The Rosetta Stone from Fairfield Language Technologies (http://www.trstone.com) comes in many different languages (Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese are available now, with Arabic, Esperanto, Hebrew, Korean, Polish, Swahili, and Thai under development). The interface and basic structure of the program are uniform to all languages.

This is one of the most highly acclaimed software programs for foreign language instruction in the general and computer press, and as such we decided to take a closer look at its claims that "The Rosetta Stone makes it possible to learn a new language the way you learned your first language: without translation, memorization or studying the rules of grammar!"

Basic Description

The Rosetta Stone uses a prompt (textual, voice, picture, or combination thereof) and asks the user to click on a corresponding text, recording, or picture. The type of prompt and response are chosen by the user through a set of "run modes". There is also a dictation mode and the ability to record one's voice. Based on these modes, Fairfield claims that all basic language skills are developed in the program.

For example, after installing the Russian Level I software, I started up the program and proceeded to lesson 1 in run mode 1. I heard the word /koshka/ ('cat') pronounced and the Cyrillic

appeared in the upper left hand corner as I looked at pictures of a girl, boy, dog, and cat. I clicked on the picture of the cat, was rewarded with an uplifting sound, and then heard /sobaka/ ('dog'), saw

and the same four pictures were now rearranged on the screen. In run mode 2 we only hear the prompt (i.e., "listening comprehension"), in run mode 3 we only see the text ("reading comprehension"), while in run mode 7 we see a picture of a cat and listen to the Russian for 'dog', 'cat', 'girl', 'boy' (also "listening comprehension"). The dictation purportedly develops "writing skills" and the voice recording feature develops "speaking". And so it goes through 92 lessons, each lesson consisting of four phrases varying in length from a word to several sentences.

There are other features: a response timer, a "delay option", by which one may hide the prompt after it has been given, and a test mode. These features do not significantly affect the operation of the program.

Problems

The program is woefully inadequate for a number of reasons:

• First, the The Rosetta Stone Russian Level I has no cultural context, at least not a Russian context. None of the pictures were taken in Russia, so the CD-ROM fails to convey any sense of Russianness (I can't remember ever seeing a roll of paper towels in Russia). The cars aren't Russian, the houses aren't Russian, the parks aren't Russian, the people aren't Russian. Interestingly, the same pictures are used in the German version of The Rosetta Stone, but my guess is that they are not German, either.

• Second, the program has no discourse. There is no negotiated meaning, no emotive language, no social exchange. The verb 'to love' does not appear, the verbs 'to want' and 'to think' appear once each, because it is difficult to express feelings, desires, etc. in a photograph. The language in The Rosetta Stone is not social, but rather a naming of objects and basic verbal actions, and more the former than the latter. A student who mastered all the forms in this CD-ROM would have no idea how to greet a friend or colleague, could not order a meal in a restaurant, could not address an envelope, could not, in short, function in Russian society.

• Third, the language of the program is English-based. A Russian would be very unlikely to describe a picture of two people in a boat with

('They are using a boat'); rather, a Russian would say

('They are sailing/riding in a boat'), but the authors had four pictures and in each a different object being used, so each got used. The language of the program was also designed based on a presentation of English grammar. Thus, there are several pictures contrasting tense, but none contrasting aspect. Similarly, in the first lesson the authors set up a contrast between "in", "on", "under". This is fairly straightforward in English, but in Russian the prepositions govern various cases, and the nouns being governed represent four different declension types - rather overwhelming to a student just beginning to study Russian.

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