Random Walk
Tête-à-Tech
POP QUIZ: The French word collisionneur refers to
(a) a part of a locomotive;
(b) a particle accelerator;
(c) a particularly inept driver;
(d) a part-time Roller Derby jammer.
Though it’s doubtful you’ll ever be called on to provide a precise translation,1 the same can’t be said for Caltech seniors Eva Nichols and Sylvia Sullivan. Both are spending the fall of 2011 in the suburbs of Paris, as exchange students at École Polytechnique. Classes at the elite research institution are conducted entirely in French—and at a level rather higher than the “J’ai mal aux dents,” “C’est la vie,” or whatever else you might half-remember from high school. Nichols and Sullivan come prepared, however. Earlier this year, they took part in a brand-nouveau Caltech language course tailored especially for them: 10 weeks of rigorous immersion in technical French, both spoken and written.
“This isn’t a typical conversation course,” cautions its creator, Lecturer Christiane Orcel. “There’s no ‘Have you an unabridged edition of Les Liaisons Dangereuses?’ or ‘Never again shall I order the pâté.’ We’re specifically preparing students to engage in detailed scientific discussions.” Lauren Stolper, the director of Caltech’s Study Abroad program, explains the course’s origins: “Last fall, we had a list of 20 students who had expressed interest in studying at l’École Polytechnique. But at our first informational meeting, only seven showed up.” She wondered whether some of the no-shows might have succumbed to doubts vis-à-vis their own mastery of the language. Orcel suspected that Stolper’s hunch was right: “Americans can sometimes decode French phrases like une plate-forme pétrolière,2 but other technical terms are much more inscrutable. Lauren and I felt that students who were already strong in French could benefit from scientific discussions with native speakers. We brainstormed with Cindy Weinstein, executive officer for the humanities, and then sent a proposal to [Vice Provost] Melany Hunt, who approved funding for a trial term.”
And so, twice a week last spring, a handful of students met en masse in a Baxter classroom to hear guest lecturers giving technical presentations in French. Each lecture was followed by a Q&A session (naturally, English was prohibé in class), and then by a discussion of a scientific article related to the topic du jour. Orcel unearthed many of the articles from a journal called Pour la Science—the French version of Scientific American—but how, so far from Montmartre, Montreux, and Montréal, did she track down lecturers with native or near-native French fluency? “That was the easy part,” smiles the native of Nice. “It turns out that we have many, many francophones in the Caltech/JPL community. I just e-mailed every one I knew of. The response was overwhelming.”
The makeup of that first class represented an interesting mélange: half a dozen undergraduates, one grad student, one postdoc, and a JPL scientist, all of whom met the course prerequisite of two years of French in college or three years in high school. Sullivan, who has been au fait with the language since fifth grade, says her newly enlarged vocabulary will come in handy when she’s researching ocean sedimentation as part of her studies in France: “I’ll be studying in the Département de Mécanique des Fluides, which is a very impressive group. Eventually I’d like to do graduate work in applications of fluid mechanics to environmental questions.” And she can, too, since in addition to its undergraduate exchange program, École Polytechnique also conducts a dual master’s degree program with Caltech’s Graduate Aerospace Laboratories (GALCIT).
Still, a cynic might say, given that English is the lingua franca3 of modern science, isn’t knowledge of a foreign language superfluous? Au contraire, says Caltech physics professor Harvey Newman4: “The predominance of English in scientific discourse is historical fact now. But many of the CERN subcommunities, when they aren’t participating in major meetings or multinational working groups, speak among themselves in their own languages: Italian, German, Russian, Spanish, French. In fact, given the rise of China, Latin America, and other regions, I’m not sure that the exclusive use of English will persist to the same degree over the next few decades.”
Will Orcel see an encore of her class in the future? It all depends on the funding, she says. Stolper, for her part, is in favor: “This course makes the study of a foreign language truly relevant to Caltech scientists and engineers. It gives them the confidence to put their language training to use in their professional lives.” And Newman points out a subtler benefit: “Recalling what it was like to be a student reading original papers and PhD theses in French or German, I think something has been lost. Scientific discourse was once richer in this respect. Anyway, conversing with a scientist in his native language helps build partnerships, friendships, and mutual understanding—all of which are so important in modern life.” —DZ
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1 And if you ever are, the French Ministry of Culture cheerfully directs you to its technical terminology database at http://franceterme.culture.fr.
2 Oil rig.
3 Actually, this is Italian.
4 And researcher at the five-mile-diameter Grand collisionneur de hadrons (LHC) at CERN.
