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"Cultural understanding cannot be separated from understanding of language"

May 03, 2024

So argues Lisbeth Verstraete-Hansen, Head of the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies at the University of Copenhagen. For years, she has been deeply involved in the language policy debate and is a staunch advocate for language studies in Denmark. As chairperson of the Studieskolen Association, she looks forward to contributing to an educational task that is becoming increasingly important.

"When you learn to 'step out of your own and into something else', you bring something with you," explains Lisbeth Verstraete-Hansen. She believes that graduates with a linguistic education contribute something to society that no other field can. It is not just about grammar and language but also about the uniquely "ethnographic perspective" that linguistic graduates develop.

"When you learn a new language, you gain access to the words and concepts that different societies and cultures use to make sense of themselves and their history. You also gain a better understanding of why language used in a specific way in a particular situation can enhance communication, while other choices would have hindered it," Lisbeth elaborates.

Language studies are diminishing at universities, and Denmark produces significantly fewer linguistic graduates than before. This is one reason why Lisbeth believes it is especially important to ensure opportunities to convey and disseminate linguistic knowledge and intercultural competencies elsewhere, such as through adult education. The mission of adult education is precisely to promote democratic conversation and understanding of the world around us.

Studieskolen’s task is more important than ever – for several reasons

"As language offerings decrease everywhere else in the education system, Studieskolen’s task becomes as crucial as ever. But that being said – leaving adult education aside – one must not forget that language, especially in the job market, is also a valuable currency in the fight for jobs, influence, power and status," Lisbeth emphasises.

People who know languages have something that AI does not 

Lisbeth sees a challenge in tools like ChatGPT or Samsung's latest AI phone promoting a view of language as something purely technical. "You can go a very long way with these large language models, and the more standardised a task is, the further you can go," says Lisbeth.

"These large language models are trained to recognise patterns in incredibly large amounts of text and that makes them able to string together words so you feel like you are having a meaningful conversation with a chatbot. But the chatbot has no knowledge of the world. No human experiences. There is only text and statistics. This can lead to very problematic outputs and translations," she explains.

Intercultural dialogue has become more important than before

"Previously, language teaching was about learning the target language so well that you sounded like a native speaker. That was the ultimate goal – but also completely unattainable. Now, it is viewed differently. The intercultural dialogue and the ability to 'mediate', i.e. to convey meaning and build bridges, have come into focus," Lisbeth says.

Of course, Studieskolen must continue to promote this through the continued development of contemporary and motivating teaching methods. This is yet another important task that Lisbeth Verstraete-Hansen looks forward to contributing to as chairperson.

You can read more about Lisbeth Verstraete-Hansen here. And if you are curious about her arguments for educating more linguistic graduates, you can read her opinion piece in Altinget from 2023 here (in Danish).