Week touts cultures

This week, USM’s International Program and Foreign Languages & Literatures departments have collaborated with the Spanish Program to produce International Education Week, which according, to Dr. Lea Fonder-Solano, the chair of the Foreign Languages & Literatures department, is “a celebration of the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide.”

Over the past few days, the International Education Week has hosted foreign films, played music from diverse cultures, and has even staged a variety show.While entertaining, these events also hold great meaning.

Learning a language takes copious amounts of time, energy, and commitment, and it’s even more difficult to completely master one. However, we have much to gain from it, both mentally and materially.

“By studying a foreign language, students grow both cognitively and analytically,” said Fonder-Solano. “They build a complex understanding of the target region’s language, geography, history, politics, art, literature, music, media, customs, cultural perspectives, and values and interact effectively with native speakers...Foreign language-teaching licensure majors enjoy a 100 percent placement rate. In fact, a recent study finds that, nationwide, salaries reflect a 3 percent ‘language premium’ for bilingual hires.”

This is especially important in our rapidly globalizing world, for countries are becoming increasingly interwoven.  This is turn raises the topic of culture and how fundamental it is to language.

“A language is more than just words,” said Dr. Carmen Carracleas-Juncal, a Spanish professor at USM. “It has a set of values, assumptions, and feelings behind it. Language and culture come together. You cannot separate them.”

Every culture is different, and there is a language to reflect that difference. That’s what makes us unique as people, but at the same time we’re all united by one thing:  language.

“Learning another language and other cultures is what makes us humans,” said. Carracelas-Juncal. “What does it say on the International Building? ‘Above all nations is humanity.’ If languages are taken out of that equation, we are not human anymore.”

Culture and language go hand in hand. Taking the time to learn about and understand both allows us to grow as people. It gives us the opportunity to self-reflect and gain new insight into the world. That’s exactly what International Education Week is designed to do, to broaden our horizons and pique our curiosity about the world.

For more info on the rest of the week’s events, check out www.usm.edu/ip.