) : kein nicht-fehlendes Argument f?r min; gebe Inf zur?ck

I would like those to be displayed in English, for pasting them into google.
I tried searching for "R language", which brings me a ton of results 
for.. well, the R language :)
"R german english" just resulted in a bunch of dictionaries.

I mostly run R within emacs; I don't know if that is relevant to my 
question.

Can someone tell me how to configure R to speak english to me?

Thanks in advance,
  Alex

alexx at alexx-fett:~$ vi .emacs