Concluding Thoughts
I have learned a lot over this course about what it means to be multilingual, how different languages behave with one another, and what English's place in the world is, among other linguistic topics. This way of thinking has led me to look at all languages, dialects, and ways of combining languages (code-switching) as valid and equal ways that serve the original purpose that language was created to do - to communicate.
Kasaiplowova's reading last week even changed my mind on pidgin, which I've always seen popular culture depicting as being used by unintelligent people or creatures, and now I believe that pidgin is a perfectly fine way of communicating and that intelligence is not based upon the language someone speaks or the way someone speaks in general. When I thought of pidgin, I thought of characters like Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, a character who is portrayed as an imbecile primarily through his pidgin speak for comedic effect.
Obviously, my thoughts on linguistics have been reshaped by this course, I think for the better. But I can't forget how I used to think of language before - as a tool for furthering one's career. That's what I've always thought of Spanish as. I've enjoyed a trip to Spain and I must say that my appreciation for their culture was enhanced by my understanding of their language, and although my love for the language is important, it was always secondary to learning Spanish for utility. This idea - turning learning a language into a calculated decision based upon utility - is not uncommon, even among linguists it seems. For my second essay, many linguists (on both sides of the debate over whether or not English should be taught as a foreign language or a lingua franca) had underlying assumptions that language should be taught for utility.
Last semester my friend who was taking Russian showed me this map of the world that categorized every language within tiers of how hard it is for native English speakers to learn, and then told me about how he used the map to make a calculated decision on whether to take Russian or Chinese. Because Chinese was a tier V language and Russian was a tier IV, and because other sources listed Chinese as harder than Russian, he picked Russian. The time difference between learning a tier IV and tier V on this map's metric was 1100 hours, so a good few hours. I've begun to wonder whether that's right after all I've learned about language this semester. I've thought it over, and I think my final answer is that it is right. A lot of us are SIS majors, and speaking another language is almost a must for us. My friend is an SIS major, and he obviously weighed the utility and the ease of learning a language over whether or not he likes the language, but is that bad? He is also fluent in Mongolian and intermediate in Japanese, which the US State Department Foreign Service Institue classifies as category III and category IV respectively. It's not as if he views language purely as a transaction of time and money for knowledge and the ability to communicate, but that is a part of it. We're humans, and our time on Earth is limited, so why is making an informed decision like choosing Russian over Chinese a bad thing? I think it's important to look at both sides: acknowledging that each language is unique, interesting, yet equal while still accepting that you can't learn every language there is.
Here is the US State Department Foreign Service Institue's classification of each language:
https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/
Kasaiplowova's reading last week even changed my mind on pidgin, which I've always seen popular culture depicting as being used by unintelligent people or creatures, and now I believe that pidgin is a perfectly fine way of communicating and that intelligence is not based upon the language someone speaks or the way someone speaks in general. When I thought of pidgin, I thought of characters like Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, a character who is portrayed as an imbecile primarily through his pidgin speak for comedic effect.
Obviously, my thoughts on linguistics have been reshaped by this course, I think for the better. But I can't forget how I used to think of language before - as a tool for furthering one's career. That's what I've always thought of Spanish as. I've enjoyed a trip to Spain and I must say that my appreciation for their culture was enhanced by my understanding of their language, and although my love for the language is important, it was always secondary to learning Spanish for utility. This idea - turning learning a language into a calculated decision based upon utility - is not uncommon, even among linguists it seems. For my second essay, many linguists (on both sides of the debate over whether or not English should be taught as a foreign language or a lingua franca) had underlying assumptions that language should be taught for utility.
Last semester my friend who was taking Russian showed me this map of the world that categorized every language within tiers of how hard it is for native English speakers to learn, and then told me about how he used the map to make a calculated decision on whether to take Russian or Chinese. Because Chinese was a tier V language and Russian was a tier IV, and because other sources listed Chinese as harder than Russian, he picked Russian. The time difference between learning a tier IV and tier V on this map's metric was 1100 hours, so a good few hours. I've begun to wonder whether that's right after all I've learned about language this semester. I've thought it over, and I think my final answer is that it is right. A lot of us are SIS majors, and speaking another language is almost a must for us. My friend is an SIS major, and he obviously weighed the utility and the ease of learning a language over whether or not he likes the language, but is that bad? He is also fluent in Mongolian and intermediate in Japanese, which the US State Department Foreign Service Institue classifies as category III and category IV respectively. It's not as if he views language purely as a transaction of time and money for knowledge and the ability to communicate, but that is a part of it. We're humans, and our time on Earth is limited, so why is making an informed decision like choosing Russian over Chinese a bad thing? I think it's important to look at both sides: acknowledging that each language is unique, interesting, yet equal while still accepting that you can't learn every language there is.
Here is the US State Department Foreign Service Institue's classification of each language:
https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/
I think you make a good point about many viewing language learning as purely transactional. I wouldn't say this is overtly wrong, however I think a part of the joy of learning is often lost when learning solely for the sake of utility.
ReplyDeleteFollowing up on Olivia's note, if either of you are interested in following that line of thought, researchers have posited a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in language learning. Loosely speaking, "joy of learning" aligns with intrinsic motivation and learning "as a tool for one's career" aligns with extrinsic motivation; there's a lot more to it (academic research, right?). Anyhow, these weeks are probably crazy with exams and final projects and all, but perhaps someday you might be interested in looking into these motivations further.
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