ERIC ED365093: Language and International Studies: A Richard Lambert Perspective.

393 Pages·1993·6.4 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
FL 021 558
ED 365 093
Moore, Sarah Jane, Ed.; Mortit, Christine, Ed.
AUTHOR
Language and International Studies: A Richard Lambert
TITLE
Perspective.
Johns Hopkins Univ., Washington, DC. National Foreign
INSTITUTION
-
Language Center.
REPORT NO
ISBN-1-880671-02-6
PUB DATE
93
NOTE
393p.
NFLC, Johns Hopkins University, 1619 Massachusetts
AVAILABLE FROM
Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036.
PUB TYPE
Books (010)
EDRS PRICE MF01/PC16 Plus Postage.
Area Studies; Cross Cultural Studies; Distance
DESCRIPTORS
Education; Educational Finance; *Educational Needs;
Financial Support; Foreign Countries; Foreign
Students; Higher Education; *International
Educational Exchange; *International Studies;
International Trade; Language Maintenance; *Language
Planning; Language Proficiency; *Language Role;
Public Policy; Second Language Instruction; Second
Language Learning; Social Sciences; Uncommonly Taught
Languages; Undergraduate Study
India; Netherlands; Southeast Asian Languages
IDENTIFIERS
ABSTRACT
Selected writings by Richard Lambert on languages and
international studies include the following: "Foreign Language
Planning in the United States"; "Southeast Asian Language
Instruction"; "Implications of the New Dutch National Action Plan for
American Foreign Language Policy"; "Distance Education and Foreign
Languages"; "A National Plan for a Use-Oriented Foreign Language
System"; "Language Policy: An International Perspective"; "Language
Instruction for Undergraduates in American Higher Education"; "The
National Foreign Language System"; "The Case for a National Foreign
Language Center: An Editorial"; "Problem Areas in the Study of
Language Attrition"; "Foreign Language Competency"; "Foreign Language
Instruction: A National Agenda"; "Surveys of Language-Skill Needs in
the United States"; "Language Learning and Language Utilization";
"International Education and International Competency in the United
States"; "Foreign Student Flows and the Internationalization of
Higher Education"; "DoD, Social Science, and International Studies";
"International Studies and the Undergraduate"; "The Challenge of
Internationalization and the Response"; "Foreign Language Use Among
International Business Graduates"; "Beyond Growth: Conclusions";
"International Studies: An Overview and Agenda"; "Language and Area
Studies Review: Conclusions and Recommendations"; "Patterns of
Funding Language and Area Studies"; "Some Minor Pathologies in the
American Presence in India"; "An American Education for Students from
India"; and "Indian Students and the United States: Cross-Cultural
Images." (MSE)
4111111===5"'"-
"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
1A0ji )i
TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."
U.S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Educahonai Reaewch and Improvement
EDUCAllONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER (ERIC)
)2.1...;:s document has been reproduced as
organonatton
reperved horn the Dotson
Onginafing
to improve
0 Minor changes have been ma.
.
feptOduCtion guards
Points of view Of opufions stated in the docu .
ment dO not necesianly represent ofttcral
OE R! posmon or poky
LANGUAGE AND
INTERNATIONAL
STUDIES:
A Richard Lambert
Perspective
Sarah Jane Moore and
Christine A. Morfit
Editors
National Foreign Language Center
Monograph Series
Copyright © 1993 by the National Foreign Language Center
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lambert, Richard D.
Language and international studies : a Richard Lambert perspective / Sarah Jane
Moore and Christine A. Morfit, editors.
(Monograph series / National Foreign Language Center)
cm.
p.
Collection of previously published material.
ISBN 1-880671-02-6
1. Language and languagesStudy and teaching (Higher)United States. 2.
Area studiesUnited States. 3. Language policyUnited States. I. Moore, Sarah J. II.
III. Title. IV. Series: Monograph series (Johns Hopkins
Morfit, Christine A., 1943
.
University. National Foreign Language Center)
P57.U7L292 1993
407'.1'1dc20
93-27452
CIP
For more information, please write:
The National Foreign Language Center at The Johns Hopkins University
1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Fourth Floor
Washington, DC 20036
4
Contents
Foreword
Preface
vii
PART I: LANGUAGE
Foreign Language Planning in the United States
3
1
Southeast Asian Language Instruction
2
18
Implications of the New Dutch National Action Plan for American Foreign
3
Language Policy
25
Distance Education and Foreign Languages
4
35
A National Plan for a Use-Oriented Foreign Language System
47
5
Language Policy: An International Perspective
53
6
Language Instruction for Undergraduates in American Higher Education
65
7
The National Foreign Language System
113
8
The Case for a National Foreign Language Center: An Editorial
128
9
Problem Areas in the Study of Language Attrition
10
141
Foreign Language Competency
150
11
Foreign Language Instruction: A National Agenda
12
161
Surveys of Language-Skill Needs in the United States
168
13
Language Learning and Language Utilization
179
14
PART II: INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
International Education and International Competency in the United States
189
15
Foreign Student Flows and the Internationalization of Higher Education
206
16
History and Future of HEA Title VI
237
17
DoD, Social Science, and International Studies
246
18
International Studies and the Undergraduate
259
19
The Challenge of Internationalization and the Response
269
20
Foreign Language Use among International Business Graduates
274
21
Beyond Growth: Conclusions
286
22
International Studies: An Overview and Agenda
298
23
Language and Area Studies Review: Conclusions and Recommendations
311
24
Patterns of Funding Language and Area Stu lies
338
25
Some Minor Pathologies in the American Presence in India
352
26
An American Education for Students from India
366
27
Indian Students and the United States: Cross-Cultural Images
375
28
Foreword
At one time in the not too distant past, Richard D. Lambert's approach to the study of
foreign languages in the United States was almost uniquely his own; today the
concerns
he has so persistently voiced are being addressed by an ever-increasing number of
language educators and policymakers. Perhaps the key to his contributbn has always
been the unremitting effort to question the mission of foreign language study
as defined
by its practitioners and to place this mission within a broader national perspective.
Nothing more clearly demonstrates this effort than his view that foreign language study
should ideally be driven by the twin goals of specifying national needs for language
competency and creating a national capacity to meet these needs. From this has followed
his concern for determining the nation's need for occupational language use, including
but certainly not restricted to language and area studies within the academic community,
and his concern for creating a new organizational structure that would enable America
to be responsive to the demands for real-life language use that are vital to the national
interest.
The sweeping scope of his vision has necessarily portrayed the education commu-
nity, where both he and most foreign language educators reside, as only one segment
among others contributing to national capacity. This broader perspective seems often to
have confounded members of the education community who perceived as marginal to
their mission of improving language instruction such concerns as occupational language
use; national metrics for language assessment; assessment of the effectiveness of instruc-
tional programs; federal language training; proprietary language schools; language
study abroad; the less commonly taught languages; the attrition, refurbishing, and
maintenance of language skills; distance learning; undergraduate language enrollment
attrition rates; the language policies of other countries; and language policy planning in
the United States. Yet today we are witnessing the move of these traditionally "marginal"
concerns not only into the educational mainstream, but into the national consciousness.
In the fashion of a social scientist, a sociologist, and an empiricist, Richard Lambert's
mode of calling attention to such issues has focused on systematic description of the
structure of the foreign language system and on data collection and analysis, from the
deeply held conviction that scholars, specialists, and policymakers who reside outside
language study per se have for far too long not been invited to contribute to the language
study enterprise. He has repeatedly noted that the goals of f6reign language education
are thwarted not by the lack of skills or efforts on the part of individual language
educators, but rather by the way foreign language study is organized as a system; hence
his constant calls to study the manner in which other countries design their language
delivery systems. Following this line of thinking, he has attempted to make the case that
the collection and analysis of data on how we organize language instruction in the United
V
6
LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
teaching process
States are at least as important as research on the language learning and
the third:
from a pedagogical perspective. Finally, from these two perspectives comes
grappling
the more we see foreign language study as a complex organizational system
that should
with national needs and national capacity, the wider the range of expertise
be brought to bear on this system.
perspective
The same pioneering characteristics are evident in Richard Lambert's
his works is the insistence that any conclusions
on international studies. Notable in all of
close examination of the actual situation. The
or recommendations be based on a
hallmark of his work is the hard foundation in empirical, aggregate data. This perspective
architecture of various
is illustrated in his use of data to create a fresh picture of the
analyses,
academic enterprises and a recharacterization of old phenomena, and in his
which examine the fundamental purposes of an enterprise and develop ways to measure
he proceeds to
the extent to which current practices meet these purposes. From there
fruitfully profit from the
suggest and recommend fresh ways in which the enterprise can
drawn
analysis. It is the careful analysis closely coupled with policy recommendations
from the data that has made his work in international studies stand out.
has been
In addition, Richard Lambert is one of the very few scholars whose work
studies,
of value to all of the subdivisions of international studies: foreign languages, area
international exchanges, international relations, and comparative studies.
A. Ronald Walton
Deputy Director
National Foreign Language Center
7
Preface
What follows is a sample of the writings of Richard D. Lambert on language and
international studies. They are a sample in that they are limited to a selection of his articles
on those two topics alone. A fuller view of his publications on these topics is available
from an examination of his books and monographs.
This work includes two comprehensive reviews of language and area studies in the
United States, one carried out in 1973 and the other in 1984. In another monograph he
reported on an innovative attempt to measure the supply of and the demand for
specialists with varying levels of concentration and expertise on South Asia. He also
directed a large-scale survey of various aspects of campus-based international studies,
including detailed analyses of program offerings as reflected in catalogues and survey
questionnaires, and student participation as reflected in an analysis of transcripts of a
graduating cohort. At the invitation of a number of national education organizations and
private foundations, he published a monograph detailing the rationale for the creation
of a national foundation to channel federal support for international studies. In an earlier
work, written with Marvin Bressler, he summarized the experiences of Indian students
enrolled in American educational institutions.
Most of the large-scale survey work was commissioned by national organizations.
For instance, the first comprehensive review of language and area studies was commis-
sioned by the Social Science Research Council, and the second one by the Association of
American Universities. The major national survey of undergraduate international stud-
ies was commissioned by the American Council on Education. The monograph making
the case for a foundation for international studies was jointly commissioned by the Social
Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies.
One of Richard Lambert'c major contributions to the field was to serve as a convener
and editor of a number of symposia on key aspect of international studies. Topics
included the needs of South Asia studies, current research on language skill attrition, the
future needs of international education following the release of a presidential commis-
sion report, the role of foreign languages in the workplace, overseas attitudes toward
Americans, and a cross-sectional picture of Americans abroad.
Richard Lambert's work on foreign languages and international studies comprises
what was in effect a sideline branching off from his central academic career. Most of his
early work dealt with the sociology of India and social and economic development more
generally. His teaching during his forty years at the University of Pennsylvania was
primarily concerned with these topics. A collection of his work in those areas would
include his two important monographs on India, which were interlocking questionnaire
of five factories in
surveys, the first describing the very different social organizations
Pune, India, as reflected in the organization of their labor forces, and the second
vii
8
LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
analyzing the transformation of a local labor market as reflected in the occupational
careers of workers. He also wrote a substantial number of articles dealing with such
diverse topics as patterns of collective behavior in violent riots, the historical develop-
ment of regional and religious conflict, urban-rural relationships, and labor relations in
India more generally. He wrote, or edited, a number of books and articles on the
developing world. With Bert F. Hoselitz he assembled and wrote the keynote articles for
a UNESCO symposium on attitudes toward savings and wealth in various countries of
Asia. Other articles included a consideration of city-planning imperatives in the devel-
oping world, and a comparison of patterns of ethnic relations in the United States with
those in other countries.
Through this work a particular style of analysis emerged with growing clarity.
Richard Lambert's early approach in his work on India was essentially that of a social
historian, and it involved macro societal analyses. This was evident in his first fieldwork
in India, where he spent two years (1949-51) assembling unpublished historical data and
observing firsthand the Hindu-Muslim riots. This early work selected a topic that was
largely neglected in the literature but had high leverage for general social analysis. It
assembled substantial data and created a sociologically informed narrative that summa-
rized and clarified the significance of a wide variety of disparate events. His later
fieldwork in India turned to large-scale surveys that characterized key structural features
derived from an aggregate analysis of questionnaire data. His two surveys of factory
workers in India are in this genre. The first describes the organization of different styles
of factories based on the social characteristics and occupational histories of some eight
hundred employees. The numerical treatment of the aggregate data in that first study
was essentially descriptive. The second study, analyzed with the assistance of Ralph B.
Ginsberg, a mathematical sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, took the same
cohort of workers who had been surveyed some eight years earlier and traced their
subsequent job careers. In addition, the applicant pool and hires in a substantial number
of new factories were surveyed to characterize a labor market under conditions of a
sudden and large expansion in the availability of factory employment. The analysis in
these new studies was upgraded to utilize what were for that time fairly sophisticated
multivariate statistical techniques.
Many of the features evident in Richard Lambert's scholarship on India were carried
over into his work on international studies and foreign languages. In the beginning, his
various local and national roleshis role first as a faculty member and then for fifteen
years as director of the South Asia Regional Studies Department at the University of
Pennsylvania; his role at the national level in Asian studies, culminating in his service as
president of the Association for Asian Studies; his role as one of the leaders of the annual
lobbying effort to maximize federal funding for language and area studies; and his
service on a number of intra-academic and academic-government committees dealing
with international studiesdrew him into scholarly work in these fields. These roles
acquired a research dimension that was to carry over his research experience and style
first into area studies, then into international studies more generally, then into foreign
languages.
His surveys of language and area studies inevitably involved an examination of the
language portion of that enterprise. Personal experience in studying a wide variety of
9
languages followed by an almost total loss of langaage competency in each one interested
him in the process of language skill loss. He set about examining what was known about
the problem, and discussed the findings and madc. recommendations for future research
in a conference he convened at the University ei Pennsylvania. Out of that conference
grew a large-scale, multiyear research project, which he directed. That project attempted
to measure actual language skill loss among graduates of overseas advanced language
training centers in Cairo, Taipei, and Tokyo.
It was this combination of interest in international studies, and foreign languages,
and national policy that caught the attention of a number of the major foundations. The
Exxon Education Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,
and the Pew Charitable Trusts collectively contributed substantial funding to enable the
creation of a National Foreign Language Center at the Johns Hopkins University with
Richard Lambert as its founding director. The core staff of the language attrition project
formed the core membership of the new center. Much of the work on foreign languages
contained in this volume was written during his six years as director of the center.
The first year at the center carried over the survey strand of Richard Lambert's
research career and led to the production of national inventories of our country's capacity
to teach Chinese, Japanese, and Russian and a survey of the actual use of language skills
among graduates of three major international business training programs. In later years
he turned more to the descriptive-cum-editorial style, writing a series of essays on
changes needed in the structure of foreign language education, and organizing a series
of national seminars on American and European national language policy.
The emergence and continuity of the strands of Richard Lambert's perspe -tive are
clear in the writings contained in this volume.
Sarah Jane Moore
Christine A. Morfit
ix