Blog

A recent fire-storm in linguistic circles reminds me why I study language --- and why it's important to do so.  A series of news articles were recently published which recall an age-old linguistic myth: that the way you talk is somehow a reflection of your intellectual or moral character.  In this case, the suggestion was made (by a university professor, but without any training in linguistics) that the particulars of the Australian accent could be traced to habitual ancestral drunkenness.

I was born and raised in a French monolingual family. As with many French students, learning foreign languages was part of my academic career. I studied German for 8 years (from the 5th grade though senior year), I started studying and speaking English in the 8th grade, and I also took three years of Italian in high school.

“Loving my Arabic roots” was the geekiest way I could think of addressing the two reasons I love the Arabic language. First, and most obviously, I love the Arabic language because it is the path by which I engage with my own heritage. As a graduate student in the Department of Comparative Literature at UC Davis, I specialize in two languages, both of which were spoken by my great-grandparents, Arabic on my father’s side and Italian on my mother’s. More immediately, my father was born in Bethlehem, Palestine in 1946, and grew up speaking Arabic.

I want to share several personal experiences related to language. Keep in mind that language and culture cannot be separated…the importance of language goes beyond pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

Last week, I was able to participate in a forum entitled “Language Matters” hosted by the UC Davis Language Center This series of public conversations “serves to facilitate conversations surrounding all matters related to language: learning, teaching, scholarship, and advocacy”.

In my brief remarks, I talked about my perspective and personal experience focusing on the intricacies of culture and societal challenges of our times that can only be understood through the study of language. I shared with the group an anecdote from my college years in Greece back in the 1970s.

I never thought my choice to study Arabic would have ever lead me to where I am now. I remember when and why I chose to study Arabic. It was my freshmen year, orientation, and I didn’t want to continue Spanish after three years of study in High School. So I decided to pick that one language, “with squiggly lines” as I thought to myself. I believed I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Flash forward two years later to the summer of 2014 - I found myself in the Middle East, having been awarded a Critical Language Scholarship from the State Department to study Arabic in Nizwa, Oman.

Cantonese Chinese is my first language - the language my first words were in, the language I use to communicate with my parents, and the language I am trying so hard to hold onto as I grow older so that I may be able to pass it onto my children some day. Despite the fact that my English language abilities have surpassed my Chinese language abilities, there is still value in being able to communicate, no matter how simply, in another language.

At the end of spring quarter when I was finally done with college I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my Psychology or Spanish degree.  At that time I was just looking for a job and wanted to start a career in a new place. So, I decided to attend all the workshops offered at the ICC to maximize my chances of finding something. In the workshops I received great resources and subscribed to all  companies or mail services and In one of the e-mails they offered an internship as a Spanish language teacher in Russia.

“I’m just afraid it’ll turn out to be something horrible,” I said to my husband as I was making dinner, “you know… a kid who’s not interested in anything except video games, or who ends up being monolingual, or a drug dealer...”

Language matters. Context matters as well. And I should probably explain the surroundings of my little declaration.  

Language, a language, languages or the language—it is a fun conundrum as I play with words. I am a Japanese language teacher who came from Linguistics. Some may say “Perfect!” but people just like me are likely to say “Worst language teacher!” As a linguist, I often find myself stretching the concept of acceptable sentences. The trouble with me is that I can come up with so many contexts in which we speak very differently or even weirdly.