As fellow linguists, I suspect that many readers of Polyglot will have memories of language learning during their school and university years that are relatively similar to mine. I studied two of the three modern languages that were available at my school to A-level (French and Spanish) and learned some Russian on the side (fortunately not examined!). The latter was offered thanks entirely to a teacher who had learned the language during the Second World War and who gave up his lunch-times with enthusiasm.
Similar beneficence marked my university years studying French and Spanish to degree level at King’s College, London (KCL), 1986-90 and specialising in Spanish as a postgraduate at the University of Cambridge. Before our freshers’ fair – and then at the start of each term – I lined up with most of my fellow undergraduate students to collect my grant cheque, and I had my fees paid by the state. I don’t know how much they were and did not need to know. The French part of my year abroad, a summer course in Versailles, which came with access to the palace and guided trips to the theatre and museums in Paris, was supported philanthropically by an anonymous KCL alumnus, to whom I shall always be grateful.
The space I was afforded to learn in those years, and not only in the classroom, taught me to think and it fed my love of foreign languages and culture, while allowing me better to appreciate my own. My graduate years (straight to a PhD at a time when a Masters qualification was not necessary) were funded by a British Academy grant. Without that support I would not have been able to pursue any studies further.
At Oxford, we continue to attract very talented and dynamic students in our Medieval & Modern Languages (MML) Faculty, at both undergraduate and graduate level, but we cannot pretend that their journeys are as supported and unencumbered as the old routes, like mine, or that nothing much has changed. Over the last four decades, in ways which are recounted and examined across some of the articles in this term’s magazine, the journey from secondary school pupil with a talent for languages to university and beyond has evolved in ways we could not have imagined. The discipline of Modern Languages in the UK seeks expressions of support more than ever and we are hopeful that we can find them amongst our talented students and staff and our wonderful alumni.
In this latest edition of Polyglot, an Oxford alumna speaks with Spencer Wisdom, Head of Legacies at the University’s Development & Alumni Engagement Office, about ways of supporting future generations of Modern Linguists as they keep our subject alive and speaking. Other articles include:
- A fond commemoration of Martin McLaughlin, Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian Studies from 2001 to 2017, who sadly passed away on 24th January and who will be profoundly missed within all parts of the Faculty.
- ‘Collaborating for Change: From the languages classroom to Whitehall, and back again’ in which Charlotte Ryland, who has recently benefitted from an OPEN Leaders award, charts the development of a number of excellent initiatives that she has been involved in to advocate effectively for the learning of languages in the UK. As Charlotte mentions, it is going to be increasingly important for Modern Languages departments around the country, and including Oxford, to embed such advocacy work into our operations.
- Reflections on the past, present and future of the Faculty’s engagement with language policy from Professor Katrin Kohl, who has long been involved in such work, and who led our response to the new government’s recent Curriculum and Assessment Review.
- A celebration of our thirteenth Brazil Week, run annually by the sub-faculty of Portuguese, including a description of its main events and its impact on current students across Oxford. It is certainly worth mentioning that events like the one held with translator Sophie Lewis are always popular with students, many of whom will take their interest in translating further after graduating. Soon they will be able to do so within the MML Faculty which intends to build on its deep engagement with translating languages and cultures by providing a new Master’s course in Creative Translation. Do keep an eye out for further details.
- Sofia Panourgias’ appreciation of this year’s Zaharoff lecturer, Tahar Benjelloun, French-Moroccan novelist and winner of the prix Goncourt. Benjelloun charmed a large audience in the Taylor Institution Lecture Hall with his sage observations about the role of literature, indeed artistic creativity more generally, in our world, as Sofia chronicles.
- A reflection from Georgina Alvarez Morera, who teaches Catalan in the Faculty, on the joys and challenges of learning another Romance language and its linguistics (joys and challenges that are embraced by students from within and beyond the Spanish sub-faculty).
- A fascinating dialogue between Dorothée Boulanger and Gibson Ncube of Stellenbosch University who spent six weeks in Oxford on an AfOx Visiting Fellowship pursuing research in his field of African Queer Studies. He provides a fresh perspective not only on his academic theory and practice with a base in the global South, but also on ways in which university Modern Languages curricula can evolve with the times.
I wish you all a wonderful springtime and look forward to hearing from you in the near future!
Professor Jonathan Thacker
Chair of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages