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Scaling the Tower of Babel
Kent State leads in university-based translator training
By Melissa Edler, ’00

Long ago, men and women across the world spoke only one language. They built a city made of bricks, with a tower that reached the heavens. The Lord saw this and realized nothing would be impossible for mankind if they continued to speak the same language, so he scattered them over the earth and jumbled their language so they could not understand each other. According to the biblical tale, the unfinished tower became known as the Tower of Babel.

Every second, the world’s people and their languages come into closer contact with each other, thanks to modern technology. By year end, although one billion people will have access to the Web, more than 70 percent of them will speak a language other than English.

“There’s an enormous need for people who can translate written materials into other languages and cultures, whether it’s a printed piece or Web content,” says Dr. Françoise Massardier-Kenney, professor of modern and classical language studies and director of Kent State’s Institute for Applied Linguistics.

Affiliated with the modern and classical language studies department, the institute is one of America’s leading university-based translator training programs, offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees in translation in French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. Next fall, the institute will offer a doctorate in translation, becoming the only university in the United States to offer all three degree levels in translation.

Students in Kent State’s translation program learn scientific and technical translation, legal and commercial translation, computer-assisted terminology and translation, translation research skills and software localization, the preparation of software to be sold in markets where multiple languages exist. The doctoral program will center on translation studies for those who have a background in translation but need teaching and research skills. Institute scholars also concentrate on translation informatics, which blends computer information science and translation studies, finding ways to use computer technology to solve practical language problems.

Translation — the act of transferring a written document from one language into another — became a hot topic with the U.S. government after 9/11, when it was discovered the FBI had a six-month backlog of materials needing translation.

In addition to political and security applications, translation plays an increasing role in global commerce, a multibillion-dollar industry that’s one of the fastest growth sectors in the world, says Dr. Gregory Shreve, chair and professor of modern and classical language studies. Buying power of non-English speakers drives nearly 70 percent of the world’s economy.

The rising need for translation worldwide could pose problems for the United States, which faces a huge shortfall of translators and an insufficient number of trainers to teach translation. “As a country, we have been traditionally monolingual; therefore, we lack the university programs to teach translators, though our doctoral program is an important step in the right direction,” says Shreve.

Language training in the United States begins very late by other countries’ standards. Despite the fact that it has been shown to be more effective to teach language at an earlier age, the majority of U.S. schools continue to start teaching foreign language when students begin high school, while their European counterparts begin by the age of 8.

“Translation never developed as an academic discipline in the United States, partially because foreign language scholarship took a high-culture approach to foreign language by studying literature and poetry and not the practical applications of language use, such as in business, law, science, medicine and other fields,” says Shreve.

Americans visiting foreign countries learn quickly how much we lack knowledge and training in foreign languages and cultures. This writer experienced it personally when my husband and I traveled to South Africa a few years ago.

At one point, South Africa was colonized by the British. As a result, the country’s national languages today are English and Afrikaans. However, the continent of Africa is made up of hundreds of tribes with their own unique dialects, and South Africa is no exception.

For most of our trip, we had no trouble communicating with South Africans, as everyone we met spoke perfect English. During our last week there, however, our rental car got a flat tire 20 miles from the nearest town. We were fortunate enough to find an auto garage in the next town. But when the tow truck arrived, we didn’t understand a word spoken by either of the two men from the garage. So they stopped trying to say anything to us. We watched dumbfounded as the men jacked up our car, took the tire off the rim, threw it in the back of their truck and drove away without a word. “Well, that jack is worth a lot of money, so I’m sure they’ll be back,” said my husband. He was right.

Why does the United States, which is so far behind most of the world in language training, seem uninterested in catching up? As a country, we’ve had a cultural block against multilingualism, says Shreve. When immigrants came to the United States, a “melting pot” nation, they were expected to acclimate in order to find and keep jobs. In doing so, many lost their cultural practices and language. For those who wanted to keep their language alive, there were no resources available to do so, adds Massardier-Kenney.

In Europe, countries are smaller and closer together, giving Europeans a greater need to speak more than one language. Their governments are required to conduct politics and business in several different languages.

But the world is a different place today in terms of immigration patterns and international trade, and Americans need to communicate in everyone’s language, says Massardier-Kenney. More people speak Chinese than any other language in the world, and linguists estimate more than 6,800 distinct languages exist.

“We must realize there are other languages in the world, and they’re economically relevant to us as well,” says Shreve.

Imagine if Americans viewed language from an allocentric standpoint and joined the rest of the world, what we as the human race might be able to accomplish. Maybe we could even finish what we started long ago, the Tower of Babel.

For more information on the program, visit the Institute for Applied Liguistics Web site.