Do physicists need French?

If you have academically elite universities, it’s only predictable – indeed it's right and proper – that people debate exactly what qualifications students should have to get into them.

A hundred years ago, the headlines were all about whether ancient Greek should be a  necessary qualification to get  into Cambridge. Technically speaking it wasn’t actually a qualification you needed to be admitted in the first  place. But, if you wanted an honours degree, you had to do a preliminary exam in Greek soon after you arrived – which was pretty much the same thing in practice.

The arguments went as you might expect. The abolitionists claimed that the Greek requirement was preventing highly intelligent boys (sic) from coming to Cambridge, if they weren’t already at a select group of socially elite schools (the access argument). They also suggested that it was pretty ante-diluvian requiring a dead language when you could be getting the boys to learn a modern language, French or German (the utility argument).

On the other side, the retentionists argued that Greek was an essential part of a liberal education, and that it would disappear from schools unless Cambridge continued to require it. To this the abolitionists retorted that it wasn’t Cambridge’s job to take responsibility for the school curriculum.

The arguments went on from 1870 to 1919, when in the brave new post-war world the Greek requirement was abolished (and, true to the retentionists fears, the decline of Greek in schools had begun).

A hundred years on and the radical choice of the early twentieth century – namely French and German – are now in their turn to be toppled. Cambridge is planning no longer to require a modern language from all students across the board.

The arguments are strikingly reminiscent of those on “the Greek Question”, and both sides have a point.

On the one hand is the access argument. If only 17% of state schools now require pupils to study a foreign language after the age of 14, then you’re de facto excluding a lot of potential students if you make it a necessary condition for Cambridge entrance. (Or, to put it another way, you’ll find it hard to make your government access targets...)

This is backed up by the utility argument. Why should we care if physicists know French, since the language of science is universal English?

On the other side, is the argument that an elite university cannot be a monoglot university, and it is to challenge the very excellence of Cambridge as an institution to suggest that it should be producing graduates who know no language but their own. (That has been part of UCL’s argument for introducing the requirement that Cambridge now plans to abolish.) And you can add to that the likely prediction that Cambridge’s decision on this will further weaken the precarious position of modern languages in schools.

In my position, the safest place to be is on the fence. But deep down, as you’ve probably guessed, I am sure that this proposal cannot be right. It is the duty of a university such as Cambridge to stand up for the highest academic standards (that’s a responsibility that being a world class institution brings). If it believes that modern languages are an essential part of excellence, then it should be doing everything it can to ensure that all children have access to them (access in the real sense) – not acceding to short term quick fixes to meet some cynical government target.

As for the argument that physicists don’t need French. . .  It may be that the international  language of science is English, but do we really think that we are properly equipping our best scientists to work in the international world of Europe, China, India, etc, if they don’t even know what it is like to learn a language to a decent level of competence? Isn’t ‘networking’ something we are now supposed to train them to do?  I bet that doesn’t all happen in English.

Maybe the idea is that we are going to teach them all a foreign language when they get here. But I doubt it somehow.

Comments

[Mouse Anon]

Oxbridge should admit students without a foreign modern language secondary school background, but it should require all students learn one by graduation.

it should also require a course in computer languages and practical programming for all science, engineering, and related field students. This is rapidly becoming as important as math(s) skills.

finally, it should require an additional second Western classical language for relevant liberal arts majors - English, Western or Classical History, Philosophy, etc.

The same requirement should be given to liberal arts majors that have no compelling reason not to take this.

Flexibility but a similar requirement should be given for people doing work whether other classics would be more appropriate - Chinese historians or linguists should learn some form of traditional Chinese, Middle Eastern Studies majors studying classical Arabic and Farsi, etc.

[A.C. Norman]

Professor Beard,

I am an undergraduate at Cambridge.

I totally agree with your paragraphs 10 and 11 - but if, deep down, you have reservations about the changes to Cambridge's matriculation requirements, why didn't you say so at the discussion on 18th March?

I did (see http://tinyurl.com/6fg6ky), as one of the only two speaking against the report.

As the other speaker said, "What kind of a message is this sending to schools?"

Cambridge ought to stand up for academic standards, and the intellectual rigour that learning a language teaches school students, even if the government won't. UCL is showing the courage which Cambridge is failing to show; I am ashamed.

In 1905, the university was still run by the Senate house: Cambridge MAs would never let these changes through today. As a member of the Regent House, you will be responsible for these changes, if they are passed.

I also agree with Tim Hames' article, which you linked to, that the dropping of the GCSE language requirement is cementing a divide between elite and masses. But this is what the changes in matriculation requirements supposedly fights against. Surely there is a contradiction somewhere here.

Our chief duty as a University is to uphold academic standards, and our social duties must come secondary to, and not interfere with, that.

And by the way, I'm a physicist.

[Lux Aeterna]

At the risk of coming late to this party and not having had time to read all the comments . . .

Physicists need French if modern language students need physics. As a physics graduate I detect some implication that some subjects are deemed more important to a background education than others. Yes, modern languages are an important life skill, but so are lots of other subjects. Without some objective justification (eg fluency in the English language for a place in an English university) then there should be no prior requirements which do not directly relate to the subject of study.

[Student of Hebrew]

I went up to Cambridge from an unskilled working class background and learnt classical Hebrew in my spare time. 20 years later, it gives me tremendous pleasure.

[Kerry]

"After all, isn't education supposed to help career progression? ... let's teach them useful subjects such as economics ..."

Education for career progression?! Whatever happened to self-development? It's one way to breed drones, I suppose. As for the usefulness of economics, I have a Masters in it and can honestly say that its worth in terms of my career has been pretty miniscule - the bits I have found useful can be summed up as "Incentives Matter". Even in my first career as a forecaster, I found economic theory to be largely worthless. The quality of data on the economy is so poor that the figures are really a set of enormous fudges and the people in the know pay more attention to the stories that supposedly back them up.

That, and I can honestly say that the economics taught at undergraduate level is more like indoctrination in outdated dogma - its at graduate level that you learn the current state of learning and how incredibly far it the undergraduate stuff is from reality.

[Nick Biskinis]

Mary makes the point that perhaps Cambridge will teach people languages once they arrive at the university.

A pity that Cambridge has neglected its language teaching over the past few years, scrapping minority languages for short-term econony measure (eg Polish, just before the influx of Polish immigrants to England. Language learning does give you a personal insight that cannot be 'audited' in market terms buts adds an extra dimension. Language learning helps you to understand what on the surface is 'foerign'.

Cambridge has always dug its head in the sand about introducing joint-degrees that are available at every other major university (eg History and German). This discourages many from applying, and forces those at the univerisity to forgo language learning to pursue other disciplines. Tradition is one thing - stagnation another

[Doodoo]

I am so sorry that Alice bitterly regrets taking a degree in Literature and Philospophy. It is sad she feels so utilitarian an approach to education.
Only this morning at work a colleague was describing how her 8-year-old is suffering from boredom and school refusal (manifesting itself in violent sickness and diarrhoea) because the curriculum is so lacking in creativity and so bent on Gradgrind tests and robotic checksheets.
You can't have a world full of economists.
I took an Arts degree and then did an ACA (Accountancy) qualification a few years later. I doubt that I would have finished the accountancy if I'd gone to do it first. (It can truly be boring, as Monty Python said). I meet accountants and business studies students who have no wider knowledge of anything, and it impairs judgement, I can tell you. There is also the fact that many can't spell or write a decent report.
We do need people who can think widely and deeply, even in day-to-day business decisions. As for our leaders, they need these skills even more.

[Alice]

I"m fluent in five European languages, but since I've moved back to the UK I've hardly used them at all. Most employers simply do not require them or value them in this country either. I say we should scrap European languages from the curriculum altogether and replace them with subjects that will aid progression within the business world. The focus on academia is becoming irrelevant - I bitterly regret having wasted my time taking a degree in Literature and Philosophy. If only I had been told that subjects such as Economics, Business Studies and Marketing were desirable with employers in this day and age. After all, isn't education supposed to help career progression? If that's so, let's not bother teaching kids languages that they'll have no use for, let's teach them useful subjects such as economics that will better prepare them for their futures.

[UK Midlands reader]

Doing a course in Islamic studies has presented interesting discussions on terminology. For those who know some Latin as well as Arabic it is a shorter route to understanding.

A supposedly flip comment such as 'they had dinner together' takes on a whole new meaning when one talks about companions for example.

One of our tutors is a native Arabic speaker and is acutely aware of the hit and miss nature of these terms in translation. He however freely admits the lack of his depth of knowledge in English in this area, which is otherwise excellent, leaving him unsure of some English translations and prefers to use original Arabic terminology. He makes the mistake in my mind (I am a native speaker of English) in sometimes reading English language passages too literally and missing some of the figurative nuance, between the lines meaning. This is compounded when this work itself has been translated from German (a language I also have knowledge of) sixty years ago.

Another tutor who is not an Arabic speaker is clearly less able to convey to us information as to root meanings of original terminology in Arabic. Nor are they aware of basic Latin. However they do have a reasonable grasp of Urdu where many Arabic words seem to end up fairly close in meaning to the original.

Through this process where there is on the part of students and teaching staff collectively a knowledge of Arabic, Urdu and English enough of a foundation to come to a basic understanding of the terminology. However I am left with the feeling that where I am the only one present with a knowledge of German, where a great deal of the work historically has been done in 'Orientalism', and Latin, which is a cornerstone of modern English there is a lot left to be desired in terms of clearing up further misunderstanding.

[Lucy]

... Anneke A Campo (below) makes a similar point with rather more grace than me!

[Lucy]

Michelle - are you trying to say that, if it's the minority who speak 'foreign', then it doesn't matter about learning it? The point is that not ALL top scientists are first-language English speakers. As to Brit industry - no, not all science/ engineering grads go to work in the City. If you'd read my post, you'd see I cited an example of a field I'm familiar with. E.ON (German company) works with scientists in many countries, including America. By accounts, it's the monoglot Americans who stand awkwardly to one side at meetings, thinking 'why didn't we get that contract? Oh yeah, they sorted it out during the coffee break, while we were ignoring the French/German/Italian jabber...'

Since when did everyone accepted into Cambridge need to know a modern language? No one I know who goes there studied modern languages.

[Tony Francis]

The economy of Beowulf was based on a "gifts economy", apparently without a "negotiable contract":
http://www.peterlevine.ws/mt/archives/2005/05/seamus-heaneys-1.html
Of course, the negotiable contract entered English Common Law though Roman Law, via the medieval Ecclesiastic Courts. It is still called "Court of Equity" in the US.
Tolkein, C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot delved into the Anglo-Saxon past, trying to reconcile that legacy with Christianity using various methods and with differing results:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/ID24Aa01.html

[Anneke a Campo]

My husband is a New Zealand physicist soon embarking on a sabbatical tour of half a dozen countries, having been invited to speak at universities in England, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Canada. The seminars and lectures will take place in English, the language of Physics. However, the networking, the all-important talking to colleagues, will be conducted in a mix of languages. Isn't it fortunate that my husband took both French and German at school (in the days when this was still common!) and has learned quite a bit of Italian during his post-doc year in Italy?

In a global world, sticking to English is perfectly possible, but shows a deplorable lack of interest in other peoples' cultures. Reading some of the comments I am appalled at the arrogance of some.

I have recently given a talk about my experience with learning foreign languages at the European Schools of Brussels and Bergen to a local (New Zealand) primary school.The children of this officially bi-lingual (English/Maori), but in practice mono-lingual country, were amazed that we learned 3 foreign languages as a matter of course and that we became competent in at least one foreign language so as to study high school history and geography in it. When I went on to say that I studied Classics at a university in the Netherlands, but that a large number of our textbooks were in English, French and German, and that I got my PhD at Cambridge, their admiration knew no bounds...All to the good, as this school is employing me to introduce not only French, but (for so-called gifted and talented kids) a smattering of proto-Indo-European, Greek and Latin into this mono-lingual and cultural environment, as well as to tutor International students (from a variety of countries) in English.
New Zealand has finally started to re-think its "English is good enough" attitude. It is to be hoped that others will follow suit.

[Cec Hogarth]

They don't quote Beowulf, but their writings are full of "thorn"y problems.

[Tony Francis]

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_economy

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/anglo-saxon-economy/

[anthony alcock]

How do you recognize anglo-saxon economists ? Do they keep on quoting Beowulf ?

[Cec Hogarth]

Gabriel F,
Aramaic would certainly meet the "good enough for JC" criterion, as would Hebrew, a little Koine and perhaps even a touch of local Latin. The utility of Aramaic in your field you are vastly better qualified to judge than I.

[Michelle]

Lucy, I took your challenge, and found that Nobel prize winners in Physics since 2000 were half Americans (and I only counted those born in the US) and half born in the rest of the world combined, including only one to the UK. The majority worked in the US regardless of birthplace. What exactly point were you making? We hopeless monoglots actually seem to be doing fairly well, and our education system seems to be producing high quality high-science not to mention the leading engineering in the world. (Where are the microchip companies? Where are the medical device companies? Digital storage? Does the UK even have any sort of technical economy? Oh that's right, they don't. The Oxbridge-educated "engineers" all go to work in the City in finance!)

[Gabriel Finkelstein]

As a science historian from Colorado, I was wondering whether Mr. Hogarth thinks I should be learning Aramaic.

[Michael Bulley]

They used to come with Latin, French and Greek,
So knew, at least, a lingua, langue and glossa.
But now not even knowing French is chic:
The time of wordlessness is getting closer.

[Kerry]

What I find interesting is that everyone seems to expect schools to do everything. Surely you could retain the language requirement at Uni and have it met by non-credit courses for those that don't have it? Many universities already do this to lift the numeracy skills of students where they aren't sufficient - notice how many Commerce qualifications require a basic maths course. For elite universities the answer should be to open up access at the Masters/PhD level to graduates of other universities who have put the effort in.

Personally, I majored in Economics for my Masters and finished thinking that all of the major work in that field was anglo-saxon. It was only later that I discovered that the acknowledged centre of economics research at the end of the 19C was Germany and that most of the leading anglo-saxon economists up until WWII were quite familiar with and often participating in the debates in German economics, and many completed their studies in Germany. A desire to find out more has led me to start learning German - first trying out various CD programmes (Pimsleur and Michel Thomas) then making use of the distance courses available through the Goethe Institut. As has been said so many times before, learning another language's grammar teaches you so much more about your own. (Having been a secondary school teacher in the recent past, I think the experience of learning another langauge as an adult is valuable as a way of understanding what your students are going through - a requirement to do such learning would make for better teachers, provided that additional time and funding was provided for that learning - so, fat chance.) In two years of intensive learning I have reached a point where I can read, with the help of a dictionary, the work of those economists. However, the recent experience of attending a face-to-face course in German has revealed a serious deficiency in my listening skills (and not all because I'm a man ;-)

A few years back I took a university distance course in Latin for beginners, which I enjoyed and intend to follow up on my own soon through personal study using purchased textbooks and workbooks. I am in two minds on whether the onus on such learning should be left to the individual or made compulsory.
On one hand, it is easier to learn when you're young and don't have the commitments of adult life (being single and without children helps me find time for learning - I suspect the whole "it is easier when you're young" argument is really another case of spurious correlation and that the argument should be "it is easier when you have lots of free time), provided you want to learn.
On the other hand, as highlighted by that last rider, it is easy to learn by yourself, if you want to and have the time, using the resources available through books and language institutes like the Goethe Institut. Having a purpose for learning other than curiosity, helps but is not absolutely necessary - a lot of my learning has been driven by curiosity, eg. Latin (and hopefully Ancient Greek in the future). The problem with compulsory language learning (and most other compulsory learning outside of that necessary to function in society) is that not everybody wants to learn a language or is curious about how language works. As a former maths teacher, I think that there is a strong case for reducing the breadth of coverage that the NZ curriculum requires for mathematics - students would constantly ask "when will I ever use this?", and when your average shop checkout in NZ has a barcode scanner and computer where they just enter the amount given and it tells them the exact change to give back, an argument could be given for stopping compulsory maths after very basic numeracy (remember, most people don't require any knowledge of even basic algebra of the "simplify 5xy + 4xy" kind. For those that do want to learn more, the point made in a previous post about narrow and deep being preferable to shallow and wide strikes a chord.

[Tony Francis]

Many of the state schools in the US are driven by the needs of local industry. Wichita State has a huge engineering department, mainly because of the airplane factories. Kansas State (traditionally a land grant agricultural oriented school) offers degrees in "Milling Science" and "Commercial Baking". Who'd figure someone would want a degree in those areas? But people do, and industry demands it. They also have engineering and architectural schools there. But one gets the feeling that the more esoteric subjects are put on the back of the shelf.

[Jane]

Re Elitism, snobs, and public schools. Obviously no-one thinks that only snobs from public schools should hog the best educational facilities.
Public schools do include a lot of snobs, and also a lot of over-coached rich thick kids whose parents want to buy them into a good job. OK. Leaving that aside for a moment.
This isn't about snobs. It isn't about public schools. It's about access for everyone.
If places like Cambridge cease to demand languages as an entry requirement,any school anywhere is entitled to think it acceptable to let languages wither away.
How is this good for learning, and for opportunities for all?
The answer is to maintain rigorous entry requirements, but to simultaneously encourage Gifted and Talented programmes in state schools so that those who want to study Latin, Japanese, Urdu, Russian (examples from my local Comprehensive) can do so.
There will always be a lot of wastage both in the rich thick kids department and in the less advantaged schools.
But at least it gives people a chance.

[Maxine]

As you allude in your post, it's Chinese, not French, they should be learning. Over in the science world, it is China everyone is watching and waiting for. It is increasingly common to be offered Mandarin and other Asian languages at schools now. (standard state schools, that is, not the "elite" by which I assume is meant to imply top public schools). The French government in the recent past has tried to insist that all conferences, etc, in France are conducted in French, and that all French scientists should submit their papers in French. It has not got terribly far with that.