So I missed yesterday’s debate because I don’t have CNN and because I was going to a basketball game at the time anyway… But I did glean this one response when looking through transcripts, because someone had pointed it out on a blog somewhere and I thought it was important.
Barack on foreign language education (and bilingual education): “… But I also want to make sure that English-speaking children are getting foreign languages because this world is becoming more interdependent, and part of the process of America’s continued leadership in the world is going to be our capacity to communicate across boundaries, across borders. And that’s something, frankly, that’s fallen very — where we’ve fallen behind.”
As a Global Studies major, I was frankly pretty impressed by this response. Not necessarily because it’s a revolutionary idea, but because it shows progress beyond a simple nativist/bilingual dichotomy. I’m generally fairly displeased by all these attempts to ‘officialize’ English (for a variety of reasons), mostly because it’s pretty discriminatory and anti-immigrant. But something most people miss in all the nativist backlash towards foreign speakers is how far back America is positioning ourselves in terms of continuing to lead a globalized economy. In multilingual nations – or nations where kids are forced to learn the lingua franca AND another more prestigious world language – kids naturally gain the advantage of bridging cultures (and the personal development provided through learning languages). These are the kids who will be able to best operate in the global village, not, unfortunately, kids in America where second-language learning is a low priority. Think about Roger Federer – grew in polyglot Switzerland, and now speaks 3 languages and a dialect fluently (and eloquently, I must say). I hope there is some way we can give those types of linguistic experiences to our youth.
Update: an interesting note… I was reading through one of my class textbooks, Immigrant America, by Portes and Rumbaut today. In the chapter talking about language and education, Portes and Rumbaut make the argument that the acceptance of nativist rhetoric might be partially driven by competition within the marketplace. Specifically, studies have shown that bilinguals tend to have positive educational outcomes, and additionally bilinguals have the extra personal capital that comes with speaking the extra language. Thus, the presence of bilinguals threatens the economic chances of English monolinguals, so it is in the economic interest of monolinguals to ask bilinguals to ‘lose’ their second language.’ I must say, while this is a connect-the-dots sort of argument, I’ve never really thought about it like that before… Not sure what I think of the argument.
