700 Reasons: Reason #190
- Reason: 190
- When you learn another language, you start to have access to another culture, to another way of thinking, for languages articulate reality in different ways. If you never learn another language, you never know how vast the gap can be between peoples, so you never see the need to start bridging the gap. What September 11 showed the world was the terrifying complacency of native English speakers who assumed that everyone thought as they did. It also showed how skilfully international terrorist networkers can exploit their knowledge of languages and cultures to blend invisibly around the world
- Reference:
- Bassnet, S. (2002) 'A failure to communicate' in the Education Guardian, Tuesday March 12, 2002 (http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,665508,00.html)
- Related Keywords:
- Communication, Global English, Intercultural competence, International relations, National security, Understanding
700 Reasons to study languages...
