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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fremdsprachen
- Serie: Why It Matters
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
It might seem as if globalization is making the whole world speak English. But spend time in any major city and you are likely to encounter a cornucopia of languages. Even monolingual people have different ways of speaking to their bosses or teachers, their intimate friends or their pets. And if you live in India or Nigeria, you might use five different languages during a typical day. Katrin Kohl makes a passionate case for why we must embrace languages in all their diversity. When you study a language, you open a unique doorway into the world, immerse yourself in a different way of seeing, and discover new ways of communicating with people from different cultures on their terms. Kohl argues that language diversity is of vital importance to human societies, sustaining the complexity of human nature, culture and technology. We should care about preserving it as much as we care about preserving the diversity of our biological world.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface: Why Languages Matter
1 Understanding Identity
Divergence and Convergence in the World of Languages
Cultural Identities and Language Diversity
Preserving Linguistic Identities
Languages as a Political Minefield
Notes
2 Experimenting with a New Medium
Tapping into Creative Potential
Everyone’s a Linguist
Committing to a Language
The Infinite Potential of Transferable Skills
Notes
3 Exploring Difference
Untranslatable Words?
Translating Nuggets of Cultural History
The Past and Future of Translation
Notes
4 Training Cultural Intelligence
The Role of Languages in Cultural Intelligence
Does Language Influence How We Think?
Cultural Intelligence in Practice
Recognizing Limits
Notes
5 Developing the Imagination
Straight to the Heart
Creative Subversions
Stimulating the Imagination
Notes
6 Negotiating Globalization
National Identity and Globalization
Legacies of Colonialism
National or Transnational?
Empowering Language Diversity
Notes
Afterword: Sustaining a Multilingual Future
Notes
Further Reading
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Preface: Why Languages Matter
Begin Reading
Afterword: Sustaining a Multilingual Future
Further Reading
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.
The architectural image on the cover of the French dictionary …
Figure 2.
The annual National Eisteddfod of Wales culminates in the Chairing of …
Chapter 3
Figure 3a.
The Rosetta Stone, with a decree passed by a council of priests …
Figure 3b.
Inscription in hieroglyphs, including a cartouche with the name …
Figure 3c.
Inscription in ancient Greek, including the name Ptolemy: ΠΤΟΛΕΜƇΙΟΣ.
Chapter 4
Figure 4.
Whereas the People’s Republic of China has imposed simplified …
Chapter 5
Figure 5.
Albert Camus, La Peste (Le Livre de Poche 132) …
Chapter 6
Figure 6.
A page from the Codex Mendoza (1541). This part of the codex records …
Figure 7.
Unattributed cartoon published on 3 January 1885 in the French …
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Polity’s Why It Matters series
In these short and lively books, world-leading thinkers make the case for the importance of their subjects and aim to inspire a new generation of students.
Helen Beebee & Michael Rush, PhilosophyNick Couldry, MediaRobert Eaglestone, LiteratureAndrew Gamble, PoliticsLynn Hunt, HistoryTim Ingold, AnthropologyKatrin Kohl, Modern LanguagesNeville Morley, ClassicsAlexander B. Murphy, GeographyGeoffrey K. Pullum, LinguisticsMichael Schudson, JournalismGraham Ward, Theology and Religion
Modern Languages
Why It Matters
Katrin Kohl
polity
Copyright © Katrin Kohl 2021
The right of Katrin Kohl to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Polity Press
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press101 Station LandingSuite 300Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4055-6
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Kohl, Katrin M. (Katrin Maria), 1956- author.Title: Modern languages / Katrin Kohl.Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2020. | Series: Why it matters | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A star scholar’s passionate treatise on how learning other languages can change how we see the world, for the better”-- Provided by publisher.Identifiers: LCCN 2020033692 (print) | LCCN 2020033693 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509540532 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509540549 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509540556 (epub)Subjects: LCSH: Languages, Modern--Study and teaching. | Language and languages--Study and teaching--Foreign speakers. | Language and culture.Classification: LCC PB35 .K64 2020 (print) | LCC PB35 (ebook) | DDC 407.1--dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033692LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033693
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
Preface: Why Languages Matter
Learning another language unlocks new doors onto the world, and opens doors onto new worlds. It confronts us with different ways of expressing even simple ideas, and enables us to experience ways in which language shapes how we think. Pursuing language learning in the context of studying modern languages develops an understanding of the deep connections between language and culture – and their interdependence.
We all share ‘language’ – but nobody speaks ‘language’ as such. It always comes in the form of a particular language that has evolved in a concrete social context. The language with its sounds, words and grammatical structures will have been fashioned by the people who speak it to articulate their kinship relations and hierarchical systems, cultural practices and social concerns, political activities and experiences, trading methods and economic theories, engagement with the local natural world and conception of religious beliefs. That process carries on as we speak – a living language continues to evolve in response to social developments, migration, technical innovation, political pressures and contact with other languages.
Modern languages as a discipline matters in a wide range of ways. Studying one or more languages and the associated cultures opens our minds to different perspectives on the world and different ways of doing things. It immeasurably expands our intellectual horizons and takes us into new worlds of thought and history, literature and art, business practices and political structures. Gaining deep expertise in one or more languages permits immersion in a new context far removed from our comfort zone. It makes travel more rewarding and permits first-hand contact with people from a different culture.
Studying modern languages will always build on the language or languages we know and enrich our understanding of them. Learning a second language opens up the world of language difference. For a student who has grown up with more than one language, familiarity with language difference will form the matrix in which the new language or languages can become embedded. If Urdu or Swahili, Polish or Chinese, Portuguese or Turkish are spoken in the home, this can form a valuable basis for increasing multilingual and multicultural competence, and enhancing appreciation of the value every language has in the global conversation.
This book is concerned primarily with languages as an academic discipline and course of study, though much of what is discussed can also apply to language learning more generally. The term ‘modern languages’ is used here as the generic term for the discipline, though the name can depend on the institutional context. The UK school system, for example, uses ‘modern foreign languages’. The designation ‘modern’ reflects the emergence of the subject in an academic context that was dominated by the ‘classical languages’ Latin and Greek. Names for degrees vary widely, however – one might follow a degree course in ‘Asian languages’, or pursue the study of Russian language and culture within the framework of ‘Eastern European studies’.
To what extent modern languages constitutes a ‘discipline’ is a matter of debate, because it is inherently ‘interdisciplinary’. Researchers in the field pursue highly diverse projects that might be connected with linguistics, politics, history, literature, film, music, anthropology, gender studies, sociology, refugee studies . . . the list is infinite. What lies at the heart of modern languages, though, is the deep connection between language and culture – language in all its facets, and culture in all its guises. Not language in the abstract, or culture in the abstract, but both together, in a live process of interaction.
While language courses in schools tend to focus mainly on developing language skills, universities offer much more choice. Levels of proficiency may extend from courses for beginners to courses for students with advanced knowledge of the language or languages. ‘Languages for all’ courses are typically taught in a dedicated language centre in addition to the student’s main area of study, which may be in any subject area. In a modern languages degree programme, by contrast, language learning is central to the course, with some degrees combining modern languages with another subject such as history, English literature, philosophy, politics, business studies or a science. Studying for a degree in modern languages involves both learning the practical skills of using one or two (occasionally three) languages, and the study of those languages in their interaction with cultural and social contexts.
Modern languages tends to be understood as a humanities discipline with interdisciplinary reach and often strong connections with social sciences. Alongside training practical skills in the language or languages that are being learned, degree courses in modern languages usually include translation, a rich array of options focused on cultural topics, and frequently also historically and politically focused options. Courses normally involve an extended period spent in a country or countries where the language or languages are spoken, offering an immensely enriching opportunity for immersion in the language and culture and potentially for career experience in a new cultural environment.
Students of modern languages may go on to become journalists or teachers, translators or diplomats, interpreters or intelligence officers. Some go into business, others into acting, publishing, law, humanitarian work or conservation. The process of studying one or more languages to degree level brings deep knowledge of one or more languages and their interaction with their cultural contexts, and it develops the ability to learn further languages efficiently. Moreover, it trains a very wide range of ‘transferable skills’ – a concept that encompasses all the skills honed during the degree course. They range from highly developed powers of analysis and imaginative interpretation through to sophisticated oral and written communication skills. These provide benefits for any career and create opportunities across the whole spectrum of potential jobs.
Whatever the personal interests and educational pathway, the modern linguist will be an important voice in a world which faces challenges that are simultaneously local and global: climate change, migration, social and educational inequality. Addressing such challenges needs people who know why languages matter.
1Understanding Identity
Our language is our most important means of communication. It enables us to express ourselves, sustains our relationships with our family and friends, empowers us to shape our community and organize our society politically, allows us to conduct trade and create verbal art, and provides us with the means to share our interests and concerns with other groups of people across the globe.
Yet already in this general list, there is an issue about which language achieves all these things. ‘My’ language is generally fine for talking to the members of my family – though this may not be true if I have parents from different countries or communities. And it may be sufficient for communicating with other members of my society – that will depend on where I live and whether all those people speak the same language as I do. If I live in India, for example, I might need around five languages in my daily interactions with other people. For trade, my language will not be enough if I want to do business with people whose language is different from my own – they will be happy to sell me their products in my language, but if I want to persuade them to buy my products, I will be well advised to engage with them on their terms, in the language they feel most comfortable with. And I will need more than one language to engage with other people across the globe: it is estimated that there are some 6,500–7,000 languages in the world,1 and while some are gradually dying out as their speakers diminish, others are emerging – an example is Hinglish (a blend of Hindi and English).
Our language, or languages, are fundamental to our personal identity, an intrinsic part of us, deeply embedded in our psyche, and a key force that connects us with our social group. And languages (in the plural) are fundamental to humankind. Research has shown that babies already develop awareness of language difference before they are born.2 Evidently such awareness is one of our most fundamental life skills, and one we are equipped to develop throughout our lives. As we evolve our sense of self in interaction with our environment, we are continually drawing on, and interacting with, the languages we hear around us. They play a crucial part in making us who we are.
Studying modern languages takes us further on that journey, and it provides a sustained opportunity to discover and explore how deeply a language is connected with the cultural contexts in which it has evolved and to which it contributes. This intrinsic connection is at the heart of why studying modern languages matters.
Divergence and Convergence in the World of Languages
In studying modern languages, the language or languages we know play an important part. Language learning is therefore always a process that enables us to gain an insight into how languages relate to each other: in what ways they are similar, and how they diverge. The differences will always be significant, though if the languages are relatively closely related, we may be able to benefit from similarities in the grammar and from ‘cognates’: words that historically derive from the same source and have the same or a similar meaning. Approaching a language from English may also give access to English loan words that have entered its vocabulary, for example in the field of electronic media. In negotiating such differences and similarities, we gain first-hand practical experience of two complementary processes that are continually at work in the world of languages: divergence, or growing apart, and convergence, or growing together. Both tendencies have left their multifarious traces in the history of languages.
Globalization, and the increasing importance of technology in our communication practices, can make it seem as if we are all gradually converging on a small number of ‘world languages’ and indeed that everyone will shortly speak ‘global English’. But this would be to misunderstand the role languages play in communication, and to assume that divergence is a thing of the past, with language development being unidirectional so that we might eventually expect all people to speak the same language. In fact, divergence – which we might also think of as diversification, i.e. creating increasing variety – appears to be as universal in languages as convergence.
Already in ancient times, the people who created the myth of the Tower of Babel dreamed of the single ‘perfect’ language that would allow all human beings to communicate without language barriers and collaborate effortlessly on the project of building a tower tall enough to reach heaven. They located that language in the past – before God issued the curse of linguistic diversification designed to prevent the people from challenging his power: ‘Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth’ (Genesis 11:7–8). The myth will have emerged from everyday experience of the interplay between very local languages and more widespread ‘lingua francas’ – a Latin term denoting a shared language between groups of people whose local languages are mutually unintelligible. The myth connects linguistic diversification with migration, reflecting an interaction which is a powerful force in globalization today.
In general terms, it would undoubtedly be convenient if everyone spoke the same language. Correspondingly, Polish ophthalmologist Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof invented Esperanto in the late nineteenth century to establish a universal lingua franca that could be learned easily and would promote peace. As ‘conlangs’ (constructed languages) go, the experiment was very successful and, on some estimates, there are now two million Esperanto speakers. However, this is a tiny number by comparison with the well over one billion speakers of English and Mandarin respectively, and the over five hundred million speakers each of Hindi and Spanish. What Esperanto lacks is the connection to a particular group identity and tradition that is typical of ‘natural’ languages, and the political and social power base which is generally associated with languages that become lingua francas, such as Latin in antiquity, French in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, and English, Mandarin, Hindi and Spanish in their various contexts today.
The rise of artificial intelligence also sheds light on the interplay between convergence and divergence in the world of languages. We can now conceive of a world in which communication would be structured around the use of robots and geared to serving useful purposes with the least possible expenditure of resources. It would then be feasible to have only one language – currently probably English – and everyone would have to learn it in order to be able to access the necessities of daily life. But people are different. We are social beings, and we prize our distinctive identities. We evolve and express these through our cultural practices – and our language. The world of AI has recognized this. Developments in AI are converging neither on Robotspeak nor just on English. There is currently also considerable investment in other languages, with companies like Google or Amazon wanting to diversify their language offering far beyond mainstream languages. In the course of this development, there have in fact been reports of chatbots developing a distinctive language in conversation with each other . . .3
