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If You Can't Stand the Heat
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(Thoughts on Language Learning) As I was thinking about language learning the other day, the image of baking bread came into my mind. I compared some of the exercises and drills1 that we put ourselves through in order to learn a language to the various ingredients2 that go into baking a loaf of fresh bread. The point of baking bread, of course, is not to experience the ingredients individually. The point is to combine them in such proportions3 and under such conditions as to produce a nourishing, wholesome4, fragrant and tasty loaf of bread. No one sits down and eats a cup of flour, not even if he is hungry and in a hurry. But we will sit down with a list of 25 vocabulary items and choke them down5 as dry as dust, thinking that we are learning a language. In fact, such unpleasantdrilling may be less meaningful than eating a cupful of flour, followed by a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon and a half of yeast6. Such dietary habits would probably be harmful rather than healthful. And such a learning technique will probably go a long way toward convincing you that you cannot become bilingual7. I believe that everyone can become bilingual. I acknowledge that some people are gifted for language work and some are not. But even those who are not gifted can become bilingual; it's just less fun for them and takes longer. Blessed8 (already) are those for whom learning a language is an exciting adventure. And may the Lord also bless those for whom it is a struggle in obedience and perseverance9. Even those who flunked high school French can become bilingual, but not by cramming down dry yeast and salt and flour.10 Real language learning takes place in human relationships. You don't become bilingual by learning lists of vocabulary. You don't become a speaker of a language by memorizing verb conjugations and agreement rules.11 You become bilingual by entering a community that uses that language as its primary means of communication. Are there dues to be paid in order to enter such a community? You bet there are,and they are costly. But the rewards of membership far outstrip12 the cost of the membership dues for those who persevere. Pity the poor scholars who study historical languages such as Latin, Koine Greek13 and the like. There is no longer a living community of speakers of those languages for them to join. They can never become speakers of the languages that they study. They are forever reduced to analyzing the ingredients and memorizing the composition of the dry crusts that are leftovers from a bygone community. But they can never swap14 stories with the people who created the language. They can never laugh with them over innovative puns or sing new songs with the people who pen them.15 Rather than becoming members of the community, they are like archeologists who preserve and analyze the fossil remains of a community that has vanished. If you, yourself, have ever studied a "dead language" you probably convinced yourself that you are not the kind of person who could ever really learn a foreign language. Or if you have studied a "living language" by the same techniques that one must necessarily employ to learn a "dead" one, you probably came to the same conclusion. Now I am not suggesting that we can make bread without ingredients. Flour is necessary, as are yeast, salt, water and many other ingredients, depending on what kind of loaf we want to end up with. Vocabulary is part of any language and will have to be learned. Grammatical rules exist in every language and cannot be ignored. But merely combining the appropriate ingredients in the recommended proportions does not result in bread. At best you only end up with a ball of dough16 if allyou do is combine ingredients. In order to get bread, you have to apply heat to the dough. And in language learning, that heat comes from the community. Anyone who has learned a second language has experienced that heat. It creeps17 up your neck when you ask the babysitter, "Have you already been eaten?" when you meant to say, "Have you already eaten?" It radiates from your face when you say, "Let me impregnate18 you," when you mean to say, "Let me give you a hug." When you try to say something quite innocent and the whole room bursts into raucous19 laughter, you are experiencing the heat that turns raw dough into good bread. Remember the old saying,"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen? That is exactly what we want to do. And that is where language learning often breaks down. We find the heat uncomfortable and we abort the baking process. It is at just such a point that we retreat from the oven and resort to English, forcing someone else to provide "bread" by being the translator. The willingness to stay in the heat of the oven is part of why kids learn a second language more easily than do adults. For them, the heat is an everyday occurrence already because they are still learning their first language in that same heat. It is not unusual for them to ask a question that results in unexpected laughter. And it is not strange to them when they put a new phrase together for the first time and people roll on the floor in uncontrollable mirth as a result. And the child's ego20 is not usually shattered by such an experience. But as adults, we tend to take ourselves so seriously that we are less likely tojoin in the laughter. We are more likely to recoil in hurt and embarrassment when we are unable to make ourselves understood.21 And the more educated we are, the more likely we are to take pride in our adult communication skills. When we try to enter a new language community and cannot even sound like a bright child, let alone an educated adult, we may suffer ego damage that we consider too high a price for membership dues. We withdraw our application. We can't stand the heat, so we get out of the kitchen. But that is not the only possible outcome. A resilient person will recognize that the laughter is not malevolent22. It is a natural result of a certain stage of the learning process. A person with a healthy ego will understand that making mistakes is unavoidable and that some of the mistakes will be very funny. Such a person will stay in the kitchen, and stay in the oven until the ingredients that became dough are thoroughly transformed into good bread. The intended result cannot be achieved without the heat. Now I enjoy good bread as much as almost anybody, but my life does not revolve around bread. Bread is only one element of good nutrition and for me it is not even one of the most important elements. I kind of like the attitude expressed by so meone who said, "The main purpose of bread is to keep your fingers clean while you eat what's in the middle of the sandwich." Now when a baker is seated at the table with family members and guests, he does not focus on "baking bread" but rather on enjoying the whole feast. He takes bread for granted to some extent. As a baker he may enjoy the richness of a quality loaf more than others at the table. But he does not restrict himself to bread whenthe table presents him with a broad array of fine salads, pastas with tangy sauces, steaming casseroles, fresh vegetables, rich desserts and fruity wines.23 And the language learner has arrived when he no longer needs to focus on language. Language merely becomes one element in the "feast" of membership in his chosen community. Because of his efforts to learn the language as an adult in order to become a member of the community, he may enjoy the richness of the language more than those who grew up inside the community. But he is so busy enjoying the full spectrum24 of membership, that language just becomes one of the supporting elements, not the main point. Then he is truly bilingual. And he is glad that he did not "get out of the kitchen" at the critical moment when the oven seemed too hot. Terry L. Todd is a native of Colorado,
USA, and has his M.A. in Linguistics from University of Texas at Arlington
and his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages from University of Michigan.
He worked for many years with a non-governmental organization specializing
in linguistic and literacy development of minority languages where he
specialized in Kurdish（库尔德语） dialects. He is currently Adjunct Professor(副教授)
at Jingmei University, the new American University in Huairou District,
Beijing. |