I went to a Kane Hall lecture called “Translation in Wartime,” and was uncomfortably reminded of the $16K National Security Education Program scholarship I won in 1995 to get fluent in Japanese.
Presumably in the name of National Defense.
I wasn’t the only one at the lecture hall wondering how that happened. Half a dozen people in the room got up to say their whole grad school education was funded with money from the same pot.
I’ll come back to pot in a minute.
University of Washington professor Vicente L. Rafael talked about “monolingual hegemony,” and the systematic “instrumentalization of foreign languages to establish reach and power.”
People with this in mind try to dash out foreign languages. Eradicate dialects. Fuse all into one language, so there won’t be any “other.”
In short, heat up the melting pot.
From Rafael’s lecture, one could infer this key point:
Americans have an overwhelming subconscious perception that American English is the “correct” language.
Even within our own borders.
Not a topic we debate with zest over turkey and potatoes at Thanksgiving time, is it?
But the estrangement of “other” certainly warrants consideration.
Think about it.
When you go to a foreign country, do you speak Portugese or whip out your phrasebook to say ‘How are you?’ in polite and perfectly accented Senegalese? When you’re in Rome, do you do as they do? Or do we Americans just naturally expect everyone to just know American English?
In Europe and Asia, the ability to speak many languages is a given. Cosmpolitan.
But in the U.S., fluency in language other than English is almost parenthetical.
Remembering my essay response to earn the NSEP scholarship–something about the need to understand others and learn to communicate with clarity and sensitivity in a post-Cold War era–I recalled a t-shirt design I made around the same time.
It was this t-shirt that precipitated the birth of Design Kompany.
In house, we refer back to it every so often as the “World is a Book” t-shirt. And it’s based on this quote:
The world is a beautiful book, but of little use to those who cannot read it.
I’ll post that design here soon.
But what do you think? Do you think Americans are behind the curve when it comes to learning foreign languages? What prompts us to learn language, anyways?
More from the series In Search of Meaning
Listen to UW’s recording of “Translation in Wartime” (links to UW page with downloads)
First page of Vincent Rafael’s article, “Translation in Wartime”
Upcoming and current lectures and events at University of Washington
UPDATE: July 2008
High school students can take a free class in Arabic or Chinese in August.
OneWorld Now! (OWN!) will offer its second annual Summer Language Camp at Seattle University in August 2008. This is a three-week language immersion program in modern standard Arabic and Mandarin Chinese.
The summer camp is for high school students only, and will be every day (except weekends) for three weeks from August 4th – August 22nd from 9 a.m.–3 p.m. Students are expected to attend the entire three weeks. The intention is that most students completing the summer language camp will continue their language studies during the school year through OWN!’s academic-year after school program in Seattle Public Schools. The summer camp is open to current OneWorld Now! students as well as new students.
Thanks to generous funding from Startalk, OneWorld Now! is offering scholarships to up to 70 eligible students to attend the camp, where students will learn Arabic or Chinese through interactive lessons, culture clubs, field trips and other innovative methods, such as podcasts.
:: OneWorld Now! Summer Language Camp
:: August 4-22, 2008; from 9 a.m.-3p.m. at
:: Seattle University
:: Cost: Free
:: Registration page
0 Responses to “In Search of Meaning (10): Foreign Language & the Concept of 'Other'”