Printz writer complains about foreign language requirement - USM Forum -- Message Board

Invictus · Status: Offline

RE: Printz writer complains about foreign language requirement

Jameela Lares · Status: Offline

Invictus wrote:

Okay, so how do we justify requiring students to have a reading knowledge of a foreign language for "research purposes" in this age when English has become the lingua franca of so many disciplines?

So we fall back on "producing well-rounded individuals" or somesuch stuff & at that point, Amlesan is as good as anything else...

I'm glad you asked, Invictus. First of all, the research tool is a graduate requirement, which you seem to be conflating with the undergraduate foreign language requirement.

And what's wrong with actually understanding that the world doesn't all think the way we do? See brochure.

While I agree that Amlesan can be valuable to those with a research interest in speech and hearing, it will still represent American culture and thought patterns, so it wouldn't in fact have the same benefit a foreign language of enlarging someone's horizons, allowing them to think outside the constraints of their own culture (and grammar), and so forth.

Also, having a lingua franca is not the same as having a common language. Linguae francae are reduced communication systems, more denotation than connotation. Okay in the lab, but not enough for a Bob Dylan.

Cheers,

JL

Invictus · Status: Offline

Jameela Lares wrote:

Also, having a lingua franca is not the same as having a common language. Linguae francae are reduced communication systems, more denotation than connotation. Okay in the lab, but not enough for a Bob Dylan.

Ah, separated by the boundaries of a common language, as one of my old Dylanistas (coincidentally a worker bee at the West Library at Cambridge) once put it. In fact, the story is quite a favorite of mine & involves me describing Pentecostal women as having "long hair, never wearing pants & wearing red stilleto heels straight from the Frederick's of Hollywood catalog." Needless to say, my friend had to remind me that "pants" means something a bit, um, different in the UK. Or as he put it, "For a brief moment, I considered leaving my wife of 20 years & my children & heading straight for America, where I would join you in a travelling tent revival tour."

Learning a second language is valuable. At this juncture in U.S. history, I'd think that learning Spanish should be something any student ought to want to do. In fact, I can't imagine a student pursuing a degree in Business Administration, for example, not realizing that being able to speak Spanish is pretty much going to be a requirement for doing business...

Of course, my friend in England says that about Sanskrit, which is what he does for a living...

Jameela Lares · Status: Offline

Invictus wrote:

Ah, separated by the boundaries of a common language, as one of my old Dylanistas (coincidentally a worker bee at the West Library at Cambridge) once put it.

Do you mean the Cambridge University Library on West Road? I tend to work there when I'm in Cambridge. I'm always interested in networking, so perhaps should ask for an introduction. But on the other hand, since I have neither Sanskrit nor much Dylan, this person might not find me very interesting.

Er, speaking of languages, is Dylanista the common term? In the Romance language(s) from which the construction is taken, that would be feminine, yet this Sanskrit scholar is apparently a bloke.

And was said bloke playing with the actual quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw, "England and America are two countries separated by the same language"?

Cheers,

Jameela

ram · Status: Offline

Jameela Lares wrote:

While I agree that Amlesan can be valuable to those with a research interest in speech and hearing, it will still represent American culture and thought patterns, so it wouldn't in fact have the same benefit a foreign language of enlarging someone's horizons, allowing them to think outside the constraints of their own culture (and grammar), and so forth.

I've got to figure that a chief benefit of any language is the ability to communicate with the native users. Communicate for any length of time with deaf folks and you will learn about "hearing" culture from a new perspective: Consider the experience of leaving your home, driving to a business, standing in line waiting your turn, only to be interrupted when the person behind the counter turns away to answer a telephone. True, that should be frustrating even for a hearing person, but we tend to defer to the telephone. We think it odd if a phone is ever left unanswered. Deaf people think we are nuts to be enslaved to such devices. (I'd love to know what they think about hearing people using cell phones while they drive -- particularly in light of the common complaint that deaf people must not be safe drivers.)

When I studied ASL years ago, I was entertained by the unexpected differences between that language and my own. Like most beginners, I looked for a correspondence between words and signs. In fact, the first sentence I learned in sign was "What (is) (the) sign for _________?" Then I would fingerspell the word for which I was searching. That was handy for concrete nouns, but it didn't work so well when I asked for the sign that meant "have." There is one sign for "have" meaning possession, another sign for "have to" meaning imperative, and yet another for "have" as used in forming the present perfect aspect with past participles. "Have you eaten?" might be signed, "Finish eat you?" (There can be a signed "question mark" but the question is usually indicated by facial expression.

ASL doesn't even have a sign for our verb "to be." There are initialized versions of the sign that means "true," or "real" that are often used by us English speakers to feed our fixation for that verb. I could sign "me true stupid" if I just have to have ("have to have"?) a sign between the noun sign and the verb sign, but the signs "me stupid" would convey the same idea as would the spoken, "I am stupid."