University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Language Study 'Liberates'
From Monolingualism

I should like to have the
privilege of reacting to your editorial
entitled "Cramming It,"
which appeared in the December 4,
1969 issue of The Cavalier Daily, at
least to that part of it which
specifically makes reference to the
foreign language department.

I cannot but agree with your
editorialist when he writes that "we
would not be at all surprised if at
least fifty percent of those students
having met the existing requirements
will not even be remotely
proficient in their language at
graduation." It would be fallacious
to think, indeed, that over a period
of a few semesters with three or
four fifty minute meetings a week a
student would become "proficient"
in a foreign language.

I believe, however, that this is
not the point. We must distinguish,
I submit, between educational
values in general which all academic
subjects offer and values that are
indispensable to a liberal education.
If liberal education means, indeed,
a broadening and training of the
mind by pursuing knowledge for its
own sake, it should be remembered
that mind-training is largely verbal
training and "a single language Just
does not provide a sufficient range
of verbal perceptiveness for a
liberally educated person," as the
well-known English scholar, the late
William R. Parker, once said.

It would seem to me that the
study of a foreign language is a
"liberalizing" experience because,
among other things, it "liberates"
the mind from the shackles of
Monolingualism by removing the
limitations that the speech patterns
of a single language impose upon
individual thinking processes and,
by extension, upon national attitudes
and assumptions. Contact
with a foreign language - no matter
how limited it may be - makes you
realize that there are other ways of
expressing ideas and that your way
is neither unique nor the best. It
teaches tolerance towards alien
ways - and isn't tolerance, in the
last analysis, the mark of a truly
educated and enlightened person?

Paul A. Gaeng
Associate Professor
Romance Linguistics

—ed.

Language Essential

Your editorial "Faculty Fiefdoms"
in The Cavalier Daily for
Friday, December 5, is not especially
helpful in clarifying student
opinion.

I offered to give the keynote
speech in the campaign for the
retention of the language requirement,
out of a conviction, rein-
ford by a lifetime of experience
in Europe and America, that
knowledge of a foreign language is
an essential part of the equipment
of an educated person. The Department
of Art asks nothing from the
language departments and expects
to receive nothing. Our program
will stand or fall on its own merits.
There was no slightest hint of
"faculty politics" involved in our
support of the language requirement.

You refer the intelligent student
to computer translations. I wonder
how much of the quality of Dante,
Goethe, or Racine the computer
would leave intact, or, in fact, what
use a computer would be to the
student attempting to make his way
through a foreign country. You are
quite right in contending that most
college language teaching is insufficient
or actual utility. I, for one,
was abominably taught in Italian at
Columbia University many years
ago. I now speak, read and write
that language with some case and
fluency, achieved by long residence
in Italy. But I went there with at
least a knowledge of the basic
structure of the language, without
which I would have had a hard time
indeed, My contention was and
remains that language is an essential
means to extricate us from cultural
provincialism and to broaden our
international horizons.

In a college from which, as it
now appears, 25 per cent of the
students graduate each year with a
cumulative grade-point average of
less than 2.0, it is fair to ask what
else besides languages such students
will recall after graduation - even
in their major subjects.

Although as an historian and
critic of the arts I cannot share a
sociologist's feelings about the
value of language, I was deeply
impressed by Mr. Greene's principal
argument at yesterday's meeting,
ably summarized by your reporter.
So undoubtedly were many of my
colleagues, even while voting down
Mr. Greene's proposal. We would
indeed have a far more vital and
effective educational experience at
the University of Virginia if all
except a few spectacular lecture
courses could be given as "small
classes, with close contact, opportunity
for independent studies, and
the exposure to difficult moral
decisions."

Can such a system really be tried
out at a state university? How large
a faculty would it require? Where
would we find them?

Let us clear the air of charges
and counter-charges, in the faculty
meetings and in your columns, and
stick to the problems before us.
Who knows, we might even solve
some of them.

Computers Inept

I would like to correct some of
the basic assumptions behind the
editorial "Faculty Fiefdoms (sic)"
(Cavalier Daily, December 5, 1969).

One of the basic arguments in
this article claims that "Undergraduates
are intelligent enough to
know that not everyone in this day
of computer translation needs to
know a foreign language. They are
also intelligent enough to realize
that they aren't going to master the
language in three semesters they're
required to take."

In the first instance, the day of
computer translation is far from
being here. Many prominent linguists
consider the task fruitless and
that it will eventually prove impossible,
or at the very least, impractical.
Even those who are presently
working on this problem hold little
hope for effective "machine translation"
in the near future.

As of this past summer, when I
left one such project, the capability
to "parse" (analyse and translate)
passages up to one hundred words
in length had broken the 50% mark,
in some cases reaching 75%. Anything
longer could be treated with
only the possibility of retrieving a
maximum of 25% of the text
through translation.

The point is that even a student
with only three semesters of a
foreign language can do at least as
well as present computer programs
are capable of doing, and in most
cases much better. The computer is
only capable of doing what it is
programmed to do. Therefore it
cannot engage in free conversation
requiring independent thought.
Fortunately, undergraduates can
think independently, and are not
thoroughly programmed - yet.

Waste Of Time

I read with interest your
account of the Wednesday, Dec. 3,
faculty meeting. What especially
interested me was Mr. Alden's
statement that if the language
requirement were dropped, an increasing
number of students would
not take a foreign language. I, for
one, would not. Nor is my case at
all unique. I took three years of
Latin in high school, French my
senior year, French my first year
here, and I'm presently taking
French 5. In every language course
I've taken my grade has been an
"A," so I feel in a good position to
comment on our system here. I
would like to say that the total
knowledge I have gained from my
last five years of language study has
profited me little, if at all. I
consider my time spent studying
foreign languages in high school,
and my time spent here for the
same purpose, wasted time. The
foggy idea that one somehow
inhales the culture of a country
simultaneously with a drab language
course in its native language
-
this notion utterly falls the test
of experience. I know little more of
France than I knew at birth, and I
expect to know little more by the
end of French 6.

This, then, is why students will
leave the language departments in
droves, if given the chance. The
department may fall flat, but I
don't think it will, for there are still
many students around who want
just the type of course this college
offers. But the point is, there are
those of us who consider other
disciplines far more important at
this time. A language can be learned
at any time later in life, and far
more swiftly than it can be learned
here at the University. So, all I ask
is a chance to choose what courses I
think will do me the most good in
these short four years.

Moral Cowardice

The Faculty Curriculum Committee
should be thoroughly ashamed
of itself. Though I was not
present at its special session on
Tuesday, I imagine Committee
Chairman John H. Moore had 'em
writhing in their seats with his
foolish apology on their behalf.
With all the sophistry of a budding
union boss, Mr. Moore attempted
to conceal the real terror motivating
the Committee (of possibly
losing their jobs) by confusing
academic freedom with academic
discipline. The very next day, in
Wednesday's special session, the
College Faculty voted to retain the
language requirement in full. This
followed a lengthy debate over a
proposal by Professor William Little,
Chairman of the Department of
Germanic and Slavic Languages, to
increase the language requirement.
This preposterous motion was defeated,
98-77, by "a rather close
vote."

I think that moral cowardice of
this sort, if unchecked, will surely
do harm to the professional dedication
of our fine teachers.