In our rapidly-changing world, we must lower barriers to understanding. Communicating effectively in another language is not simply an exercise in the acquisition of linguistic skills. We also gain insights into the thinking of another culture (often very different from our own)--insights that afford us the perspective necessary to examine our own cultural values critically. In MLL, we view language, culture, linguistics, and literature as integrally-related facets of the complex phenomenon of human communication, a process that helps us to understand ourselves, each other, our values, and our roles in a multicultural world.