Parse this: Pentagon fields new Language Corps

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:43 AM -0700 5/14/07, Dave Wilton wrote:
>This is not a news story, it's Dennis Baron's commentary on a news story.
>
>The confusion is in the second paragraph which is phrased in such a way that
>appears as if the commentary is a paraphrase of the words of a DoD official.
>This gives the article the form and appearance of being a news story.
>
>The use of the term "warehouse," however is a real quote. It's an
>interesting usage, to say the least.
>

Well, yes, the image of the army's "warehous[ing] linguists" is an
interesting choice, but I suppose a more judicious one than
whorehousing linguists.

LH

>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>Landau, James
>Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 7:04 AM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: Parse this: Pentagon fields new Language Corps
>
>I suspect that the article below is either a hoax or greatly
>exaggerated.
>
>Notice the number of cutesy and not particularly accurate comments ("few
>Latinos who haven't forgotten...", "retake New Orleans" (which we
>purchased)).  Also NOBODY talks about a current "peace" in Iraq and the
>one safe prediction about Iraq is that, no matter what happens there,
>DOD is going to need Arabic interpreters and translators (does the
>writer realize that there are other countries in the Near East besides
>Iraq where Arabic is the native language?)
>
>There are any number of non-Hispalnic Americans of recent immigration
>heritage who are fluent in their heritage language.  Many of them are in
>the Armed Forces.  Example: during the failed 1980 raid on the US
>Embassy in Teheran, the raiders included a number of soldiers who were
>Farsi-speakers.
>
>Between the two World Wars the US Navy had a "language officer" program
>in which naval officers were stationed in foreign countries, Japan in
>particular, solely for the purpose of learning the local language, so a
>"Language Corps" is hardly a new idea.
>
>     - Jim Landau
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dennis Baron [mailto:debaron at UIUC.EDU]
>Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2007 11:43 PM
>Subject: Parse this: Pentagon fields new Language Corps
>
>There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>
>Language goes to war: Pentagon launches Language Corps
>
>The Pentagon has announced the formation of a Language Corps, an all-
>volunteer linguistic national guard charged with defending America
>"during times of war [and] national emergency."  The Corps will recruit
>at least 1,000 civilian linguists specializing in a set of as-
>yet-undetermined strategic languages so that the armed forces can
>"respond in emergencies, whether international or national."
>
>According to Pentagon spokesperson Robert Slater, while the army does
>have a number of bilingual soldiers, most of them either speak Spanish,
>because they're among the few Latinos who haven't forgotten their
>heritage language, or they know some French or even a smattering of
>Latin that they picked up in high school.  Those languages won't be of
>much military use unless the President decides it's time to retake Cuba,
>New Orleans, or the Vatican.
>
>But there are languages that the army does need, and the Pentagon is
>setting up the Language Corps because it can't be expected to "identify,
>hire and warehouse professionals with skills in 150 languages."  In
>fact, it can't even find professionals with skills in
>two languages critical to the national defense, Arabic and Pashto.
>Despite the fact that Afghanistan and the Middle East have been trouble
>spots for decades, the army hasn't been able to "warehouse"
>enough linguists to deal either with the war in Afghanistan or the
>"peace" in Iraq.
>   ...
>interested? read the rest on the Web of Language:
>
>www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
>Best,
>
>DB
>
>
>
>Dennis Baron
>Professor of English and Linguistics
>Department of English
>University of Illinois
>608 S. Wright St.
>Urbana, IL 61801
>
>office: 217-244-0568
>fax: 217-333-4321
>
>www.uiuc.edu/goto/debaron
>
>read the Web of Language:
>www.uiuc.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
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