Nelson Mandela famously said, "If you speak to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you speak to him in his own language, that goes to his heart."*
I strongly believe that this is true, and that the same kind of tenet applies to literature; only in reading a work in the original language can you truly begin to understand what the author intended to do and to say with the raw materials available to her.
Of course, there will be times when learning another language may not be practicable or indeed possible - languages in remote or closed communities can be very difficult to access, or it may not be a great use of your time to learn Hungarian solely to read that one article with the tantalising keywords. However, by approaching cultures - and in that I include one's own - from a stolidly monolingual point of view, the scholar is bound to miss out both on varied viewpoints on his area of focus and on opportunities of a more enriching and potentially pecuniary nature.
Briefly, it is important to think about what it might mean to be multilingual in the context of academia. This may just refer to passive language skills such as reading and maybe listening, allowing the scholar to read and understand primary and, importantly, secondary literature on her topic. This sort of familiarity, if not fluency, in another language must be understood to 'count' as multilingualism, because even this opens up opportunities for the scholar in terms of the wealth of scholarship available to him. However, if the scholar is also able to converse in another language, whether it is a language of interest on a research level or another widely-spoken language such as French or German in which conferences and congresses may be held, this allows the scholar to form international links with other researchers and institutions on a more long-standing and personal level.
The practical benefits of multilingualism as explained above are clear. However, it fosters ways of thinking and of interpreting texts and discussions which are of great benefit to academics, especially in the arts and humanities.
For example, writing styles differ across cultures, which is often linked to language. As such, the Anglophone essay in which punchy Points, Examples and Explanations abound is quite at odds with the French dissertation whose conclusion is a gradually unveiled climatic moment, and is often perceived almost as an affront to a reader familiar with German Aufsätze, in which both example and detailed analysis co-occur in the same sentence. These stark structural differences, so closely entwined with specific languages, have in the past caused non-English ideas and texts to languish, untended certainly by the Anglo-American tradition, until decades after their first appearance - the French texts of Jacques Derrida being just one example**. In learning the language, the learner is often taught how to construct arguments within the culture linked to that language, or natural curiosity and motivation to read in the target language will also implicitly expose the learner to new ways of forming arguments.
Apart from writing styles, any multilingual will tell you that there are certain concepts that are best explained in a particular language; for example the Verfremdungseffekt is tied up with the German language in lots of ways, and serendipity is, for me, best explained in English. Terms in different languages come with different connotations, histories and assumptions which, if carefully considered, can greatly enrich an argument or a discussion in an effective and elegant way. Furthermore, many ideas, tropes and stories have been translated across cultures and which have been adapted in various ways. An ability to understand the idea's journey and history, from cross-cultural references to cross-linguistic wordplay, therefore allows the scholar a much deeper understanding of the idea under consideration.
This is just a short collection of my ideas on why multilingualism can benefit the scholar, and therefore academia more generally. I'd be really interested to hear what others think, and about any experiences you might have had learning languages or using them in an academic context.
*http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/06/24/mandela.quotes/
**Thanks to Martine Hennard Dutheil for this observation
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