# Should a Large General U.S. University Offer Study in Foreign Languages, Linguistics? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 15, 2023, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582 "2023-08-15T00:50:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2023, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/81 "2023-12-05T21:30:38Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > Yes, thanks! ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2023, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/82 "2023-12-05T21:48:07Z")
The proposed cuts don’t seem to follow the goals stated by Gee and his enablers. WVU’s R1 designation was the result of some fortunate circumstances (e.g., Senator Robert Byrd getting the FBI fingerprint file moved to Clarksburg, WV just a few years before digitized biometrics became a viable technology), partnerships with various government and industry elements, and a lot of hard work by everyone involved. IIRC WVU was the first school to offer a degree in biometrics engineering, and that degree program is now on the chopping block. > [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > The best place to study Flavoovian is in Flavoovia, not Weat Virginia. To study Old Norse, better travel as well as to go back in time a millennium. It sounds like West Virginia is also trying to go back in time, but I am not sure how far. We don’t have to go back in time, we’ve always been decades behind the rest of the country. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2023, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/83 "2023-12-05T22:28:13Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > A university is a business Can we argue about that? It’s not a business. It does not exist to turn a profit for the company’s stakeholders. It exists to serve society by educating its youth, plus a few older students. Simultaneously, it exists to further human knowledge by conducting research and communicating this research in presentations and publications. Ultimately, of course, this is a _gain_ to society, but the real economic benefits are indirect, hard to calculate quarterly, and go back into society as a whole rather than specific university-affiliated individuals. There is another financial element—workers expect to be paid, and our culture expects students to pay—but the “business” model is fundamentally flawed for public universities. It might be considered for private universities, though I’d still argue against it. If administrative bloat were tackled and government funding restored to the percentages of two generations ago, there would be no problem with state universities’ ability to offer a robust curriculum. The fact that we no longer fund public universities like we used to is a choice, and not one made as a sound business decision, but due to the perceptions that universities and their denizens are wealthy elite. That’s not 100% wrong, but it’s certainly not 100% right. We could, if we so chose, fund state universities well enough to have robust liberal arts programs. Smaller countries, with smaller per capita economies, do this. Increasingly, we choose not to do so. Fine, if that’s our choice, but pretending it’s just sound business is more the need to see everything through a capitalistic lens. Imagine treating K–12 education like a business. Imagine treating public universities like K-12 education. (The California junior college system in some ways is the worst of both worlds.) Anyway, that Atlantic article said that Gee makes _$800,000 a year._ That’s a RIDICULOUS amount of money; I don’t care if it’s typical for people in such positions, it’s stupid. Take him down to $200,000 and use the $600,000 savings to pay a few language and writing instructors. Geezle Pete. Edit: After all, why should the University President make more than a tenured professor? Does his job require more effort, more specialized knowledge, more training, more anything, or is it just the need to reward hierarchy and power with cash? We can stop doing that if we want to: I’d do it for $200 K a year plus bennies, and I bet a lot of people would—and do it well. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2023, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/84 "2023-12-05T22:40:59Z")
A university is not just another business. Many receive public funding, have specific social and educational aspirations, and have many goals including education, employment and research. But university administration includes many business-like aspects and elements, involving management, regulation, marketing, finance, facilities, etc. I don’t mind a skilled leader being reasonably well-paid to run a big university, which is often a difficult job. However, few institutions need thirty Vice Presidents, and education ultimately matters more to most students than sports, at least in theory ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2023, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/85 "2023-12-05T23:57:45Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Definitely some interesting trivia in there. (“Which president learned English as a second language?”) I’m creating questions for a pub quiz for a holiday party, and that is going in there. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/86 "2023-12-06T00:06:10Z")
Majoring in foreign languages would seem to be more practical than a lot of majors I bet they have - like anything to do with coal mining. It gives a competitive advantage given the poor state of language knowledge in the US. But not for STEM. In over 50 years I’ve never felt my lack of language knowledge, which is despite my effort. I’ve been to conferences and meetings overseas with no issues. Americans are so bad about languages we’ve forced the rest of the world to learn English. Case in point - when my daughter, who knows German and got a Masters (and a husband) in Germany was there on a Fulbright, her mentor in the high school where she taught was involved in a pan-European (and Turkish) effort. None of the countries involved were English speaking, all the meetings were conducted in English. That was education, not stem. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/87 "2023-12-06T00:33:52Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Our high school offered three and a half languages. My high school offered two languages: French taught by Mrs. Collins and French taught by Mrs. Bear. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/88 "2023-12-06T00:43:35Z")
“English speakers don’t need to learn languages because they have the power to avoid it, by compelling others to learn English.” True, but kind of colonialist. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/89 "2023-12-06T05:30:00Z")
More market driven, with a dollop of oceans keeping Americans from having to learn another language. Many European countries just aren’t big enough for a full market in movies and books and TV. The first time I was in the Netherlands the hotel TV offered MTV from Great Britain. In the US there are Spanish language stations a lot of places, and the Bay Area has Chinese and Japanese stations (where I watched the original Iron Chef.) It is not hard for a kid in Europe to brush up on English watching fun TV. A kid here would have had to work on it when I was growing up. China is big enough for its own market, and is an exception to this it seems, based only on a big market there for Chinese language science fiction. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2023, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/90 "2023-12-06T22:13:20Z")
In L.A., we have TV in Russian, Farsi, Armenian, Cambodian, in addition to the usual Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. I’m sure there are a few I’ve missed, too. I got hooked on a Korean cop show about 20 years ago understanding no Korean at all. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2023, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/91 "2023-12-07T01:03:41Z")
Things are much better now. When I was a kid - in New York - maybe we could get a Spanish language station on UHF. Now I subscribe to a streaming service where I watch cop shows in French, German, Italian and Armenian. (And there are lots more.) But it’s all pretty much niche. Nothing that kids have to watch to be cool. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2023, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/92 "2023-12-07T02:42:11Z")
What streaming service is that? Netflix? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2023, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/93 "2023-12-07T02:54:04Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > By the sixteenth century, Latin (and even more so, Greek) had begun to cease to be the languages that academic works were conducted in. In the eighteenth century, it appeared that French would become the language of academia. But in the nineteenth century, it became clear that German was the language of academia. From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, Germany was what the largest group of academic studies were written in. In Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (1871), scholars from different parts of Europe conversed in Latin. But yeah, speaking as a STEM guy myself, English is the current Lingua Franca, and so we don’t need to learn other languages to communicate… but that’s no reason why a college shouldn’t offer them. If if it’s just because there’s one particular poem in that language that you want to read in the original, or whatever, universities should be pursuing knowledge for knowledge’s sake. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2023, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/94 "2023-12-08T00:08:42Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > What streaming service is that? Netflix? [MHz Choice](https://mhzchoice.com/). They used to offer these shows to the local, small, PBS stations, but stopped, so we subscribed. ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/95 "2023-12-09T10:36:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But yeah, speaking as a STEM guy myself, English is the current Lingua Franca, and so we don’t need to learn other languages to communicate… That’s great, but to restate the state of the union, if a logician or a mathematician hadn’t bothered to learn at least German, Latin, French, and English, he or she would not be able to conduct informed research. Those languages are not optional for any researcher. No, not “historians of science” or whatever, but notation is a tool of thought. Iverson agrees. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/96 "2023-12-09T10:59:30Z")
> [@ColdBrew50](#): > > Iverson agrees. So a famous basketball player should be in charge of what courses are offered at a university he had no connection with? ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/97 "2023-12-09T12:48:08Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > So a famous basketball player should be in charge of what courses are offered at a university he had no connection with? 😀 Yes! Famous equals great, pretty sure. At all things. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/98 "2023-12-09T13:46:51Z")
> [@ColdBrew50](#): > > That’s great, but to restate the state of the union, if a logician or a mathematician hadn’t bothered to learn at least German, Latin, French, and English, he or she would not be able to conduct informed research. > > Those languages are not optional for any researcher. No, not “historians of science” or whatever, but notation is a tool of thought. Iverson agrees. Huh? At various times in history, one of those languages might have been mandatory for any serious scholar. Currently, it’s English. But it’s never been the case that all of them are necessary. If it were, then there would be almost no scholars, because very few people learn four languages. ---
**Author:** ![ColdBrew50](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/99 "2023-12-09T14:08:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If it were, then there would be almost no scholars, because very few people learn four languages. Four _whole_ languages? Wow. The mind reels. I actually don’t recall a time in my life when it was not expected to know two modern languages, a classical language, and one’s native tongue to be considered _eligible_ to become educated. One can relax the requirements for relatively dull students or upper-crusty slaggards like Churchill or someone like him and say only reading knowledge might be required, but it’s inconceivable to me that an educated person would not have passing knowledge of such a bare minimum. I said a person able to conduct “informed research,” you know. That is, a professional, and not just a punter using Google Search or whatever people do. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582/100 "2023-12-09T15:12:58Z")
Chemistry PhD programs in the US used to have a German requirement but that was largely dropped by 2000, if not much earlier. Columbia was a holdout, but IIRC it was just for organic, and it was an open-book translation of an excerpt or short paper. I don’t know if they still have that. Angewandte Chemie is published in English. You can co-submit a German translation for the non-international edition. WVU dropping linguistics puzzles me, what with its relevance to machine learning and AI. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-large-general-u-s-university-offer-study-in-foreign-languages-linguistics/988582.md?page=6)