Emily Bird
As a recent languages graduate, I have received my fair share of raised eyebrows and questioning “why’s?” when it comes to answering the question “what do you study?” With statistics showing that only 38% of Brits speak one foreign language, I find myself asking the same question in return: why?
Technology In Moderation
I am currently halfway through my time as an English Language Assistant in Germany, and I have noticed a stark contrast between my experience learning German in the UK and my students’ experiences learning English.
English is becoming a global Lingua Franca with the help of social media, Netflix shows and readily-available digital music platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, but is this the only deciding factor in its international influence?
Of course, technology has its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to its influence on language and communication. However, us linguists tend to have a more tenuous relationship with it, primarily due to its scary ability to rapidly improve and learn new vocabulary at the blink of an eye – no flashcards and Quizlet for these guys! In fact, many of the “why’s?” I mentioned above are swiftly followed with “we have Google Translate.” (Google Translate? – At least give me some credit).
“There is nothing better than trying to communicate with someone in their own native language.”
Robotic Interactions
We may have online translators such as Google Translate and DeepL, but let us think about this in practice.
I recently saw an advert for a new and improved translation feature on a smartphone. A man travels to Japan to explore Tokyo and try some authentic Japanese food. However, the man in question didn’t speak a word of Japanese – don’t worry, he had his snazzy, travel-friendly translation feature to save the day! Simply speak into the phone and it will conjure up a translation in the selected language.
What kind of impression does this give not only of the man in the advert, but of English natives as a whole?
Imagine being the salesman on the receiving end of the monotonous, robotic voice coming out of the speaker, and being expected to respond back through the same device. It is quite simply dehumanising. It implies that we not only expect the rest of the world to speak our language (although, granted, many of them do), but it also demonstrates a level of ignorance and insensitivity.
“How would our perspective on languages and culture differ, if we taught foreign languages from a younger age?”
I understand the arguments are not as black and white as I make them out to be. Of course, I have used online translators and they have, in most cases, been a useful tool (in moderation).
However, it is when we rely on them as our only source of communication that they can really lead to laziness and for me, there is nothing better than trying to communicate with someone in their own native language.
The Language Of Brexit
How would our perspective on languages and culture differ, if we taught foreign languages from a younger age?
For instance, Germany introduced English teaching in primary schools as a compulsory subject, which continues throughout secondary school. Not only are my students better at English than I was at either French or German at their respective ages, but they have a genuine interest in the language and its history. I would be intrigued to see how a Brexit voter would react to seeing an old Anglo-Saxon text or a snippet from Beowulf, with all its deep Germanic origins.
After all, languages shape our identities and our ways of thinking. Would we have left the EU if we were more open to learning a language, or were better educated on our deep historical ties to our neighbouring European counterparts? Perhaps not.
Many Brexiteers present our nation as ‘us’ against ‘them.’ An ‘us’ that stands alone from the crowds and represents an independent Britain, searching for a Churchill-esque euphoria of days gone by.
Plummeting numbers of German A-Level students each year suggest a bleak Anglo-centric nation is on the rise, and languages could be just what we need to turn this around.
With anglicisms creeping into global lexicons, we must ask ourselves whether English will be a future global language and with that, whether we should have a global Lingua Franca at all?
Featured image courtesy of Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash. No changes were made to this image. The image license can be found here.
embi98
I’m a modern languages graduate currently living and working in Japan. I enjoy writing about politics, travel and languages and I hope you enjoy the read.