Language requirement in graduate programs

[Wilde woman]

At the English programs I've visited, most of the language requirements are pretty similar: either you prove fluency in one foreign language OR prove reading proficiency in two.

So what do you guys think of the language requirement in graduate English programs? I'm particularly curious to hear from graduate students in the U.S. Some of the professors at various programs I've visited have been "appalled" at the lack of language preparation of incoming graduate students. And, more distressingly, the graduate students I've talked to have seen the language requirement as little more than an administrative hoop to jump through to fulfill the requirements of the program. It sounds like they rarely use the language(s) they learn in their work or research.

For me, as a medievalist, being multilingual is essential. For my research, it's crucial that I can read Latin and French, as well as Middle English. So I see this language requirement as something which can help me in my future work.

However, I wonder if my view of languages is influenced by my period of study. I wonder if students in more recent fields - Victorianists or modernists, for example - don't get as much out of other languages. Thoughts?

Also, since many litnetters are European, are language requirements in European universities different?

[LitNetIsGreat]

I'm a little confused. Is it essential then in the US to have some sort of command of another language in order to study English? Does this include English Literature as well, or just English Language? As far as I am aware there are no requirements at all for second languages in the UK in regards to the study of English.


For me, as a medievalist, being multilingual is essential. For my research, it's crucial that I can read Latin and French, as well as Middle English. So I see this language requirement as something which can help me in my future work.

That's incredibly impressive. You can read Latin, French and Middle English. :eek2:

[The Comedian]

Neely -- yep. Most graduate level programs, especially Ph.D work, require reading proficiency in at least one non-English language. Wilde Woman is medievalist, so they, as she notes, usually have to know several historical and modern languages.

I do think, at least when I was in graduate school, that you only need to have reading proficiency, so total fluency is not often required. But I'm sure that varies by program and university.

[Wilde woman]

I'm a little confused. Is it essential then in the US to have some sort of command of another language in order to study English? Does this include English Literature as well, or just English Language?

Neely, as far as I know, "English" in the US means the study of English Literature; you can't just study the language (unless you're in linguistics, and even then, it's uncommon). And, as the Comedian pointed out, English doctorate programs in the U.S. require one or two foreign languages. It's not as daunting as it sounds. Many grad students (especially English majors) come in with no languages at all, and have time to pick up reading proficiency in one language. (There are all sorts intensive summer courses you can take, which are as close to language immersion as possible, or - if you're lucky - you can apply for grants to study abroad.) Other students, like me, come from a Comparative Literature (or French or Classics) major where a foreign language is required, even as an undergrad.


I do think, at least when I was in graduate school, that you only need to have reading proficiency, so total fluency is not often required. But I'm sure that varies by program and university.

Yes, some of the top programs require fluency. But, as far as I know, your languages really depend on your research. If your research is mainly on English texts which were perhaps influenced by French works, then reading proficiency should be enough. But if you're writing for a French audience and attending conferences in Paris (as my Welsh professor is), obviously you'd want fluency.


That's incredibly impressive. You can read Latin, French and Middle English.

Well...*blushes*...my Latin is rusty and I'm just beginning to learn French, but yes that is my eventual goal. I'm lucky because I did Italian as an undergrad, which has helped me immensely in speeding up my French lessons. And actually, modern French is not the end for me; eventually, I've got to switch over into old French, because my that's what my research interests are written in.

Honestly, though, I think it's quite typical of early modernists (medievalists and Renaissance people) to be multilingual. You simply CANNOT be a medievalist without knowing Latin, and if you're in an English program, either Old or Middle English is a must. Then, if you're looking at literature after the Norman Conquest, it's helpful to know French. I know other medievalists who've learned Spanish, German, old Irish, Middle Welsh (which I want to pick up), Breton, and even Arabic!

Neely, a couple of our Litnetters do early modern stuff. Petrarch's Love and Lokasenna jump to mind for me. I know Petrarch (Renaissance) does Italian and she mentioned studying a Middle English romance for her dissertation. And Lokasenna has mentioned old English and possibly even Norse(?) to me.

That's why I'm curious to hear from grad students who do more modern stuff. How are the language requirements different for those programs?


As far as I am aware there are no requirements at all for second languages in the UK in regards to the study of English.

Really? What about at the M.Phil or doctorate level? We should ask Lok.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Hi, well I suppose it depends on what you study at what level. I'm sure that if you did medieval stuff at post graduate level then yes I would have thought that you would need a language, but certainly not if you were just studying literature to graduate level like me. Same for MA in general literature too; you wouldn't need a language, I can't think why you would anyway.

I think that the US that the system is different with regards to general study with a major attached to it, well in the UK it doesn't work like that, you just do a single or duel subject and that's it. I'm thinking that the US degrees are more rounded study with a major attached to it, but the UK style degree has more of a focus in one area but little wider knowledge?

[Virgil]

I needed to prove written proficiency in one foreign language for my Master's degree. I think it was worthwhile for me personally. It really put together in my mind what language is all about by studying another. I endorse a requirement for at least one.

[Lokasenna]

Hey-ho!

It doesn't seem to be formalised here in the UK, at least by my experience. As an early medievalist, it was just assumed that I could manage with Old English and Old Norse; although there was an Old Norse language module (which I took), it was strongly suggested (though not enforced) that you should already have a grasp of the language beforehand - the one lass who had no prior experience had to work very hard to make up for it, but she did manage in the end.

As for Middle English, the two departments I've experienced don't even classify it as a different language; you're expected to cope.

As for doctoral level, you are expected to have a working fluency in Old English, Old Norse and Latin (I'm working on the latter!), and (scarily) some reading fluency in basically any necessary European language; I had a rather worrying conversation with my tutor who pointed me in the direction of several secondary sources written in German and Danish - when I replied that I spoke neither language, he told me that I would have to manage. Apparently, according to him, you can, with practice, gain the ability to vaguely understand most of the written languages of Europe within a month or so - apparently Finnish and Hungarian are the hardest of the bunch?

So anyway, I hope that's some help from my limited experience! Basically, there's nothing official, but you have to manage with what you have!

[LitNetIsGreat]

Hi, yes thanks for that, that's what I thought.


Apparently, according to him, you can, with practice, gain the ability to vaguely understand most of the written languages of Europe within a month or so - apparently Finnish and Hungarian are the hardest of the bunch?

Yes I've heard a similar thing mentioned before but honestly how are you supposed to do that? I mean is this one (or two) months of doing nothing but cramming yourself with another language, how are you expected to fit everything else in in the meantime? I can figure that if I did nothing but surround myself with French (for that is the language I am "learning") then it would be possible but, like most people surely there are other things one "has" to do like damn work, kids, other study etc, it is quite frustrating. I find myself doing bits of French and have to drop it for other stuff all the time so that I hardly progress at all - man I need to be very rich and single!

[Nikhar]

Sorry for butting in a thread where I have no actual stuff to contribute. However, I just wonder why would there be a need for fluency in a non-English language if you want to study English? Isn't it just a bit stupid?

Sorry, was just curious.

[Wilde woman]

I just wonder why would there be a need for fluency in a non-English language if you want to study English? Isn't it just a bit stupid?

Nikhar, the idea is that English (like any other language) didn't grow out of a vacuum, so to have a comprehensive understanding of the language and its literature, you must have some knowledge of the multilingual culture it grew out of. English in the Middle Ages was heavily influenced by Latin, French, and German. So it makes sense if you're studying the beginnings of the English language that you'd want to account for its foreign influences. That's my understanding as a medievalist, but I don't know what the justification is for people in more recent periods.


you just do a single or duel subject and that's it.

I wasn't aware of that. And I'm finding that the U.S. and U.K. have different terminology. You mentioned graduate and post-graduate levels. In the U.S. the graduate level is anything you do after getting your bachelor's and post-grad is any study you do after getting your doctorate. It sounds like those terms mean different things in the U.K.


It really put together in my mind what language is all about by studying another.

I agree. A professor recently said to me that learning another language does something to your brain that (at the graduate level) you need to have happen. Though it definitely becomes more difficult if you're starting from scratch at the grad level.


As for Middle English, the two departments I've experienced don't even classify it as a different language; you're expected to cope.

Yeah, unfortunately. Neither does Old English, in the departments I've checked. Are Finnish and Hungarian the hardest? I've heard Russian was, though I'm not sure if it's an Indo-European language.

It's interesting to me that the U.K. doesn't have formal language requirements. I wonder why that is? Is it just assumed you'll pick up whatever you need for your research? At some level it's the same here, but you still have to pass the language exams by your second year.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I wasn't aware of that. And I'm finding that the U.S. and U.K. have different terminology. You mentioned graduate and post-graduate levels. In the U.S. the graduate level is anything you do after getting your bachelor's and post-grad is any study you do after getting your doctorate. It sounds like those terms mean different things in the U.K.

Yes there is a difference it seems. Graduate in the UK means a graduate from degree level study usually a three years full-time course, generally studied from the age of 18-21 at university. Post-graduates obviously come after that. Typically the most common in the arts are an MA (one year full-time) or a PhD (three years).


It's interesting to me that the U.K. doesn't have formal language requirements. I wonder why that is? Is it just assumed you'll pick up whatever you need for your research? At some level it's the same here, but you still have to pass the language exams by your second year.

You might not need any other languages for your research. For example I looked at doing an MA in literature (even though I can't afford it and it won't happen) and there are no language requirements at all. I wonder if in the US then you have more of a rounded education, as in language exams in the second year, but in the UK you have more of a specific study in one area. My degree is Literature and Creative Media, but the reality is that I have studied 90% pure literature (though this includes theatre and film study), with the rest made up of a few media projects, a little politics and history, but I could have studied nothing but literature. (Of course literature naturally touches upon history, politics, philosophy in its own right, but you know what I mean). I do gather then that if you study in the US from the age of 18-21 full-time that you can't just pick a single subject like literature, Biology or whatever and that instead you major or specialise in a particular area?

If I could fund an MA I would do pure English Literature at the Univeristy of Sheffield:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/postgraduate/taught/courses/arts/english/englishlit.html

[OrphanPip]

You have to have a reading level of French and English to graduate from high school in Quebec, so I can't imagine one language being too much of a challenge for an undergrad.

As to the major/minor thing, it would depend on the university. My major was microbiology and immunology, http://www.mcgill.ca/microimm/undergraduate/programs/major/ . Usually getting a bachelor's degree requires a certain number of credits that includes at least one major, I think in the arts it also requires a minor. So, in the Canadian system where 3 credits is a one semester course, I needed 90 credits (a 3 year program because we have mandatory Jr. college in Quebec) where 67 credits were included in my major and the other 23 were electives that I filled up with a couple humanities classes and some extra biology. Some schools require that you take at least 2 courses outside of the faculty of science.

[Nikhar]

Nikhar, the idea is that English (like any other language) didn't grow out of a vacuum, so to have a comprehensive understanding of the language and its literature, you must have some knowledge of the multilingual culture it grew out of. English in the Middle Ages was heavily influenced by Latin, French, and German. So it makes sense if you're studying the beginnings of the English language that you'd want to account for its foreign influences. That's my understanding as a medievalist, but I don't know what the justification is for people in more recent periods.




Ahh... I guess I get it. Thanks. ;)

[Petrarch's Love]

Hi Wilde Woman--In my doctoral program you only need to have reading knowledge of one language without the aid of a dictionary. As you know, I'm also in the Medieval/Early Modern era, so like you I have a practical need of several languages and have had cause to be glad of being able to read texts in French, Italian, Latin, Middle and Old English (I really want to pick up a bit of German one of these days, since lacking that really cuts me off from some scholarly articles and I bet it would really help me to polish off my OE skills).

I agree that my colleagues in later periods probably don't use their language skills as much as we do in periods when all the authors we study read and/or wrote in multiple languages themselves, but I definitely get the sense that people in later periods do use their language skills. Among other things, they often need other languages to look at philosophical sources and critical works that haven't yet been translated. I have a friend who seems to think that reading Kant in the original German really helps her apply his philosophy to her project (though others have told me they think Kant is less lucid, if anything, in the original :biggrin5:) and Foucault is more fun in French. Languages also come in handy sometimes just in terms of communicating with real life scholars, as I recently found when it turned out one of the guest speakers for a conference I'm running had much less English than anticipated, or as a friend of mine found when his knowledge of French allowed him to have more meaningful conversations with Jaques Ranciere when he was a visitor here a few years back.

I'm actually surprised that you've found that people in some grad. programs don't seem to be coming in with good foreign language skills. Having a couple years of at least one foreign language was a requirement for my undergraduate English degree, and it seems like most of my grad. colleagues came in with some foreign language experience. Though maybe that's partly because we have a number of Canadians here. I think it's wonderful that everyone in Canada just is bilingual. It would be great to do that in the US too.

[Wilde woman]

You might not need any other languages for your research. For example I looked at doing an MA in literature (even though I can't afford it and it won't happen) and there are no language requirements at all.

Master's programs may be slightly different. Virgil mentioned he needed a language for his MA, but some of the terminal MA programs I applied for did not require a foreign language.


I do gather then that if you study in the US from the age of 18-21 full-time that you can't just pick a single subject like literature, Biology or whatever and that instead you major or specialise in a particular area?

As an undergrad (age 18-22, generally), you pick a major (like English lit or Biology) to study. I don't think you always have to specialize within that major, though many students choose to. But you can also double major or major and minor, as I did with Comp Lit and Linguistics. So it sounds like in the U.K. there is more of an emphasis on general education and less so in specialization.


Languages also come in handy sometimes just in terms of communicating with real life scholars, as I recently found when it turned out one of the guest speakers for a conference I'm running had much less English than anticipated, or as a friend of mine found when his knowledge of French allowed him to have more meaningful conversations with Jaques Ranciere when he was a visitor here a few years back.

Ah, I'd never even considered this before. That's interesting. And yes, it makes sense that you'd use your languages for untranslated articles. And, just curious, did you come into your grad program with an interest in Old English or was it something you picked up along the way?


I'm actually surprised that you've found that people in some grad. programs don't seem to be coming in with good foreign language skills. Having a couple years of at least one foreign language was a requirement for my undergraduate English degree

The specific grad programs that have mentioned this problem are very big universities, so perhaps some admitted students come in with less prep. Hmmm, where did you do your undergrad? Most undergrad English programs I've heard of don't require any foreign languages.

[Quark]

Most undergrad English programs I've heard of don't require any foreign languages.

Actually, the reality is quite the opposite. The MLA actually compiles data on the subject, and they found in 1998-99 (the last time they reviewed this) that in the US 71% BA programs required some foreign language work--86% MA programs and 85% PHD programs also had requirements. I don't think any gaps in language skills are because of loose requirements, but rather lax enforcement. "Proficiency" and "fluency" rarely are asked for in foreign language exams. Many of the test takers will simply cram before their exam, do rather poorly, and then call their department's bluff. The department doesn't want to fail people for something that isn't integral to the student's work, so they often will accept amazingly shoddy work on these exams. Those students who succeded under lax rules become scholars and professors, and they in turn expect little from the next group of students. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I have only been to two schools so my views on this may be somewhat skewed, but what I'm saying is in no way unique. The MLA called foreign langauge requirements "notoriously underenforced" in one of their studies, and it's a common sentiment. When you look into the details, I think you find that it's the attitude toward the requirements more than the requirements themselves that determine how well students will do with foreign languages. That's why more elite graduate schools with more difficult admissions stardards (which frequently take foreign languages into account) end up with better foreign language skills than less important schools. It's because of the attitudes toward those skills. The requirements are often no higher at better schools--they just expect more from them.

I suppose that makes it sound like I'm calling for better enforcement across the board, but really I think things are not so dire some make them out to be. Yes, foreign languages help, but not all the time. I've translated much of the Aeneid from the original Latin, but little has it done me for my research in early Victorian literature. At the same time, though, it worked as a stepping stone to learning French, and that's been enormously helpful. I'm working on an article that uses some of Balzac's Splendeurs et Misères des Courtisanes, and being able to speak to the French in the novel rather than the English translation has openned some new things to me (as well as making me look better). Languages can be invaluable sometimes, but they can also be a waste. That's why students need to work with colleagues and advisors to know whether foreign languages are needed or not for what they're pursuing. If not, then, yes, I would treat the language requirement as an administrative hoop. Foreign languages help language skills in broad sense, so there's something to be gained even if it doesn't directly apply to your research. But, they simply take too much work during a critical part of your academic career. That's why students often need that forgiveness on their exams.

[JBI]

To study Chinese literature, which I am looking at now, generally they require grad students to be fluent in English, Chinese, both classical and Modern, and have the ability to read Japanese and French. The Japanese and French are a sub-exit requirement, and as to how proficient some people get at those languages is a debatable question.

Generally, for much of English literature, French is a must; French had three central periods of influence on English (poetry); from Chaucer to the Elizabethans, then at the Restoration, when neo-classicism came back with the reinstated monarchy, and then right at the end of the 19th and into the 20th century, when Modernism was kicked off, and symbolist and modernist authors served, once again, as models.

This is not to forget the scope of French prose and works that flooded in; Wordsworth and Rousseau, etc. And then there is the importance of scholarship in both languages, which one aught to have exposure to; simply put, you cannot read all of English without reading French once you get to a certain point, unless you specialize in a field where French influence was rather minute, or write on things that French is inconsequential for. Still, it can't hurt.

The same could be said about Italian; I am of the mind that, for many specialties in English, Italian is also a must.

Generally, if you want to be some super-scholar, Latin Italian, French, German, English and Spanish with English and French being a must, and the rest being "pathways" to more exposure.


Then again, I hear in Europe they are very strict (not England; don't know much about education in England) and that language requirements are very different. In Europe, from what I can tell, people actually fail and get kicked out of Ph. D. programs - it is common. The challenge of getting through it is much harder, and the requirements are enforced, with a time limit, making the work a lot more grueling. However, keeping that mind mind, most departments there, for foreign literatures, generally train reading comprehension, not speaking, or writing capabilities. So the first text you can read in a Japanese class can be Genji, accompanied by a reference grammar and a tick dictionary; not the most holistic approach, but that is how it is.

It is pretty lax, I am sure, unless you are working in foreign languages, or comparative literature, but honestly, learning to read French isn't that difficult compared to other languages - learning to write and appreciate it is a whole other matter, but that generally isn't a requirement.

Then again, I also come from a Bilingual country (though most people in it aren't necessarily bilingual in English and French), so that changes things; we start French young, though most don't pursue it; 1/3 of us start English young, and generally pursue it to a proficient level. In recent years our government is going about trying to bring about more bilingualism - beyond that too, good jobs outside of Academia seem to like French, especially in some cities - which I guess is comparable to certain areas of the US and Spanish.