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clues often come at the end of a sentence. I have doubled. In 2010, there were roughly 240,000
not studied Arabic or Chinese or Swahili or Diné job postings aimed at bilingual workers; by
Bizaad or Quechua, but I’m guessing that they 2015, that figure had ballooned to approxi- conversation
don’t all follow that noun-verb-object pattern. mately 630,000.
Different languages, different ways of thinking. • Employers seek bilingual workers for both
Pretty complicated, isn’t it? low- and high-skilled positions. In 2015, 60 /
Speaking Spanish not only allows me to percent of the jobs with the highest
communicate with Spanish-speakers but it demand for bilingual workers were open to
helps me better understand the intent of individuals with less than a bachelor’s Language and Power
non-native speakers when they are speaking degree. Meanwhile, the fastest growth in
English, and to be more patient with errors. bilingual listings from 2010 to 2015 was for
Anyone who has communicated in a second so-called “high prestige” jobs, a category
language has, at some point, been tripped up by including financial managers, editors, and
false cognates, embarrassed by words in a industrial engineers.
foreign language with multiple meanings, or
horrified to discover the effect of a slight I am not naïve enough to believe that simply
mispronunciation was to express something studying another language will immediately
unintended. If you have struggled with another improve our capacity to communicate across
language you are more likely to hear more than cultures or guarantee jobs. But it’s a start. At the
words when listening to someone who is not a very least, we need to broaden the teaching of
native-speaker of English. You listen for subtle- foreign language so that university students
ties in the context that help you infer what the learn more than words and grammar and so that
speaker is trying to say, even if it hasn’t been professors and students recognize that master-
expressed clearly. . . . ing a language isn’t necessarily the point. We
Then there are other practical advantages as don’t seem to expect everyone who takes a math
well. The job market is much stronger for indi- course to become a mathematician or every
viduals who speak other languages, particularly student enrolled in philosophy to become a
Spanish, Chinese and Arabic. In the report, “Not philosopher. The underlying principle of a
Lost in Translation: The Growing Importance of liberal arts education is to equip students with a
Foreign Language Skills in the US Job Market,” range of skills and tools that will facilitate their
findings indicate: insertion into complicated social and economic
environments. The potential learning from
• Over the past five years, demand for bilin- foreign language study should be a key part of
gual workers in the United States more than that liberal education.

Questions

1. In paragraph 3, Reisberg uses the phrase “increasingly globalized world.” What does that term
mean, and how does she use that phrase to start building her argument?
2. What purpose do the facts and statistics that Reisberg includes in paragraph 7 serve in her
argument about language and power? Would you feel less persuaded if they had not been
included?
3. In addition to the economic benefits of speaking more than one language, what are other,
broader benefits that Reisberg describes?

Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample. 189
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