How does a languages, linguistics or area studies degree equip you for life as a global citizen?
A mountainside in Bosnia at dawn. That’s where I decided I was going to study languages. It’s when you stop for a moment and look out into the distance at villages and towns; mountains and valleys stretching right towards what seems like a never-ending sea that you realise just how small you are, and just how amazingly large this world is. It was on that mountainside that I suddenly thought about how much I would be wasting if I spent my life in one place. Ancient Christian theologian Saint Augustine is thought to have said that
“the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page”.
Trying to understand a novel by reading merely a page is not difficult. It is impossible. The same, therefore, can be said of trying to be a global citizen without leaving one’s home country.
Of course, travelling doesn’t necessarily mean having to learn languages. You can just about get by wandering the continents using vague hand gestures and you’re always bound to find someone who speaks English eventually. I’ll admit that. Visit any country and you’ll be able to spot the British, madly waving maps at confused locals or pointing at what they want on a menu and talking English in loud, slow voices. Maybe it works, but are these people really experiencing the world? Maybe they’re reading more than a page of the book, but are they understanding it, or are they just looking at the pictures?
People cling on to their native language because it feels safe. It’s familiar. Perhaps the biggest obstacle stopping people from learning languages is fear; the fear that they “can’t” become fluent in a language which is not their own because it is hard to do. Languages challenge us because they take us away from what is ordinary to us- they present us with different rules, different sounds and different words which make no sense until we learn how to decipher them. Learning a new language is like cracking a code to unlock a renewed understanding of the world, and it is not always easy. I would argue, though, that the challenge is what makes languages so exciting. This might sound like a terrible cliché, but the longer and harder one works for something, the greater the sense of achievement is at the end. I know from experience that it’s true. The first time you read a French novel from beginning to end, or ask for directions in Venice, you experience a feeling of such pride with which little else is comparable.
Many people associate language learning with their days at school, sitting in a stuffy classroom, trying to memorise lines of German, French or Spanish which were to be used for any possible exam question but would ultimately prove useless in “real life”. They find themselves wondering how many foreigners would really be interested in what their secondary school looked like or where they spent their summer holiday last year. It doesn’t have to be like that, though. It takes no more than intuition and a little imagination to put the words in new orders; to play with the language to make new sentences and build up a vocabulary. Each new word you learn is another accomplishment. Each new sentence you create is another step towards being able to communicate in a country which might be on the other side of the world.
A friend once asked me why I enjoy studying languages so much. She argued that communication and trade between countries would be easier if there existed only one, universal language. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps it would be easier this way. Surely, though, it would be incredibly dull? The world is full of such diversity and variety, and that is what makes it so wonderful. Imagine if there was one universal colour, one universal smell, one universal costume and one universal attitude. We would not be able to define each country, or have anything to learn from other nations. A language is so much more than words. It represents a whole culture; reveals values and traditions developed over centuries. The theory of linguistic relativity suggests that language affects the way in which speakers are able to interpret the world which surrounds them. In 1820, Wilhelm von Humboldt, a German philosopher who studied and supported this hypothesis, said;
“The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world”[1].
Therefore, without the variety of languages we enjoy today, we would hardly be able to call ourselves “global citizens”. We would all simply be “citizens”. The book of the world would be little more than a page.
The most important thing to realise about languages is that what you learn from a textbook or a classroom or a lecture theatre is a mere fraction of what is to be learnt. Maths or Biology may seem more logical- students solve problems to which there is always a definite answer, and this often makes these subjects appealing. However, you can not learn from a laboratory how to greet a friend in China. No amount of problem solving will tell you how the national dish of Guadeloupe tastes. The most essential part of language study is opening the classroom door and stepping out into the world. To become a true citizen of the world, one must take the bull by the horns and study Spanish, or try to cut the mustard in learning French. By opening that one classroom door, you open a thousand others, because being fluent in at least one language makes you rare and interesting.
A “global citizen” is not someone who wears an Italian suit to work, drives a German car home and picks up an Indian curry on the way, never bothering to learn any more than what is necessary. A “global citizen” is someone who thrives on the gratitude they see in a foreign shop owner’s smile when the former at least tries to use the latter’s language. The world is a book, and when you take the opportunity to explore a language and its culture, all of the chapters suddenly become unlocked and you can read so much more than a page. The world is a book, and once you start reading it, it is hard to put down.
[1]Trabant, Jürgen."How relativistic are Humboldts "Weltansichten"?" chapter in Pütz & Verspoor 2000.