Language focus

The United States needs to focus away from European languages? What does this mean, especially given the strength of the euro, but even more so the cultural and historical importance of the many European languages? Moreover, these languages are not unrelated to many other areas of the world and a great deal of intellectual material was and is produced in Europe.

It is not a matter of either/or — one can surely learn both a European and a non-European language. Better to learn one from Europe with trained educators than to find someone, anyone, who speaks a now-fashionable language and put that person in a classroom with the hope that she or he can teach and students will learn.

The real problem in this country is just getting people to learn ANY language, no matter what its geographical distribution. To do that, they have to value other cultures (not just covet economic or political success through those populations), and they have to spend considerable time studying. Having good materials and properly-prepared instructors doesn’t hurt either.

For now, we should be happy if the educational system turned out students who are both interested in other parts of the world and who can speak fluently with their residents, not just learn a few phrases to get around. US-born bilinguals are a lot rarer than in the European Community whose languages we are supposed to marginalize in favor of ’somehow’ learning the less commonly taught languages. As far as attitudes toward non-English speakers and general linguistic sophistication, we still have a long way to go. That would be a good way to start eliminating the rampant monolingualism in the US.

We should never ‘focus away’ from any language or area of the world. Rather, we should support the creation of good instructional methods and materials for any language — even if that means it’s from (heaven forbid) Europe.

Kathleen March, Professor of Spanish at University of Maine, at 8:40 am EDT on May 30, 2008

Let’s be pragmatic

Let’s face it: the historical and cultural arguments for studying German are valid but not persuasive to most students or even academics, administrators and the general public. But there are also excellent political, economic and social reasons to learn German and then — more importantly — go to Germany and USE the language.

Germany has the single largest economy on the continent. German is the language of business in Eastern Europe, thanks to an Ostpolitik that began in the early 1070’s. Germany has a well-functioning national health care system. The country is the world leader in environmental engineering. It has a highly integrated, model mass transportation system. And on and on.

Of COURSE we in the US should be learning non-European languages, too. Of course other European languages have value. But why on earth ax the language of the very country from which we could get ideas for solving our most urgent contemporary problems?

It doesn’t make sense. But then, US monolingualism has never made sense. It’s just comfortable and easy.

Barbara Wright, at 3:05 pm EDT on May 30, 2008

Here’s the key question, though: what does it mean to “study” German?

At one level, learning to speak, read, and write a foreign language is a skill that does not, in and of itself, contribute to the student’s breadth of knowledge and understanding. A child who grew up outside the U.S. and is bilingual is not any more “educated” than his neighbor who did not — knowing a second set of vocabulary and grammatical constructions does not provide one a better understanding of the world.

However, being fluent in a second language is an immensely helpful thing for a student who might end up working for a multinational company — though not as helpful as it is for a non-English speaker to learn our native language, as it’s the lingua franca of the business world world-wide.

In any case, a European language is much more practical, both because, being comparatively similar to English, a student can be more productive — that is, learn more with the same amount of study; and because there’s at least a modest likelihood of using the language. But for most students, the reality is that the standard two years of study of any language is highly unlikely to have any practical benefit, because so few Americans ever end up with the opportunity to leave the country.

Or do we mean by “studying” a foreign language reading literature in the original language? — In this case, then languages with a great deal of generally-acknowledged great literature should trump those without it. But the marginal value of reading works of literature in the original language vs. a translation is modest. I’ve often thought that English and the “languages” departments ought to be reorganized into a Literature Department, a Composition Department (this is largely so already), and a Department of Foreign Language Learning.

In any case, this debate isn’t about German vs. Vietnamese Literature majors, though, is it?

Elizabeth Bauer, at 8:40 pm EDT on May 31, 2008

In response to E. Bauer’s post

The question of how to evaluate “the value of reading works of literature in the original language vs. a translation” is an extremely controversial one. The claim that the difference is “modest” and that all literature should therefore be taught in translation is one that I personally find depressing. As the original post states, however, that is somewhat peripheral to the main discussion topic.

What is more troubling and on point, however, is the assertion that “knowing a second set of vocabulary and grammatical constructions does not provide one a better understanding of the world.” The world that I live in is one in which people form and express opinions in ways that are shaped by many cultural determinants, one of which is language. This is hard to appreciate for someone who only knows English, let along someone who is convinced that the utility of learning a foreign language is measured by the number of people in the world who have yet to learn English. (you could substitute any other language for English in that previous sentence, if you like)

What we see emerging here is a third position, alongside the ones expressed in the two IHE articles. If we grant that: 1) learning another language is, in and of itself, not ‘education’; 2) it is a useful thing for an English speaker to do only until other people in the world learn English; and3) once everyone has learned English, nothing need ever be said or written in any other language,

then we have an argument for basically eliminating foreign language learning except as a stop-gap measure on the way to complete linguistic colonization of the world by one set of speakers.

anon, at 9:40 am EDT on June 1, 2008

non-European languages

Having studied Latin, French, Spanish, Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Chinese, I concur with the author’s point that there are many important languages a future-focused student could study that may be more valuable to them than German. Just as the study of classical Latin and Greek was formerly important, the study of Arabic, Sanskrit (or Hindi), Japanese, and Chinese will be extremely valuable for students who in their professional careers will face cultural issues rising from our commerce with peoples speaking those more exotic languages. The study of Asian languages exposes the student to non-Western ways of thinking and forces them to learn some of the history of other cultures and civilizations. Studying German merely exposes the student to more Euro-centric thinking. Getting outside one’s culture-bound perspective is a great way to understand one’s culture in new ways.

Merrill Peterson, at 9:00 pm EDT on June 3, 2008