Language Labs and Archives of the University of Chicago

HISTORY

Introduction

Today's Language Laboratories and Archives (LLA) combine the complementary functions of two sites--the original one in the Social Science Research Building, which opened in 1962, and the newer one in Cobb Hall, the Language Faculty Resource Center (LFRC), which began operation in 1985. From a modest beginning in 1954 as a one-room facility, the laboratories have grown into the most extensive and best equipped centers for language study and research the University has known to date. More than forty years ago the founders of the Labs--Norman A. McQuown (Professor Emeritus, Departments of Anthropology and Linguistics) and Eric P. Hamp (Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Departments of Linguistics, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Psychology (Cognition & Communication), and Committee on the Ancient Mediterranean World)--articulated the threefold mission that the LLA still strives to carry out: 1) build and maintain an archive of printed and mechanically recorded materials pertaining to languages, 2) provide instrumentation for the pursuit of linguistic research and 3) foster the learning of languages by giving students a place to practice and by providing language faculty a workspace in which to develop and try out new pedagogical tools.

Postoscope

A projector to project images from cards or pieces of paper, used before 1970 in the LLA for lecture-demonstrations.

Early History

The roots of the language laboratories at the University lie even deeper in the past, however. The name of one man, Clarence E. Parmenter, stands out among those faculty members who have sought to promote linguistic research with the special aim of improving language teaching and learning. Having entered the University of Chicago as a student around 1906, Parmenter subsequently pursued a teaching career at the University from 1914 to 1953. As a member of both the Linguistics and the Romance Languages Departments, he did pioneering work in the field of phonetic theory and methodology. After a sojourn in France (the country then most advanced in the experimental study of speech physiology), Parmenter set up a thoroughly modern phonetics laboratory at the University, equipped for x-ray photography, airflow measurements and oscillograms of speech. Thanks to his experiments, he was able to make his major contribution to phonetics: the first scientific description of how and where in the vocal tract vowels are formed. Though a theoretician, Parmenter put his knowledge to practical use in the teaching of Romance Languages. His Handbook of French Phonetics was one of the first guides accessible to students that showed in a systematic way how the sounds of the language correspond with the spelling system. Although his phonetics laboratory was dismantled before the first language laboratory was founded, his legacy remains with the LLA in the form of an extensive collection of texts and phonograph recordings in Catalan, French, Spanish, English and Italian.

World War II

The background of the present laboratories also includes the experience of the United States in attempting to teach foreign languages to its citizens during both the Second World War and the subsequent Cold War. Even before the U.S. commenced hostilities late in 1941, the Armed Forces realized the necessity of training their personnel to speak the languages of the war zones. Under the aegis of the US Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) and the American Council of Learned Societies, the newly fledged discipline of linguistics had ample opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to analyze modern spoken languages and to develop methods for teaching them. Among those recruited to this endeavor was Norman A. McQuown, who summarized the results of these efforts: "The surprising news that Americans, given the incentive and the opportunity, with adequate time and materials, could learn foreign languages well, went far toward destroying a psychological block against foreign language study which had built up over many years of isolation, inadequate support, and frustration." (McQuown subsequently brought to the University his collection of books and phonograph records produced under the USAFI program. These materials formed the better part of the language laboratory's collection in the 1950s, and they remain in the LLA to this day.) Not long after WW II ended, the former war zones quickly evolved into "strategic areas"--i.e., the battlefronts of the Cold War. In this climate the teaching of foreign languages received a fresh emphasis. "Area studies" required language mastery as did the maturing disciplines of anthropology and linguistics.

Filmosound] Filmosound

A 16mm sound film projector, last used in the 1970s by Mr. McQuown.

Founding of the Language Lab

Given this background, McQuown--not surprisingly--spearheaded the effort to set up a language laboratory at Chicago. In 1952 he prepared a report in which he reviews faculty sentiment in favor of a central facility where sound recordings might be stored, where fresh materials could be recorded and where students might listen to recordings in order to gain accurate pronunciation. He wrote: "In the year which has elapsed, the original proposal... has now developed into a plan for a linguistics laboratory,... which would... have the following dual function: 1) it would serve as a center where graduate students might receive training in the techniques of linguistic research; 2) it would function as a service center to which academicians interested, in one way or another, in language...might have recourse for aid in the solution of their problems, both theoretical and practical." He concluded: "[A]ll problems in which language is involved in one way or another may eventually be brought to a linguistics laboratory for aid in their solution."

Despite these hopes and ambitions the beginnings of the language laboratory at the University of Chicago were not auspicious. Located in Classics 410 and first open for business in the summer of 1954, the lab consisted of nothing more than a room (apparently the size of a classroom) fitted out with a miscellany of equipment, which would eventually include open-reel tape recorders of varying quality, microphones (also of varying quality), around 12 listening booths linked to a makeshift control console, and ad hoc storage areas for the collection of tape recordings and phonograph records. The staffing of the lab was minimal, consisting normally of a single student technician working part-time. Throughout most of the seven academic years (i.e., 1955-56 through 1961-62) that the lab served the University community, it was open for individual study at least fifteen hours each week. As of the fourth year (1958-59), it appears that extra hours were scheduled (i.e., 25) in Winter and Spring Quarters.

A profile of the usership in those early years would still be valid today. According to one report, "...[T]he heaviest use of the laboratory facilities was by students of the college. However, the facilities were also used by students in the following departments and schools: Anthropology, Biology, Classics, Economics, English, German, History, Linguistics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Science and Romance Languages; Law and Medicine."

The recorded materials available to students were quite modest, consisting mostly of tape recordings made by the faculty as well as 35 sets of language records that had been prepared for the Armed Forces in the Second World War. Although modest, this inventory of recorded materials nevertheless allowed the staff to boast: "The language laboratory now has one of the most complete tape libraries of language courses in the world. According to the U.S. Government survey in 1958, the University has the only language laboratory materials in the U.S. in the following languages: Aztec, Bengali, Oxchuc, Tzeltal, Welsh, Dutch and Hungarian..."

Ford Foundation Grant

As early as November of 1957 the inadequacies of Classics 410 moved Prof. McQuown to raise the question of building an entirely new laboratory. He and his colleague, Prof. Eric P. Hamp, subsequently played a critical role in the planning and implementation of the present facility. Meanwhile, the funding for it was virtually guaranteed on January 6, 1961, when the Ford Foundation made a grant to the University of Chicago "for Non-Western Area Programs and Other International Studies".

Dictaphone

A dictating machine used about a century ago in offices.

Construction of what was officially dubbed the "Ford Foundation International Studies Language Laboratory" proceeded during 1961-62, and the new facility opened for business on Monday, October 22, 1962. Located on the lower level of the Social Science Research Building, the Lab's physical plant consisted of a suite of eleven rooms, which was sound-proofed throughout, as well as being completely air-conditioned thanks to a self-contained system. In addition to office areas for the staff the suite included a listening room, a control room, a recording studio, a seminar room, a library (archive), a technical laboratory and a maintenance shop. An article in the March 1963 issue of University of Chicago Magazine described the language laboratory as "probably the most complete and best equipped language laboratory in the country".

Eric Hamp served as acting academic director in the first year of operation, to be succeeded by Norman McQuown, who remained in that post till his retirement from teaching in 1979. Originally, staffing also included a full-time technical director, whose position was eliminated in 1971. From that date on, Joseph Toth became the de facto supervisor of the lab's day-to-day activities. Under various titles he would continue to manage the Social Science site for the next 26-and-a-half years; i.e., till his retirement on January 1, 1998. From that time to the present, Barbara Need has managed the Social Science site, and Michael Berger continues as manager of the LFRC. In 1979 Robert D. Hummel, professor of German, took over as the first permanent academic director, serving for six years. In 1985, Karen L. Landahl, associate professor in the Department of Linguistics, assumed the post. And on April 1, 1996 she became the academic director of the enlarged Language Laboratories and Archives, formed with the incorporation of the LFRC.

Recent History

For the last four decades the SS4 has served thousands of patrons from the University community. Most of those have been undergraduates coming in to complete class assignments. Numerous graduate students and some faculty members have used the workrooms and equipment of the Labs to do original research. Special programs such as the Peace Corps have also been accommodated here.

For research and the development of language courses the most active periods have been the '60s and the '90s. In the early days generous government funding subsidized the creation of lengthy foreign-language courses; in particular, Spoken Yucatec Maya, Spoken Quiché (Maya), Introduction to Bengali, Part I, and Marathi: A Text for Learning to Speak and Read Marathi as a Foreign Language. In the last decade another federal grant (from the Department of Education) allowed the LLA to bring the first two courses into the digital age by making text and sound available on CD-ROM. Among other noteworthy projects has been the development of an interactive multimedia program in Norwegian called MacNorsk. At this time the Labs are applying for grants to digitize their entire archive.

The earliest research into language phenomena carried on at the SS4 site involved the field of kinesics, or the study of "body language". For a number of years Mr. McQuown used the facilities of the Labs to teach a course on how facial gestures and body movements contribute to the act of communication. In more recent times Karen Landahl and her students have applied sound-analysis software to revealing the features of Japanese and Norwegian that are especially difficult for English speakers to master. And they have explored the use of visual feedback to help students acquire these sounds. Meanwhile, any number of graduate students have used the Labs' equipment and facilities over the decades to do field work and subsequently work up their data for presentation.

The advent of Prof. Robert Hummel of the German Department in the fall of 1979 heralded a change of emphasis in the Labs' mission. With inflation and the "fuel crisis", the 1970s had been a particularly challenging decade for private institutions of higher learning. Questions were even raised about the very usefulness of language laboratories. In assuming responsibility for running the Labs, Prof. Hummel considerably improved services to their main constituency— the undergraduate student attempting to acquire listening/speaking fluency, especially in languages such as Chinese and Japanese.

At the same time one constituency of the Labs--the language-teaching faculty--became dissatisfied with the lack of facilities for their specialized needs. Late in 1984 an "Audio-Visual Resource Committee", chaired by Carolyn Killean (Associate Professor in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations), began deliberations concerning an "audio-visual center" to be located in Cobb Hall, the center of undergraduate teaching. The new center, named the Language Faculty Resource Center, opened for business in May 1985, with Carolyn Killean serving as its first academic director. Occupying just two rooms on the second floor of Cobb Hall, the LFRC provided language instructors with two computers, a slide projector, a video camera and videocassette recorders capable of showing tapes in various formats and standards (including foreign ones).

Plans for building a Film Center required extensive renovation of Cobb Hall so that more room became available for a more spacious LFRC as well. During the Fall Quarter of 1990 the Pew Charitable Trusts granted the LFRC $450,000 to create a new facility, which began operations early in 1992. The grant did not provide funds for equipment, so that the equipping of the new center has been gradual. Today the LFRC can provide language instructors (and other faculty) with a multimedia classroom and a video production studio in addition to the media carts, computers and a photocopier it has provided from its earliest days.

From its inception the LFRC has also encouraged and supported innumerable projects to improve the teaching of foreign languages. Thanks in particular to the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (founded in 1986), funding for these projects has been readily forthcoming. So far, course materials have been developed in audio, video and computer formats in such diverse languages as French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Marathi, Tibetan and Hindi.

Language Labs and Archives

In July 1985 Karen L. Landahl, associate professor in Linguistics, became the fourth academic director of the Language Laboratory. She came to the facility with the express purpose of restoring its research capacity and maintaining the Archives while enhancing the pedagogical support and developmental functions. In line with this mission and in the 1988-89 academic year, she changed the name of the facility to its present designation, the Language Laboratories and Archives. Making "laboratory" plural emphasized the broad range of research that was carried on there; the addition of the word "archives" not only reminded everyone of the fact that the LLA possessed archives--but it let the world know that as a kind of library, the facility enjoyed all the privileges of "fair use" that the copyright laws entitle libraries to exercise.

Ms. Killean proposed to retire from teaching at the end of the 1995-96 academic year. The time was ripe, therefore, for the LLA and the LFRC to be merged, since they had overlapping constituencies (the language faculty) and complementary facilities for language learning, course development and linguistic research. The merger became official on April 1, 1996, and Karen Landahl assumed the directorship of the combined entity. The name "Language Laboratories and Archives" was retained as an umbrella designation for the two sites combined. As a practical matter, the designation "Language Faculty Resource Center" stayed, while the former LLA took on a new title as the "Social Science site".

In February 2003 we learned of the untimely death of Karen Landahl. Although she is no longer with us, we will continue to maintain her standards in supporting teaching and research.

Prepared by Joseph J. Toth, May 2003

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