The need for language study and ability in Southeast Asian studies appears to be universally recognized. Courses of study providing language instruction are found in many parts of North America and Europe, and scholars are assumed to be proficient in at least one language relevant to their work. However, in reality the aspect of language in Southeast Asian studies is seriously neglected. This, I believe, is largely responsible for the generally perceived decline in the field, both in terms of number of new students and in scholarly innovation and robustness.

Language ability is basic, crucial, and necessary for virtually any scholarly endeavour in area studies and in disciplinary studies in Southeast Asia. Job descriptions routinely require knowledge of at least one relevant language in the field, and a scholar would scarcely be credible without such knowledge. The days of the researcher unable to function in the target language, as of the armchair anthropologist, are over, or so we prefer to believe. Language ability provides a basis for access, insight, and accomplishment in all disciplines and sub-disciplines of Southeast Asian studies. However, it appears to be more necessary for some areas of scholarship than others, or rather, one can get by in some areas without the usual expected language competence. It is no secret that a rift has emerged between what is seen to be grounded, practical, language-related knowledge on the one hand and theory on the other.

In the natural sciences, theory is generated to try to explain observable data, and then to make predictions about related situations. Observations of new situations are then made in order to test the theory, which in turn is strengthened, modified, or abandoned. In the humanities and social sciences, however, this scientific method seems frequently to be turned on its head. Rather than a heuristic or explanatory tool, theory becomes an end in itself: Scholarship becomes bloated with a gaseousness of theory for its own sake. A desire not just to theorize, but to theoreticize, takes over.