37, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 1-3
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From the Editor
LAST February, Congress approved a resolution designating 2005 as the Year of Foreign Language Study. Citing the vital importance of knowledge of foreign languages and cultures to the United States national security, foreign policy, economy, and the needs of a diverse American population, the Year of Foreign Language Study calls for renewed dedication to the study of languages and cultures other than one’s own. In answer to this call, the Modern Language Association is conducting a survey of all members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives regarding their own knowledge of languages other than English. Results of this survey will be forthcoming.
In keeping with the spirit of the Year of Foreign Language Study, the MLA Language Map has undergone major expansion. Launched in 2004 and based on data provided by the 2000 United States census, the Language Map makes visible and easily researchable information concerning language communities and their locations. A click on the map of the United States that appears on the MLA home page (www.mla.org) lets the viewer discover at the national, state, county, or zip-code level cultural communities that speak English only and those that use a language other than English. Immediately acclaimed by the scholarly community, the media, and the public, the Language Map illustrates the census findings that, although English is unquestionably the language of the United States, almost 18% of Americans, or about 47,000,000, also speak languages other than English in their homes. Using choropleth maps (maps based on predefined units such as states or counties) to display numbers and locations at county and zip-code levels of speakers, the Language Map allows viewers to survey the distribution of language communities across the nation and to focus on the regions that appear most densely populated with speakers of a particular language.
Four new features have been added to the Language Map. The full listing of over 300 individual languages reported by the United States census takers has replaced the 30 languages and 10 compressed language groups (e.g., African Languages, Other Asian Languages) previously shown. In addition to displaying numbers of speakers, the maps now contextualize these numbers by giving percentages of the total population. A new age group—speakers sixty-five and over—has been added to the two original categories: those five to seventeen and those over eighteen years of age. Finally, self-reported information about respondents’ “ability to speak English” is being made available in two general categories: those claiming to speak English very well and well and those purporting to know English not very well or not at all.
These new features make possible a more finely grained understanding of American language communities. From a humanities perspective, information about the age and English ability of speakers allows the user of the MLA Language Map to estimate the effectiveness of the transfer of linguistic and cultural traditions between generations, to make inferences about a linguistic community regarding segregation from or progressive integration into English-language culture, and to gauge the potential longevity of a language and possibly of the community and cultural expressions that it sustains. From a practical perspective, age may provide information about the need for government services, such as school and health needs. The Language Map allows researchers in the humanities and social sciences to find the information they require, provides educational institutions with linguistic resources outside the classroom, offers social agencies an immediate understanding of the make-up of local communities, and presents the larger public with access to cultural communities. It is an informational and educational electronic tool for the twenty-first century. Beyond its many uses, the extraordinary achievement of the MLA Language Map is to have revealed visually the astonishing diversity of languages spoken in the United States.
As part of a Year of Languages celebration, the College of Charleston and the National Museum of Language have sponsored the development and distribution of a series of fifty-two five-minute radio spots written by experts on languages and linguistics. One spot is dedicated to the MLA Language Map and narrated by our own associate director and editor, David Goldberg, who is also the director of the MLA Language Map project. The spots address questions that a general audience might have about language, such as, Which language is the oldest? How do babies learn to talk? Where did the southern dialect come from? Whatever happened to Esperanto? Campus radio stations may be particularly interested in broadcasting the series. If you wish to have the series broadcast in your area or on your campus, send the name of the station and e-mail address of the station manager—or any questions or comments about the series—to Rick Rickerson at erickerson@comcast.net. You can see the full list of programs at www.cofc.edu/linguist/.
Changing social needs, shifting areas of interest for students and faculty members, and the demands of new programs are among the pressures bringing the administrative structures on some campuses to the point of collapse. How to renew and expand curricular offerings, how to attract younger generations, how to compete with new disciplines, how to create and integrate or redefine new fields—these are some of the questions explored in this issue of the ADFL Bulletin. A first cluster of articles, entitled “Advanced Literacies in a Multilingual Society” and introduced by Peter C. Pfeiffer, with contributions by Karen Newman, Heidi Byrnes, and Sara Castro-Klarén, revisits the issue of the status of literary texts in our teaching practices. In view of the June 2004 report from the National Endowment for the Arts signaling the decline of literary reading as an activity in our society, Pfeiffer calls our attention to the need for initiating conversations across departmental boundaries, that is, not only among departments but also within departments. Language learning, as Newman points out, is but ancillary in American higher education. Even ethnic studies programs, she observes, do not require linguistic competence, and, in some departments of comparative literature, theory has replaced what was once considered a sine qua non: reading ability in several languages. Newman underscores the need for advanced literacy, for learning to be attentive to language, to its figures and rhetorical devices. Such learning, she says, can be achieved through the study of languages other than English, but it can be achieved just as well through, say, the distancing effect of Shakespeare’s English. A longtime proponent of advanced competency in more than one language, Byrnes argues that “we are challenged to develop a framework for language that intimately relates knowing diverse languages to diverse ways of knowing and to present that link not as an elitist good or liberal fad but as a core American value across all social and economic strata.” Moving beyond the self-proclaimed moral value of learning languages other than one’s own, beyond pragmatic arguments, and beyond calls for dialogue among people, Byrnes makes the case for a level of competence for understanding sociocultural practices through language as a means of access to participation in a multicultural society. Calling attention to the multiculturalism imbedded in the offerings of Spanish departments, Castro-Klarén points out the many cultural strata that form and inform Spanish as an institutionalized field. As she demonstrates, languages compose the tectonic plates that support, move, and at times destroy cultures diachronically and spatially along the divides of historical time and geographic displacements. Language-based cultural literacy then becomes for Castro-Klarén the heuristic device that allows her to deconstruct the historical and epistemological parameters of the field of Spanish on American campuses.
As Castro-Klarén’s article shows in literary works, language can be one of the signs revealing cultural shifts. Representation is another element of literature that has been studied to measure cultural mutations or used as an instrument for implementing social change. Teaching reading and reading itself are then not neutral acts, but acts imbued with social responsibility. In “Mountains beyond Mountains: Role Models and the ‘Problem of Goodness’ in Socially Engaged Teaching,” Kimberly A. Nance analyzes the paradoxical and perverse effects of presenting “good models.” In the age of multiculturalism, with its multitudes of communities bringing forth heroes of their past, this is a topic of particular relevance. But as Nance suggests, the reception encountered by “heroes” may not be the feelings writers or teachers hope to arouse in readers. Hence instead of presenting examples of heroic lives, showing successful social actions by a normal individual may help establish a bond of “pragmatic solidarity” between all parties involved in the acts of reading and writing.
Whereas competency in a language other than English is by no means the accepted rule in institutions of higher education, or even a requirement in many programs such as cultural studies, international relations, and European studies, our Canadian neighbors, already committed to bilingual education in some provinces, are strongly encouraging language learning. In “Kino and Kaffee,” Sima Godfrey, of the University of British Columbia, describes a successful interdepartmental program open to both students and the public that attracted a wide audience and called attention to German studies. Culturally and intellectually rewarding, easy to establish, and not very costly, these kinds of events make departments visible on campus and link them with the outside community.
Two pieces in this issue of the ADFL Bulletin should be required reading for graduate students on the job market. The first, “What Should You Expect from the MLA Job Interview? And What Do Your Interviewers Expect from You?,” by Dennis Looney, lays out the dynamics and usual moments in the course of job interviews. The second, “The Upside of ‘Fit’: A Cautionary Tale for Job Seekers,” by Jenifer K. Ward, tells job seekers, for whom graduate school is often the sole referent, that small colleges can also offer exciting career options.
To honor Mahmoud al-Batal, who received the 2004 ADFL Award for Distinguished Service in the Profession, we include three articles on the teaching of Arabic. Ellen McLarney recounts her experiences as a student of Arabic before and after the publication of al-Kitaab, a series of texts written by al-Batal, Kristen Brustad, and Abbas al-Tonsi for American students of Arabic. Raji M. Rammuny describes a new interactive multimedia program for students who want to expand their communication skills in Arabic, and Roger Allen reveals some of the rich and challenging literary texts composed by contemporary writers of the Maghrib belonging to distinct cultural communities situated along the southern border of the Mediterranean.
Finally, of crucial interest to readers of the ADFL Bulletin is an article by Natalia Lusin reporting the results of a small ADFL in-house survey of chairs’ compensation. Although only 211 chairs answered, their responses can be considered revealing. Broken down by degree-granting institutions, the percentages of respondents correspond closely to percentages of ADFL department members in each type of institution. In other words, the sample is highly representative. Make good use of this information and do not hesitate to share these results with colleagues on your campus.
Nelly Furman
© 2005 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 37, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 1-3 |
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