General FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions about Language and Culture

See also the
Department of Foreign Languages Student FAQ
with questions and answers about our programs

The purpose of this page is to provide members of the Salem State College community, and of the North Shore community at large, with general information having to do with languages and cultures. The format is that of a question-answer dialogue and attempts to answer questions which you may have wondered about. Your question may be added to this FAQ.

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Questions

Question: Why should I study a foreign language?[TOP]

Answer: Very good question and the answer isn't all that obvious to most people. We have developed a page dedicated to that question.

Question: Why is your department called called Department of Foreign Languages? French and Spanish have been spoken in the US since before the US existed, so one can object to them being called foreign.[TOP]

Answer: You may be right about that. However there is also a strong tradition to consider any language other than English 'foreign'. But it is true that languages other than English have a strong tradition in the US. German for a while was very strong in the East Coast. And Spanish, of course, was the main language of the Southwest and the West until 150 years ago. Many 'foreign' language departments have changed their name to "'modern languages department" (modern languages, as opposed to classical languages, such as Latin or Greek), or to "world languages department' (meaning that they teach major languages of the world). -JA

Question: What is the easiest language to learn as an adult if your first language is English? What is the fastest way to learn a language? If you were to study abroad to learn a language how long does it usually take for a person to become fluent in that language? Do you see any problems in the educational system with how they teach foreign languages? Thank you! --Shannon, student

Answer: Hi, Shannon. You guessed it, the best way is to be immersed in the language. Go to where it's spoken and don't speak anything but the language. For fluency (as much as you can get fluent in a second language learned as an adult), I would say at least a year, probably more. It depends on too many variables. The main problem with the teaching of foreign languages is that languages are not taught, they are acquired. It's a different kind of knowledge from regular academic subjects. And to acquire a language you need strong motivation to communicate in the language. Unfortunately, that is not always the case with students in our schools. -JA

Question: Why is your department called called Department of Foreign Languages? French and, especially, Spanish are not foreign languages.[TOP]

Answer: Departments at US colleges and universities in which modern languages (as opposed to "classical" languages such as Greek and Latin) are taught, have traditionally been called Foreign Languages departments, just like those languages have traditionally been called foreign languages among English speakers in this country.

However, many people, including people teaching in these departments, who may even be native speakers of these "foreign" languages, whether they are born inside or outside the US, do not feel confortable with the idea that these are foreign languages. This is true especially when dealing with languages with a long tradition in the US, such as Spanish in the Southwest and especially now that movements have sprung up to discourage the use of languages other than English in the US. Thus many such departments have been changing their names to Department of Modern Languages or Department of World Languages. These two options may not be ideal either but some people feel they are better options than the one they are intended to replace.

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Question: Are some varieties of a language better than others? For instance, is Castilian Spanish better, more correct, more proper, than the Spanish spoken by Dominican?[TOP]

Answer: There is no such thing as "bad language". Every language which extends beyond a small village where everybody knows each other, has a number of "varieties" associated with a region or with a group of people (such as social class) ("variety" is a neutral term that linguists sometimes use instead of "dialect"). This is the natural state of things. Different varieties can have slightly different pronunciations, accents, vocabulary items, grammatical constructions, etc. And no "variety" is intrinsically better or more correct than any other. As long as the varieties are mutually inter-comprehensible (something which is not always obvious), they all form part of the language.

What happens is that often a certain variety, such as the variety spoken in a certain region, or spoken by certain people, is given a special status in the lands where the language is spoken. These are called "standard varieties", which are promoted through education and so on. In time, the traits of standard variety, such as pronunciations, etc., come to be seen as "correct" and "better" and therefore those of the non-standard varieties as "incorrect" or "worse".

For a language to have a standard variety is a good thing since it allows one to communicate more effectively with a wider range of people. Thus, ideally, everybody should learn to use and be comfortable with a standard variety of a language, such as standard English or standard Spanish. However, attaching value judgments, such as "good" or "bad", "correct" and "incorrect", to the way people naturally speak, the way they learn to speak at home, is a terrible thing to do since it makes people feel bad about themselves.

No variety of a language is substandard, although many are perhaps non-standard.

What is undeniable is that people who speak standard varieties tend to have more education and typically possess a richer vocabulary. This, however, doesn't mean that their accents, pronunciations, or grammatical usages are "better" in any intrinsic way.

English has different standard varieties, depending on the country and other considerations, all of which share many aspects and differ in other aspects, such as pronunciation (compare BBC English with US anchor English). Spanish too has several standard varieties, which have a great deal in common which each other, but which differ in some ways, typically pronunciation.

(Answer by Dr. Jon Aske)

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