Language Is Culture; Culture Is Language
Learning a new language isn’t just about grammar and vocabulary, it’s a gateway to forming personal connections, shifting perspectives and viewing the world beyond our own front doors.
“It’s one of the most transformative things a student can do in college,” says Luciana Fellin, professor of the practice in Romance Studies and Linguistics, and chair of the Trinity Language Council. “Languages aren’t just codes, they’re living systems infused with culture, history and complex societal issues.”
At Duke, many language faculty weave complex issues into their syllabi. “Language learning isn’t about knowing how to order food in a restaurant,” Fellin says. “It’s about engaging with ideas and conversations that matter, connecting language study to pressing global challenges and exploring the different ways they can be addressed.”
This approach also means students grapple with perspectives that question their own worldviews and broaden their understanding of humanity. “That cultural immersion, whether in the classroom or through summer programs abroad, starts a mindset recalibration and becomes a truly life-changing experience,” she points out.
Language learning can also carry the voices of the past into the conversations of today. “While Ancient Greece may be long gone and the post-World War II Cold War era officially over, Ancient Greek and Russian still remain keys to understanding the cultures and societies they stem from and how history shapes our world,” Fellin says.
Studying these languages offers more than grammar and vocabulary, it provides access to centuries of ideas and cultural exchanges that continue to influence the arts and sciences. In studying them, students don’t just study history. They engage with it directly, gaining insight into how past events and perspectives continue to shape the present.
Acting as a bridge to understanding other cultures as well as reflecting on our own, language learning also deepens cultural identity, strengthens social connections and challenges us to examine our perceptions and assumptions — building greater self-awareness alongside a richer understanding of the world’s diverse communities. “Studying a language like American Sign Language reveals not just a means of communication but a rich, well-established culture with its own history, values and traditions,” Fellin says. “There is also a different way of organizing and expressing thought via spatial, rather than verbal expression — and this in itself produces a mind shift.”
And while learning any language broadens your perspective, engaging with a less commonly taught language, particularly one that uses a different script or is typologically distant from our own, truly can be transformative. “It opens a window into entirely new ways of understanding the human condition, society and how people organize their world,” explains Fellin. “By immersing themselves in a linguistic and cultural system so different from their own, students gain insights that challenge their assumptions and expand how they see and interpret the world.”
