|
|
|
May 5, 2000
|
Volume 7, Number 16 |
 |
GENERAL |
|
PROFILEEmigré finds West complacent about learning second languageBy Sigrid Klaus When Ludmilla Voitkovska was a graduate student at the University of Odessa, Ukraine, during the 1980s, she says only three areas of study were politically safe under the U.S.S.R. régime: mathematics, musical theory, and formal linguistics. "In those disciplines," she explains, "it was difficult to say anything the system didn’t want to hear." As a result, Voitkovska, now a St. Thomas More College sessional in English whose full-time appointment in Languages and Linguistics is imminent, chose formal linguistics, earning her PhD in 1983.
What she had really longed to study, however, was English literature, especially the work of Czech-born Tom Stoppard, who moved to England as a youth and has achieved world fame as a playwright. "Had I written my dissertation on Stoppard at the time, I would have been obliged to portray him as a representative of bourgeois decadence, or risked losing my position at the University." After the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, Voitkovska came to the U of S (which she knew of because of its twinning with Chernivtsi University, in Ukraine), eventually deciding to pursue a second doctorate – this one on the great Polish-born novelist Joseph Conrad. While she, herself an ethnic Pole, was teaching at the University of Odessa, a friend happened to mention that there was a Polish writer who had written in English and "made it big." "I retorted sarcastically, ‘Yes, and Poland is the motherland of elephants.’ I simply didn’t believe him. I had never heard of such a person. Here I was, a professor who taught English and had never heard of this writer. "But Conrad’s father had been a Polish revolutionary fighting for a Polish homeland and attempts to establish Polish independence, even prior to the Communist take-over, had been erased from the history books. In the process Conrad, the writer, had become a non-person." Shortly after coming here, Voitkovska heard professors discussing one Joseph Conrad, whose original name was Teodor Jósef Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski, and she realized that he must be the writer her friend had mentioned. She felt an immediate affinity with Conrad, who had also grown up in Ukraine, and decided to write her doctorate on him. Half-way through her doctoral program, she was asked to teach Russian and Ukrainian in Modern Languages (now Languages and Linguistics). But moving full-time to that department will not exclude her from teaching literature. "With an essentially mono-lingual base in this province, most language programs here are necessarily becoming interdisciplinary. Some of my classes will essentially be comparative literature classes." Voitkovska says she’s pleased with the two courses she’s developing – Russian 398.3, Russian Revolution in Literature and Film, and a (still unnumbered) English course on Conrad and Dostoevsky, which she sees as a dialogue between the West and the Slavic world – adding that she’s grateful finally to be able to do so. "I don’t think it’s possible to develop fully as a scholar or a teacher if you don’t continually develop new course material." Voitkovska, who is able to work in seven languages, says that Canadian educators should place a higher value on learning languages. "If you don’t learn a second language, you’re not as aware of the structure of your own. I have many students who read their first novel – in any language – in my classes and who struggle to put together a passable sentence in English. They’ve been failed by an education system that has thrown out traditional approaches to teaching and is still in search of replacement." Moreover, she says, familiarity with other languages and cultures enriches patterns of thinking. "I have five students now studying in St. Petersburg who e-mail me that they’re amazed at what they find there – particularly at how revered cultural pursuits are in Russia. I remember when I was a student that it was cool to read Sartre, and no one was much concerned with having a car. I suppose since we were all equally poor, artistic and intellectual pursuits became paramount." If she has a mission in life, she says, it is to try to make educators aware of the importance of making a second language mandatory for university-track students. Or, failing that, to at least provide her own students with insights into other cultures and thereby make them less complacent about their own. "It’s easy for them to see the detrimental effects of censorship on the U.S.S.R., for example. But they generally don’t see that Western societies also impose certain values and constraints on speech. Western ideologies work in subtler, more sophisticated ways, and I sometimes find that I’m less free to say what I think in Canada than I was when I lived in Ukraine." Although she’s been in Canada just under 10 years, Voitkovska has had a lot of contact with Canadians. She’s worked as a translator for the federal and provincial governments, as well as for various University departments, and for the Ukrainian community. It’s work that has taken her "from potash mines, to farms, to Parliament" and has enabled her to see a side of the country that’s open to few new Canadians. But, harkening back to her personal mission, she thinks that Canada should be training its own translators rather than importing them. "Linguists and translators are on the list of professional skills in demand in Canada. But if, as a country, you import translators, you deny your own citizens the opportunity to study languages so as to become fluent enough to translate. I’m amazed to see how many students love languages despite the fact that the North American milieu operates as if the whole world speaks English." As an expatriate, she says she lives a double life by definition but acknowledges that the position of the outsider looking in has advantages as a scholar. While she’s as at home in English as she is in Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian, she notes that she’s still learning "street English" from her 15-year-old daughter Sofia. As she makes a new life here, thoughts of her homeland are never far from mind. "I can’t say that I miss Odessa terribly. In the totalitarian patriarchy that was the old U.S.S.R., a woman could only lose. Gender as a political notion didn’t even exist in the language. And the new system that’s replacing communism is blunt, cruel capitalism that’s particularly hard on the elderly, who’ve never had an opportunity to adapt. They’re without social protection, often not having enough money to buy medications or other necessities." What were her first impressions of life here? "That one seldom saw stray dogs, that few women on campus wore high heels, and that people often relaxed by placing their feet on desks or coffee tables."
For further information, visit the web site or contact communications@usask.ca
|
|||
Next issue of On Campus News: Friday, May 19
Advertising |
