After the tragic events of 9/11 in 2001, the lack of proficient bilinguals in the United States became evident. US security agencies “were so desperate for translators of Arabic and other languages of south Asia that they were forced to place want-ads in newspapers” (Crawford, 2004, p. 71). To meet the new challenges, many government programs were created to produce highly proficient bilinguals, especially in critical languages, to fulfill economic, military, and diplomatic needs. Strengthening languages of language-minority communities, known as heritage languages, is a potential resource to bridge the existing gap.
Review the options below to login to check your access.
Log in with your Cambridge Higher Education account to check access.
If you believe you should have access to this content, please contact your institutional librarian or consult our FAQ page for further information about accessing our content.