[lg policy] US: Time to Take a Hard Look at U.S. Linguistic Preparedness

Fri Oct 15 18:58:52 UTC 2010

Time to Take a Hard Look at U.S. Linguistic Preparedness

Last Friday, President Obama announced that Gen. Jim Jones is stepping
down as White House national security adviser, to be replaced by Tom
Donilon. Changes in staff often serve as opportunities to take a fresh
look at longstanding issues. Where should he begin? Language.

Consider the following series of events:

2001 - On September 10th, the National Security Agency intercepted
Arabic-language messages that said, "The match is about to begin" and
"Tomorrow is zero hour." Unfortunately, these messages were not
translated in time to prevent the attacks.

2002 - The 9/11 Commission Report found that the nation's supply of
skilled linguists was being quickly depleted. The same year, a report
from the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) highlighted the
significant shortfalls in language-proficient workers.

2003 - The 108th Congress tried to enact the National Security
Language Act (HR3676), which would have allocated funds to foreign
language education programs at colleges and universities. It was
unsuccessful.

2004 - A report from the Department of Justice revealed that severe
shortages of linguists resulted in "the accumulation of thousands of
hours of audio and videotapes and thousands of pages of text going
unreviewed or untranslated."

2005 - The 109th Congress tried again to pass the National Security
Language Act, re-introduced as HR115. The bill was referred to the
House Committee on Education Reform. Again, the effort failed. The
same year, a report from the GAO revealed that 322 individuals
dismissed from the military for being gay were trained in "an
important foreign language." That group included 54 individuals who
were skilled in Arabic.

2006 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation released statistics
acknowledging that only 33 of its agents had proficiency in Arabic.
The government began providing handheld automatic speech translation
devices to military personnel, but quickly learned that the product
could not serve as a viable replacement for human interpreters.

2007 - In spite of the chronic shortages and the risk to national
security, the military kicked out more Arabic linguists because they
were gay, prompting The House Armed Services Committee to request a
hearing on the matter.

2008 - The Government Accountability Office released a report that
showed that 31% of foreign service officers in language-designated
positions did not meet the foreign language requirements for their
positions.

2009 - The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence decried the
"abysmal state of the Intelligence Community's foreign language
programs," adding that U.S. intelligence personnel who could speak
important languages of Afghanistan such as Dari, Pashto, and Urdu were
"essentially nonexistent." An audit from the Department of Justice
found that the FBI continued to have "significant amounts of
unreviewed foreign language materials in counterterrorism and
counterintelligence matters."

2010 - A whistleblower reported that many interpreters in Afghanistan
did not actually speak the languages for which they were hired.

More than nine years have passed since the attacks of September 11th.
Thousands of hours and pages of terrorism-related information remain
untranslated. Yet, a soldier's ability to communicate on the ground is
as vital to her or his safety as a bulletproof vest. National security
is at risk due to the country's lack of linguistic preparedness. So
why isn't the U.S. government minding its language?

In spite of the dismal chain of events and a nearly decade-long
language crisis, there's hope. According to the latest data from the
U.S. Census Bureau, nearly one in every five people living in the
United States speaks a language other than English at home. With 311
languages spoken within the country's borders, the United States is
one of the most linguistically blessed countries in the world.

Granted, the majority of these individuals speak Spanish, Tagalog, or
Chinese. But the United States is also home to 786,210 individuals who
speak Arabic around the dinner table, and another 352,617 who speak
Urdu at home. So, the problem isn't the lack of people who speak other
languages. The problem is that far too many resources have been spent
trying to apply long-term strategies to a critical and time-sensitive
need.

Training a monolingual American adult to speak another language
fluently - especially one as linguistically different from English as
Pashto - is a process that can take many years, sometimes decades.
While funding foreign language programs could pay dividends in the
long term, training individuals who are already fluent in two or more
languages in the skills of translation or interpreting would yield a
nearer-term gain.

Technology does not offer any simple answers to the problem either. In
spite of promising advances in speech recognition and automated
translation technologies, machines still can't hold a candle to humans
in many domains - spoken language interpreting being principal among
them. While technology is important, it should be part of a longer
term national linguistic strategy.

In spite of its ample language resources, the United States fails to
deliver the necessary end product. It isn't too late to address the
shortfalls in linguists, but it will require overhauling the country's
translation and interpreting production line. Revisiting America's
linguistic preparedness is a matter of national security, and one can
only hope, a top priority on Mr. Donilon's list of items to discuss
with President Obama.

>>From Huffington Post

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal,
and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message.
 A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman,
Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list