Alien Wisdoms in English and Foreign Language Programs

Abstract

The changing demographics of higher education are bringing the teaching of English and the teaching of foreign languages closer together. For an increasing number of students, English is a foreign, a second, an international, or a global language, not the language of a unitary mother tongue and culture. Increasingly, students of French, German, or Spanish are learning a foreign language on the background of experiences of migrations, displacements, and expatriations but also on the background of multilingual and multicultural experiences. The typical language learner is, for example, a Nigerian with a Canadian passport learning German at the University of Texas, or a Czech citizen with a knowledge of English, German, and French enrolled in a Japanese class at the University of California, Berkeley. The common denominator among language learners is their interest in language in all its manifestations: literary and nonliterary, academic and nonacademic, as a mode of thought, as a mode of action, and as a symbol of identity. At UC Berkeley, the current success of courses with titles like Language, Mind, and Society; Language in Discourse; Language and Power; and Language and Identity—as they are offered by English programs, foreign language programs, linguistics departments, or schools of education—is a sign of a renewed interest in the way language expresses, creates, and manipulates “alien wisdoms” through discourse.