Newspapers / Mars Hill University Student … / Sept. 13, 1974, edition 1 / Page 11
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FRIDAY, SEPTEI^BER 13, 1974 MARS HILL COLLEGE HILLTOP PAGE ELEVEN IT Al I motivation to learn Foreign Languages i UptoYOU k By Dick Newsome "I'm leaving it all up to you." That's the catchy phrase, for what it's Worth, that Mickey McLaughlin has this year for the College Union. Who is Mickey McLaughlin? Briefly answered, as Student Director of the Wren College Union, he is your advocate at the College Union. What is "I'm leav ing it all up to you?" is definitely not I don't care atti tude on the part of Micky, but just the opposite. What Mick ey wants the College ^aion to accomplish this year is solely opendent on what yoij, ^6 students of Mars College want to ^•^complish. In other '^ords, "it's all up you." September of 1973 the first time students were totally involved in entertain- oat at Mars Hill. At ^ o time there were '^o committees con- Oatned with the entei?- ^^*^ant that oper ated our of the Col- Union, the dance oiicert commettee and movie committee, th turned out, ® administration up still play- a large role in especially ,J^^ng the fall, in tairness to the ^istration and to aul ^®^®t in parti ta this was due student procras- and lack of spring came an tease in student and in- Spring does but some reason, that's another ®tory. t. By the end of all program- ly a being total- °^a by students. committees were tour Of ^^ing in the area CQjj’^tertainment. The commettee tecreation commit- '^ere added to the previous two. These four coramit- •tees are all very much active and alive now. Under Mickey's leadership, the chair persons and members of these committees are working for you. Each committee is to tally responsible for programming in each specific area for this semester, next spring, and next summer. It is their responsibility and their's alone to car ry out these pro grams and to (of course) stay within their budgets. Now that is another story. An important first is that before Decem ber 1st of this year each committee will submit a budget for the year 1975. In these they will out line programs for next year. This is the first time stu dents have had direct input into the budget as far as entertain ment goes. The pro cess before had been from Mr. Weast to President Bentley. The importance in this change in pro cess is that it will make it possible for students to know what is proposed and to know where and why these student pro posals are changed or denied; if in fact any should be. One thing Mickey wants the students to know is that this is the best opportunity ever for students to become involved at M.H.C., especially in the area of program ming entertainment. Mickey is always, almost always anyhow, willing to listen to new ideas and sugges tions . As mentioned before, "it's all up to you." If there is anyone to blame for a lack of something to do at M.H.C., you can point your finger at no one else but your self. In other words, as trite as it may sound, get involvedI by Harry Schweitzer It stands to reason that there is littl,e or no motivation to learn a foreign lang uage if there will be no future application of it. Since English has risen to a world wide means of commun ication, the usage of a foreign language and with it the moti vation to learn it, have diminished. This argument very often nips in the bud any further ideas why one should learn something which is not immediately ap plicable. This short essay will deal with such wallflowers among ideas or moti vations : Somebody who is learning a foreign language will very soon notice a deeper understanding of the subject is almost im possible if he is not willing to change his way of thinking. Re cognizing the nature and the differences of a foreign langu age as compared to his own, means to follow and accept its different way of de veloping thoughts. Such a recognition makes an understand ing and tolerance of a foreign culture easier if not on the whole more possible. The only way to re cognize our environ ment, our position, and social signifi cance is by means of comparison. Thus, the learning of a foreign language does not only explain to us a co\intry's cult- vure. It does not only educate us to tolerate and under stand people's dif ferent behaviors but it allows us to compare ourselves to them. This seems to be highly important because thus we might DO Mor SLACK tray^ find ourselves and our country's relative importance rather that an abso lute value. By learning a new language we extend our vocabulary and at the same time we ex pand the reality we live in. Since we think in words, the free play of our fancy can be extended only by learning new words. They cause new associations, they give a name to phenomenons which were unknown to begin with, and create new "elbow room" for our imagination. I em- phasize"associations" and "imagination" be cause they are the origin of our reality according to a so- called "nominalistic", assertion. The "Nominalists" affirm that classifi cations and categories in the world only come into existence when men in vent them. We create them by putting one word in relation to another which means that we recognize the genus of bushes only in relation to the genus of smaller plants or in relation to the genus of trees which might represent a higher evolution. This is the way of comparative thinking, which I have already mentioned with a more idealistic aspect. If I am right, that the bush and its re lation towards its verbal expression, but not vice versa, then a new language, presenting new words, also intruduces one into a new world. This would suppose that many of these new words, expres sions, or idioms name a thing, action, or mentality, which cannot simply be translated from a foreign language into English, So I am speaking of linguis tic phenomenons which in one language have a certain expression, but which in another language have a to tally different or even no expression. An example of this is when a German speaker is confronted with two possibilites to say "ich gehe"; i.e. "I go" and "I am go ing" . The latter idiom totally lacks its corresponding ex pression in German. A very obvious gap between two different languages can be shown with the exam ple of Swiss-German and High-German: The oral language Swiss- German has just two verbal tenses, the present and the past perfect. The future or the past tenses with which the Swiss confront in other languages forges them to think in different terms of space and time. Similar differ ences exist also be tween French and Eng lish or between any other two languages. Linguists have counted the number of different words in Winston Churchill's memoires and they found almost 40,000 while Konrad Adenaues's memoires only contain 1,200 different words. Such striking ir- egularities and the recognition of them will result in a new and widened concep tion and conscious ness of the world. The differences of our civilizations do not rest in the world itself but in the different languages of which one may em phasize what the other does not even mention. 'NO!’
Mars Hill University Student Newspaper
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Sept. 13, 1974, edition 1
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