Language's Influence on the Human Structure of Spatial Cognition: Frames of Reference

Google-doc version: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcqrb6wd_0d9kwfdc3

As space, along with time, is a fundamental defining our physical world, we use a good chunk of the language we speak each day to declare or reflect upon the relationships we observe within the space around us. These can be relationships we hold ourselves with space, such as “I’m in class” or “I’m by the psych. building,” or relationships we observe between other people and objects within space, such as “she is the one standing on the left of Joe in that picture” or “your keys are behind the laptop.” As natural and instinctive as these relationships seem to us, however, we do not all describe them in the same way. Each language indeed approaches and encodes these spatial relations through a different frame of reference—a coordinate system—that views the situation from a different perspective. Recognizing these differences, scientists have been wondering for decades of their significance: could such differences in linguistic codings of space result in different spatial perceptions crosslinguistically? An answer to this would provide significant support for the Whorfian hypothesis that language shapes thought. If language could influence even the human perception of space—with all its physical, observable characteristics, the possibility that it can mold our perception of less tangible concepts seem very hard to reject. After all, we do not have much else to base our imagination and perception of time, love, freedom, or justice on.

The empirical evidence on spatial relations and frames of reference currently suggests that linguistic frames of reference influence nonlinguistic conceptualization of space to propose this thought-shaping property of language as true. After a brief overview of frames of references and the current progress in categorizing languages under them, these supporting sevidence will be presented, along with a summary of and response to the counter-arguments and counter-evidence for this theory. A concrete plan for future exploratory research on bilinguals will be presented at the end.

Frames of reference: definition and overarching categories

First defined by Gestalt psychologists, a frame of reference (FOR) is a specific coordinate system through which people determine and describe the locations of objects in relation to one another. According to Levinson from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Netherlands, there are three distinct FORs across languages for the depiction of spatial orientation and relations: the relative, the intrinsic, and the absolute FOR. The relative FOR, aptly termed the egocentric or body-based FOR, observes direction and relations from the speaker’s perspective, while the intrinsic and the absolute FORs are both relative to an landmark or cue outside of the observer/speaker. For this reason, they are sometimes classified under one same overarching “allocentric” or “geocentric” FOR. The two differ, however, in that the intrinsic FOR is centered around an external object’s perspective, while the absolute FOR typically employs fixed, cardinal bearings such as north/south/east/west or uphill/downhill (use specifically by Tzeltal speakers). Describing the same spatial relationship of a child approaching a TV, a language coding space under the relative FOR would produce “The child is to the left of the TV” for what would be “The child is to the left of the TV(‘s own front)” in the intrinsic FOR, or “The child is south of the TV” in the absolute FOR. Of the three, the absolute FOR remains the most stable, while the relative FOR reverses as soon as the speaker is rotated 180 degrees (what is formerly “left” now becomes “right”). Some languages, such as Dutch and English, allow for depictions of space through all three FOR (though Dutch and English speakers often speak only in terms of the relative, reserving the absolute for describing large-scale geographical locations). Other languages, however, only possess mechanisms for spatial depiction through one single FOR. For instance, speakers of Guugu Yimithirr—an indigenous Australian language—have available in their language only the absolute FOR, and refer even to body parts as “south leg” (Majid 2004). Of the world’s languages, Levinson and Wilkins have extensively studied and categorized approximately 20 for FOR preferences in representation of small-scale, everyday spatial relationships. Japanese join Dutch and English speakers under the predominantly relative category within this data, while Yukatek Mayan, Tzeltal, Hai||om, and Tenejapan Mayans speakers, among others, have been shown to prefer the absolute FOR.

Possible causes of linguistic FORs’ influence upon spatial conceptualization:

As Asifa Majid and his colleagues point out in a 2004 paper, Whorfian effects “need be neither magical nor radical.” Indeed, it makes perfect sense for language to influence conceptualization in general, and conceptualization of space in particular, if through nothing other than forcing speakers to pay attention to the specific features of their surroundings necessary for producing everyday language. Encoding space through the absolute FOR, for example, a language requires its speakers to constantly keep track of theirs and other objects’ cardinal bearings as they move through space, in order to communicate through language. Because of their language, relative-language and absolute-language speakers then focus on different details within the same space, and are therefore said to “perceive” this space differently. Majid called the general process “perceptual tuning” through attention. Another possible Whorfian cause is “re-representation,” or the recoding of perception to match linguistic patterns. In this case, this would suggest that even if speakers across languages all perceive space through one same FOR intially, they would eventually recode their preceptions into their language’s specific FOR for more efficient retrieval and use as they accumulate more information. As the mind tends also to assign concepts of some similarity into the same category (Bowerman & Choi 2003; Gentner 2003), language can also be perceived as a similarity that leads the brain to group together and perceive different spatial relations from the same nonlinguistic FOR, if it depicts these situations under the same linguistic FOR.

Supporting evidence: spatial strategies and learning abilities

In 1996, Daniel Haun and his colleagues compared Dutch speakers of relative FOR with Akhoe Hai||om speakers of absolute FOR to demonstrate a correlation between a speaker’s linguistic FOR preference with his nonlinguistic FOR preference in spatial observation and learning. The researchers first asked subjects to watch the research “finds” a hidden block under a cup (the “Hiding” cup), then tried to condition each subject to find the “Finding” cup in situations where the Hiding and Finding cups maintained relative, intrinsic, or absolute position. Rotating the sujects between watching and finding to reverse relative perspective, Haun et al. found that Dutch speakers mostly searched the cup that maintained relative postion first (left-most cup, if Hiding cup was left-most), and learned faster under relative finding conditions, while Hai||om speakers did so in absolute conditions (southern-most cup, of Hiding cup was southern). This reveals a nonlinguistic preference of the predominant linguistic FOR in spatial strategies. Observing this correlation in both adults and children of both groups , Haun eliminated age and cognitive development as possible factors shaping nonlinguistic FORs, and reasoned the correlation as a Whorfian effect of language’s FORs upon thought and problem-solving in space.

Comparing speakers from another predominantly absolute language, the Tenejapan Mayans, against Dutch speakers, Brown and Levinson (1993) replicated the same nonlinguistic-linguistic relationship in speakers’ preferred FOR to further improve this hypothesis’ empirical support. When rotated and asked to reproduce an animal arrangements (“Make them the same”) in their corresponding language, Dutch speakers arranged the animals so that their noses (fronts) face the same relative direction as before, while the Tenejapan speakers preserved the cardinal direction the animals face instead (north).

Supporting evidence: spatial memory

Levinson (2003) asserted a similar correlation between linguistic and nonlinguistic preferences in memory of spatial orientation, observing that Dutch speakers memorized the orientation of two distinguishable dots on a card shown to them relatively, while Tzeltal speakers did so absolutely. Levinson also discovered that Dutch and Tzeltal speakers memorized path and directions through their language’s corresponding FOR. When asked to point out in a toy maze the path they have seen a toy man traveled previously, Dutch speakers again overwhelmingly responded with the path that preserved relative coordinates, while Tzeltal speakers mostly answered with the path that preserved the absolute FOR. This suggested that people not only describe space with their language’s FOR linguistically, but also observe space from the same FOR perceptually. Another study by Levinson revealed the same pattern in transitive inferences of spatial relations. Researchers first showed the participants a cube and a cone on a table-top, then a cube and a cylinder, then set a cone on an empty table and asked each subject to place a cylinder next to the cone. Here, Dutch speakers mostly arranged the two solids to preserve relative orientation (if cube was right of cone, and cylinder right of cube: cylinder placed right of cone), while Tzeltal speakers placed the cylinder down to preserve absolute orientation isntead (if cube was south of cone, and cylinder south of cube: cylinder placed south of cone).

Supporting evidence: co-speech hand gestures

The language’s FOR is preserved not also in non-linguistic conceptualization, but also in co-speech gestures. Haviland (1998) found that Tzeltal and Guugu Yimithirr speakers, typically encoding directions from an absolute FOR, represent an object moving west with hand motions towards the west, no matter which direction they are facing. They gesture towards the left, for example, if they are facing north, but gesture right if they are facing south. On the other hand, relative-language speakers of English, Japanese and Dutch observe and represent object movements with hand gestures predominantly along their left/right axis. Speakers of intrinsic languages similarly maintain the linguistic FOR in their gestures, indicating movements’ directions from the mover’s perspective instead of their own. They gesture away from their body, instead of from left to right or from north to south (Haviland 1998).

Refuting arguments:

Of course, the above studies only reliably demonstrate a correlation between the linguistic and the nonlinguistic FOR; they strongly suggest, but do not in any way prove language and the preferred linguistic FOR as the cause for conceptualization of space through this same FOR. Fortunately, they also demonstrate the reversed causal effect—individual perception shaping the language of space—as implausible. As mentioned above, speakers of the same language are shown to prefer the same linguistic FORs for the 20+ languages analyzed. For spatial perception to cause certain linguistic FOR preferences, every single person speaking the same language in a country must think from the same FOR. Except for an overarching cultural influence or a shared biological gene triggering the same FOR, this is too much of a coincidence to be a valid argument.

If the cause for certain linguistic and nonlinguistic FOR preferences is biological, it would also only make sense as a universal cause, not as a gene shared coincidentally by only members of a specific community. As data has revealed that different languages may encode space from a different FOR, the cause therefore is not the same universally, and therefore seems not to be biological in nature.

We now look at the last case, where the linguistic FOR preference is not a cause, but a co-effect of the perceptive FOR by some overarching, community-oriented influence. Researchers from Max Planck Institute summarized previous arguments for such an external, causal factor into three possible categories: the environment, habitual action, and larger cognitive trends for thought. Even within just the small sample of the 20 analyzed languages, however, no significant trends can be spotted to support any of these categories as the causal factor (Majid 2004).

Majid pointed out that one “environmental” theory hypothesizes that rural communities often lack the cardinal directions needed for the absolute FOR, whereas more sophisticated, mobile urban societies would employ the absolute FOR instead for more flexibility. From just the few countries we have observed, emperical evidence demonstrates otherwise. Dutch and English speakers, for examples, are relative speakers, even though their societies arguably remain two of the most advanced and urbanized in the world. The other environmental hypothesis associates the absolute frame with smaller, more “insular” communities (Li & Gleitman 2002). No pattern from the data supports this, though it does suggests the opposite, that larger, more globalized societies often employ the relative FOR. The pattern across the languages analyzed also does not reflect any pattern in habitual action, specifically mode of subsistence, between languages of similar FORs. And though cognitive trends of individualism vs. collectivism seem reasonable as a cause, analysis according to the definitions of Greenfield et al. determines only Dutch and English speakers as individualists out of the 20 languages, and the rest collectivists (Majid 2004). As Japanese and Yukatek Mexican collectivists also make predominant use of the relative FOR, no concrete generalizations could be made about cognitive trends as a emcompassing determinant for FOR preferences in linguistic coding and nonlinguistic perception of space. This, as Majid points out, of course does not disprove any of these factors as a causal factor. Having thoroughly analyzed only a small amount of the world’s thousands of languages, we also do not have enough data to make any reliable generalizations about the existence or degree of influence of such an encompassing cause.

Refuting evidence:

In 2002, Li and Gleitman claimed to have produced empirical evidence revealing the environment as the overarching shaper of both spatial language and spatial thought, and therefore refuting language’s influence on spatial perception. They emphasized indoor vs. outdoor testing locations as of major significance, and asserted that the previously observed correlation only resulted from testing Dutch speakers indoors while testing indigenous speakers outdoors (due to lack of proper facilities in these poor, rural communities). Using only American college students to keep language constant, Li and Gleitman adapted a version of the animal arrangement test with varied testing conditions—indoors with blinds closed (few landmarks), indoors with blinds raised (some landmarks), and outdoors (many landmarks). The two discovered that, though results under the blinds-closed condition agree with those from previous findings, under the blinds-raised and outdoors condition half the subjects opted to rearrange the animals to maintain the allocentric FOR based on a landmark. Subjects also asked for clarifications of what the researchers meant by “same” much more often in the latter two conditions. This indicated the subjects’ awareness of the landmark-oriented rearrangement possibility, even though they speak and arguably think in the relative FOR. Li and Gleitman reasoned then that we have all three FORs readily accessible, and the environment rather than language determines which one we actually employ. Their results seemed also to have invalidated previous evidence for Whorfian effects, on grounds of unequal testing conditions. Levinson et al. (2002) soon refuted this claim with emperical evidence, however. First, they pointed out that Whorfian results previously obtained from Dutch speakers were all collected under blinds-raised conditions, which according to Li and Gleitman themselves are comparable to the outdoors conditions indigenous speakers were tested under. Replicating previous “indoors” experiments outdoors with Dutch speakers, Levinson found that 95% of the subjects still gave more relative than absolute responses in both conditions, and speculated that Li and Gleitman’s subjects simply second-guessed the two’s simple tasks to produce the irregular results. We of course are still unable to conclusively refute or support Whorfian effects by testing so few languages, but as of now, much more evidence exists to demonstrate rather than disprove language’s shaping effects on spatial strategies and memory.

Possible direction for future research:

Experimenting with bilinguals seems to be the best next step in order to determine the extent of Whorfian effects on spatial conceptualization and perception. Research had shown before that simply changing the “language” a person uses to speak about a concept can change that person’s perceptual approach to that concept. Boroditsky (2001) demonstrated this by studying English-Mandarin bilinguals’ perception of time—the passing of which is described with horizontal directions of “forward/back” in English, but with vertical “up/down” direction in Mandarin. Not only did she discovered that English speakers were faster at determining event order when given horizontal language cues, while Mandarin speakers performed better when given vertical cues, Boroditsky found that English speakers quickly started to behave more Mandarin-like in tests after even brief training in vertical encodings of time. This reveals just how powerful language’s influence could be on thought and perception. We can much more convincingly claim Whorfian effects of language on spatial thought if we could reproduce similar results—that, keeping basic, nonlinguistic ideas of space constant (one person), simply changing the way a person speaks about space could change the way they think about space.

Possible theorical experiment:

For such an experiment, it would be most preferable to compare bilinguals who speak both an allocentric and an egocentric language (say, English-Tzeltal bilinguals for relative/absolute, or English-Mopan Mayan speakers for relative/instrinsic). This study deems it best to compare English speakers to Mopan Mayans from Belize, as the Mopan language allows only for allocentric coding of space (Levinson and Wilkins). Since their language does not provide mechanisms for relative coding at all, we can more safely claim any nonlinguistic relative coding we observe in English-Mopan bilinguals as a result of their English knowledge. Along with 10 English monolinguals and 10 Mopan monolinguals, it is also best if we could find 10 English-native bilinguals as well as 10 Mopan-native bilinguals for a subject pool of 40, and analyze each group’s nonlinguistic FOR preference using a variant of the animal arrangement test. The hypothesis then follows that: if we test each of these groups in their native language (Englisn monolinguals and English-native monolinguals in English, Mopan monolinguals and Mopan-native bilinguals in Mopan), the English monolinguals would prefer the relative FOR and the Mopan the allocentric FOR, while the bilinguals would nonlinguistically encode both from egocentric and allocentric FORs, with the English-native behaving more English-like, and the Mopan-native more Mopan-like. If we test the bilinguals in their respective second language, however, English-native will behave more Mopan-like than during the native-language experiment, while the Mopan-native will become more English-like. In order to perform the second-language experiment, it’s best to immerse the bilinguals in their second-language community for at least a few days (possibly under the guise of cultural-exchange programs in order to prevent the subjects from second-guessing the purpose), conditioning bilinguals into their second-language “mind frame” before testing them for most reliable results.

Practical limitations and suggested remedy:

As most allocentric languages “discovered” are spoken by small, relatively unknown, indigenous communities of low literacy rates, however, it is nearly impossible to find any English natives or indigenous natives who are bilingual for the purpose of this experiment. Until a more viable allocentric language is found, then, the only solution is to train relative English or Dutch speakers to become “bilingual” in both egocentric and allocentric FORs instead. Conditioning them into describing spatial relationships relative to a landmark, researchers could put typically relative speakers into a linguistically intrinsic “mind frame” to see if a nonlinguistic change in spatial conceptualization follows. (Method inspiration: Boroditsky’s training of English speakers to think of time in Mandarin-like vertical metaphors.)

Design:

Say we decide to test English speakers for this experiment. In order to eliminate possible indoors/outdoors differences, the experiment will be performed in a room with a large glass window, under blinds-raised conditions. Participants will mostly be American college students whose native language is English; they can be recruited either through flyers or emails, must be 18 years old or order, and must give their consent to participate in writing. In order observe their most candid FOR preference, we must also prevent the participants from guessing the purpose of our experiments, and therefore will disguise the experiment as a study on learning habits and strategies instead. First, we will replicated the Hiding-Finding cup experiment (Haun et al. 1996) with the subjects, observing and recording their preferred FOR as they are learning to find the cups. Then we will condition these same subjects—speakers of the predominantly relative English language—into observing space intrinsically. For this purpose, we will ask each subject to describe to us each of a set of two-object pictures (a toy house by a little girl, a cup by a TV, a man by a truck, etc.), in which one object is the obvious landmark for the others to be described by (larger, more dominant, has a distinguishable “front,” i.e. the little girl, the TV, the truck). It is predicted that the participants will start out describing from relative perspective (“The man is to the right of the truck,” for a front-profile picture of a man standing by a truck’s driver door). We will inform the participant that this description is “incorrect”, tell them the “correct” answer (“The man is to the left of the truck,” from the perspective of the truck’s own front), move on the the next picture, and recycle picture if necessary as we move through the set, until the participant could “correctly” describe each picture in the set. It is also important to record whether a participant immediately start out describing from the intrinsic FOR, and how long each participant takes to adapt the intrinsic FOR each time.

After conditioning the participants, we then go through the Finding-Hiding cup experiment again with the subjects, explaining this to them as a post-test to determine whether the spatial exercise with the pictures (in truth the conditioning process) helped improve their “finding abilities.” The hypothesis follows that they will now try to “find” from the intrinsic FOR first. We again make note of the first cup each participant turn over to see if it maintained position relatively or intrinsically (to an external landmark) with the Hiding cup, then release the participants after asking each if they would like to be informed of the final results and conclusion in the future.

Possible scenarios: A majority of subjects will

1. Starts out finding from the relative FOR, and ends up in the intrinsic FOR: this agrees with our hypothesis, and demonstrates that language indeed has a powerful effect on shaping the way we conceptualize space. If language could change how we think about something as tangible as space, and after only such brief conditioning, there is no imagining the extent of its influence on every other domain of our perception and conceptualization. Even in this case, though, we should be careful to test other languages of other initial FORs first before making any definite generalizations.

2. Starts out and ends up in the relative FOR: this does not agree with our hypothesis, but it does not refute language as a possible influencing factor affecting spatial concepts, either. It simply reveals the limit of such an influence. This limit makes sense, however. After all, space is a tangible and easily observable idea. Humans need not constantly look to language, especially after only such a brief shift in linguistic FOR, as a way to help characterize space.

3. Starts out and ends up in the intrinsic FOR: this is inconsistent with previous analysis about English’s typically relative FOR. If a majority of subjects respond in this way, the problem may be that the subject pool is too small, or too particular. The experiment must be reperformed on another subject pool before any reliable conclusion can be drawn.

4. Starts out intrinsic, and ends up relative: it seems the participants have second-guessed the purpose of the experiment if this is the case. The experiment must be redesigned—embedded within more complex disguise—and reperformed before any reliable conclusions could be drawn.

Also, if a significant number of participants immediately start out describing the pictures from an intrinsic FOR during the conditioning process, it might be that pictures—reducing the speaker’s involvement in a spatial relationship—automatically prompt subjects to approach them from the intrinsic FOR. If this is the case, another conditioning method must be devised and implemented with another subject pool before any conclusions can be made.

Whatever the case, though, it is difficult to deny language’s influence on the the human cognition of space based on the existing evidence. Regardless of nature’s role and extent of importance in determining our cognitive structures and frame of reference, this demonstrates nurture’s role in general, and language’s role in particular, in shaping our thought and conceptualizations about ourselves and the world we live in.

Works Cited:

Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does Language Shape Thought?: Mandarin and English Speakers' Conceptions of Time. Cognitive Psychology, 43(1), 1-22

Bowerman, M. and Choi, S. Space under construction: language-specific spatial categorization in first language acquisition. Language in Mind (Gentner, D. and Goldin-Meadow, S., eds), MIT Press (2003), 387–427.

Gentner, D. Why we're so smart. Language in Mind (Gentner, D. and Goldin-Meadow, S., eds), MIT Press (2003), 195–235.

Haun, D.B., Rapold, C.J., Call, J., Janzen, G., & Levinson, S.C. (2006). Cognitive cladistics and cultural override in Hominid spatial cognition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(46), 17568-17573.

Haviland, J.B. (1998) Guugu Yimithirr cardinal directions. Ethos, 26, 25–47.

Levinson, S.C. Frames of reference and Molyneux's question: cross-linguistic evidence. In: P. Bloom et al.Language and Space, MIT Press (1996), 109–169.

Levinson, S.C., Kita, S., Haun, D.B., & Rasch, B.H. (2002). Returning the tables: language affects spatial reasoning. Cognition, 84(2), 155-188.

Li, P. & Gleitman, L. (2002). Turning the tables: language and spatial reasoning. Cognition, 83 (3), 265–294.

Majid, A. (2002). Frames of reference and language concepts. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(12), 503-504.

Majid, A., Bowerman, M., Kita, S., Haun, D., & Levinson, S.C. (2004). Can language restructure cognition? The case for space. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(3), 108-114.

Language, in the language of Khanh Le

As today's is our last blog post, I decided to dedicate this blog to the class as a whole, and write about my experience "reading" the class instead of an article.

What is language? How did humans develop language, and for what purpose? What allows humans to learn and pass on such complicated systems of language, something no other creature can do? These are the questions I had coming into this class--questions I had hoped the class would help me answer.

It did not. And I am extremely glad it didn't. Instead, the introsem has taught me never to seek a concrete answer for these questions, as there will likely be none. This in no way implies that we should stop looking for answers, however, only to seek keeping all the possibilities, previous evidence, and opposing theories in mind. It definitely also convinced me that language not only reflects, but shapes thought and society. What now, are the implications?

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I will never be able to look at a bridge again without wondering if it was "feminine" or "masculine." And, occasionally, when I'm trying to remember something or remind myself of an image I only have a vague idea about, I will definitely wonder what part of the English language made me remember only that specific part of the memory, and not other parts. Of course, it may just be that the language had nothing to do with it, and the whole ordeal only reflects my failing memory, but at least I will still be aware of the possibilities. Speaking on a larger scale, however, how does language's influence on thought translate into action? Or does it? If a people perceive buildings or bridges as more feminine or more masculine due to the gender markings of the language they speak, are they more likely to design future bridges more femininely or masculinely, turning language-related perceptions into realities? And if so, how do we determine the boundaries between the effects on thought of the thought-shaping language, and of the action influenced by thought? Similarly, a child growing up surrounded by art portraying a strong, manly sun will perceive the sun differently from a child growing up in another country, where the sun is feminine in the language (and typically depicted with softer features and longer lashes). The effects of language on art here seems obvious. The effects of language on the child, however, are hard to distinguish from the effects of the art on the same child in shaping his gender-wise perception of the sun. Which here is more influential? Which has more potential to be influential? Does the degree of influence depends on the time of exposure, degree of exposure, or both? Since perception and thought are such complex processes simultaneously influenced by so many different events and situations, it will definitely be difficult to determine any of this with certainty.


Source: class discussions, ideas, and slides


I think I will miss writing these blogs next quarter... Along with the biweekly race/vicious fight for a table spot, of course. Thanks for making Psych 17N the awesome class that it is. Happy holidays, everybody!

Where translation, art, and Sign collide

As we have already seen in class through examples of machine translations and translated jokes, it is very difficult to fully translate a word or sentence from one language to another: no matter what the interpreter does, he cannot convey in his translation all the implied meanings and cultural subtleties of a language. After all, what language could still maintain it uniqueness and richness--what language would still be interesting to study--if it was simple, straightforward, and indistinct enough to be perfectly translatable? Herein lies the paradox of art (in the sense of plays and films) and literature. Great art and literature are pieces that creatively approach and cleverly address universal issues, pieces that open the perspectives of and are relevant to every single human being on the planet. These pieces would enrich and should be made available to as many people as possible, and the best way to do so is through translation. Chances are, however, these great pieces became great also because of their wit, their subtleties, their multi-layered language--characteristics that obviously cannot be fully translated. My IHUM professor often tells us stories of his French colleagues ridiculing his claim to have read Albert Camus' The Stranger: "You haven't read it until you have read it in French," the French would argue.

As the article "Telling stories in silence" points out, Sign interpreters face the same problems when trying to translate a classic puppet show into Sign for a deaf audience. It's important to recognize that Sign here is a language--employing somewhat arbitrary symbols to communicate thoughts, rather than body language. Translating between languages encounters different problems from that between "spoken" and body language. Sign is, however, still a special language with its own special problems, especially during the translation of a puppet show or a play. Not only does a Sign interpreter has to determine how to communicate the idea of "blue bird of happiness" efficiently yet artistically, he needs to decide where best to position himself and how best to communicate himself so that he doesn't distract the audience from the play as a whole. Indeed, "with a play, the most difficult thing would be trying to avoid directing the focus of the audience to the interpreter, and letting the audience immerse themselves into the play itself." Chew, a professional Sign interpreter, believes that in these cases, straightforwardness is the answer. Best to be straightforward and risk losing some artistic or cultural subtleties, than to "go overboard and attempt to bring every detail of the play to life." This would only distract and ruin the show for the audience as a whole. Along with translation in the context of the new language's culture (the translator giving new meanings and artistic values to the work by translating from the first into the second language using the second's idioms and cultural context), this seems to be the most practical solution to the problems to translation that we have and will have to face for as long as our global culture shall live. What do you guys think?

Dialects or Languages?

According to Lauren Gurry's article "Spanish: not your standard language," Spain currently has four or five different official languages, since "different areas of Spain deviated from the original form of Latin centuries ago when the Moors invaded" Spain. There have been efforts by the French colonizers during the 18th century to standardize the Spanish language, but the locals of each area reverted back to their own form of Spanish after Spain became an independent nation again. Renewed efforts are now attempting to unite the country under a single official form of Spanish once again.

"According to Gabriel-Stheeman, the steps to standardizing a language are selection, codification, elaboration and acceptance." Of these, he argues that acceptance is the hardest part to successfully achieve. As I have argued in previous blogs, and as we have discussed in class, a common language plays an undeniably integral role in uniting people and creating a sense of shared experience and connection to create a shared community out of a shared geographical location. Looking at language's ability and function from this perspective, it seems much worth the effort to enforce a single official language for the nation. Considering the variations of Spanish spoken in different parts of Spain as dialects (I'm not sure how much these variations differ from each other), however, taking away a community's distinct dialect might cause that community to lose a part of its very history and culture--a part of the very ideas and traditions that define it as unique itself. This brings us back to some of the core questions we have been trying to answer this quarter: What defines language? At what point does a language stop being a dialect and become a new different language in and of itself?

According to wikipedia (alright, alright, not exactly an absolute, accurate source), "There are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, although a number of paradigms exist, which render sometimes contradictory results." A dialect is sometimes called a dialect instead of a language only because it's not an official version of a state or country, when it lacks prestige, or when it's used only orally and not in literature or other written documents. In this sense, suppressing dialects and insisting on a single common language is like "killing" a language itself. Between national unity and preserving dialect-languages (along with the history, traditions, and unique reflections of a community that they carry within them), what then is a good balance or viable solution? This remains a question with many implications to be considered.

Source: Wikipedia - Dialect

Idiomatic: problematic or unavoidable and enjoyable?

Going home for Thanksgiving break and seeing my parents again, I spoke Vietnamese extensively for the first time in two months, and found myself in the exact same problem I had when I first learned to speak English: I automatically reach for idioms to compose my speech when I talk, only to immediately after realize I have used the wrong proposition or noun. (In Vietnamese, idioms often rhyme internally. An idiom would still sound right to the ears, at least initially, if a wrong noun is used that still keeps up with the internal rhyme scheme.) While talking with my mother one morning, for example, I used the expression "Chuột chạy cùng sào mới vào sư phạm," which literally translates to "Only a rat at the end of its stick would go to ____ college," and figuratively stating that only a college hopeful with no other choice would go to such a school. Of course, being the temporarily Vietnamese-deficient daughter that I was, I said "rào," which is the word for "fence," instead of "sào," which is the word for "stick." Not only does my idiom still rhymes, it still makes complete sense ("only a rat at the end of the fence..."), and in my opinion communicates the exact same idea as the original idiom. But it was still wrong, and still gave my mother a prime opportunity to "comment" on my "neglect" of my native tongue. Some idioms are not perfect; many, such as "kick the bucket," are even nonsensical, their denotative meaning having nothing to do at all with their figurative meaning. As Gina Kim's article "Idioms Are Testimony to Language's Torturous Path" points out, an idiom's existence and popularity paradoxically also mark the beginning of its death: "an idiom starts as a phrase, becomes an idiom when it catches on, and then dies as a cliché" because it catches on. Defying the value placed on individuality and originality at the very center of the American culture, idioms are not even necessary for communication. Saying "to die" is definitely easier, shorter, and more to the point than saying "to kick the bucket." And we still use a large amount of idioms in our everyday language. Why?

A large part of the answer might lie in the claim that idioms are "not considered a part of the language, but rather a part of the culture." In order to process and understand an idiom, a person must draw upon his cultural knowledge and experience. Idioms seem to force a person to connect with his cultural background, to put himself in local context, to identify with something larger than himself. In other words, the use of idioms suggests belonging and loyalty to a culture in a way. In this way, idioms assume a role of language at large: just as a common language connects and opens two people up to each other in a way few other things can, the use of idiom implies common background and experience to connect people. After all, humans are made of their experiences, and what can be better than similar experiences to start conversation, instill trust, and inspire connection.

Also, though an idiom may not be the only way to communicate an idea, it is generally one of the most polished and poetic ways. This is especially true for many of the American idioms currently in use that were coined by Shakespeare. Between risking inarticulateness to sound original, and using an idiom--a perfectly acceptable practice, opting for the idiom seems like a safe, rational choice for everyday conversation. In Vietnamese, idioms--with their elaborate rhymes, imagery and sometimes even historical references--also reflect the best and most beautiful of the language. Behind every idiom can be a moral, a life lesson, a reflection of society, a philosophy, or even a suggestion for a way of life. "Trời đánh tránh bữa ăn," (Using "God" loosely to refer to the omnipotent Force, this translates to "Not even God will punish/become angry at you during a meal") for example reveals the importance of meals in the Vietnamese culture, the time when families get together to share food and stories. The analysis, understanding and use of idioms then even become an elegant game of class and culture, something to expand cultural knowledge, evaluate personal philosophies, and enrich personalities.



Sources:

• Article: "Idioms are Testimony to Language's Torturous Path"
• Wikipedia - Idiom
  

Language and communication: reciprocal influences

Michael Skapinker's article "Whose language?" on the online Financial Times emphasizes language's role as a tool for communications, and how language itself is being shaped by communication while it is shaping global communication. This parallels quite nicely with language's other relationship with thought to remind us that language's communication function is just as important as its role in thought and thought expression.

Language's communication function is so important, indeed, that millions of people are spending hefty amounts on learning English--the language of commerce and globalization--these days. Many private firms teaching English to Asian students are rapidly growing and earning huge profits, and Korean presidential candidate Chung Dong-young himself is making quality-English instruction his vote-gaining campaign commitment, promising "a vast increase in English teaching so that young Koreans do not have to go abroad to learn the language." The article estimates that about 1.5 million people can "communicate reasonably well" in English today; that's about a quarter of the world's population, and about three non-native speakers out of every four. This number will only grow, and will reach 2 million in 15 to 20 years.

We all have some sense of English's immense influence on the world. What I found especially about the article, however, is its presentation of the world's influence on English, specifically its vocabulary and grammar. As we have already discussed in class, there are many variants of English spoken around the world today, from American English and British English to Trinidadian English. As English gains new speakers and fragments even further, the variants become more and more different. Even though most people who learn English for economic reasons probably learned either American or British English, I would expect each country to add its language's flavors to create its own version of English (Singlish or Kinglish, to name a few), and that it would therefore by much easier for non-native speakers to communicate with a native American or British--for a variant to communicate with an original, rather than for non natives from two different English variants to communicate with each other. This, as the article points out, is however not true. "Native speakers are often poor at ensuring that they are understood in international discussions. They tend to think they need to avoid longer words, when comprehension problems are more often caused by their use of colloquial and metaphorical English." In fact, many non-native speakers prefer to and do discuss business with other non-natives rather than a native. Non-native speaking patterns, such as adding or leaving out articles in wrong places or adding "s" to words like "information," "knowledge," or "advice" to create the plurals, are common at these discussions. As long as the non-native partners can understand each other, they often don't bother with correct English. Interestingly enough, even native speakers begin to speak in similar, non-native patterns after working with non-native colleagues for some time. As English transforms the world, then, the world is in turn transforming English, not only through non-native but through native speakers as well.

Sources:
Article: Whose Language?

Multilingualism in America

In his article "Immigrants' language skills crucial in era of global economy" for the San Jose Mercury News, Representative Mike Honda makes a great observation about the language irony in America: we fear multilingualism, and we look down upon immigrants whose native tongue isn't English, and yet we value native-speaking employees who could speak other languages. Children of immigrant parents are embarrassed to learn their parents' native tongues, and grow up refusing to speak anything but English only to spend up to "thousands of dollars to acquire a second language" later.

In fact, there are roughly two categories of multilingual communicative competence. We look at them here under the context of bilingualism:

• Compound bilinguals: people for whom "words and phrases in different languages are the same concepts." They are fluent and native-like in both languages.
  

• Coordinate bilinguals: people for whom words and phrases "are all related to their own unique concepts." One language is more dominant than the other for these speakers, and they often use their first language "to think through the second language."
  

Because of the American fear of multilingualism, then, many American children of immigrant parents who could have grown up compound bilinguals have to take foreign languages only to become coordinate bilinguals. So why the waste of resources? Why the fear of multilingualism?

Some people have argued that multilingualism and multiculturalism dilute the American culture, an argument Representative Mike Honda also addresses in his article. As he states, how can a culture made up of many other cultures be diluted by addition of new cultures, or by respecting and preserving these new cultures? Others may argue that multilingualism undermines American unity. I beg to assert otherwise: by looking down upon and alienating immigrants and non-native speakers, America is only forcing them to create and withdraw into their own communities to protect themselves, further promoting disunity in the nation. "The faster we embrace new communities, the faster they become Americans," as Representative Honda recognizes and asserts.


Sources:

• Multilingualism - Wikipedia

Have a good weekeed, everyone!

Learning ASL: when you are neither American nor... human

An African chimpanzee, the first nonhuman ever believed to have acquire human language, has died recently at a Washington research institute. Her name was Washoe, and according to the article "An African chimpanzee and its language of signs," she knew and could reliably and dynamically used a vocabulary of about 250 American-Sign-Language words by the time she died.

Reading this article, I immediately wondered if Washoe truly understood and used the signs taught to her, or was simply taught through rewards and punishments to associate a sign and the behavior of signing that sign with specific contexts. In other words, did she truly learn how to express herself with language, or did she simply learn signs the way dogs learn a new trick? The Gardners--the family that first taught Washoe the use of sign language, definitely taught her the sign for "more" as a rewarded behavior. Noting that when she's tickled, Washoe brings her hands together in a similar way a human would when signing "more," the Gardners shaped this behavior into the correct sign for "more," rewarding Washoe each time she performs it correctly by playing with and tickling her. According to the Gardners, however, Washoe seems to learn not only the behavior for, but also the concept of "more." They claim she understood she could sign "more" "to get more of anything, including food, games, and books." Also, she seemed to have learned the sign for "toothbrush" not through any operant teachings, but only by observing others around her signing the sign for "toothbrush" whenever they hold one.

Another key word in the claim is "human language;" Washoe was the first nonhuman to learn "human language." What is the integral difference between human language and animal language? Here is what I found on the general characteristics of human language:

• Arbitrariness: no relationship between a sound or sign and its meaning

• Cultural transmission: language passes from one user to the next

• Discreteness: discreet units (words, for example) are used in different combinations to create meaning.

• Displacement: can be used to communicate ideas that are not in the "immediate vicinity"

• Duality: language has and works well on both the "surface level" and the "semantic (meaningful) level"

• Metalinguistics: language can be used to discuss language itself

• Productivity: "a finite number of units can be used to create a very large - though often mistakenly described as 'infinite' - number of utterances"

It is obvious no animal language possesses all these complex qualities of human language. How are we to decide, however, that the portion of "human language" that Washoe learned is not a simple enough portion that it is only as complex as the advanced animal language that a primate like Washoe is already capable of. Washoe most definitely did not learn to use words as part of sentences, or to understand words on both the surface and the meaningful level. According to the Gardners, however, Washoe had "the ability to combine signs in novel and meaningful ways." For example, she"referred to her toilet as DIRTY GOOD and the refrigerator as OPEN FOOD DRINK, even though the scientists around her always called them POTTY CHAIR and COLD BOX." But even then, how are we to know for sure that chimpanzees like Washoe do not already possess these cognitive linguistic capabilities in their own communication? Instead of comparing Washoe's cognitive abilities with those of humans, then, I think we should only observe her only to understand the possible extents of animal cognition in itself.


An interesting fact: A researcher in the 1970s studied animal language with a chimpanzee named Nim Chimsky, and failed to replicate in a more classical experimental setting the results the Gardner achieved with Washoe. Linguist Noam Chomsky is also very skeptical of the Washoe's language skills, believing that there are no scientific support to the claim that she truly "spoke" human language.



Sources I researched for this article:

1. Washoe - Wikipedia
   
2. Animal Language - Wikipedia
   

Latin!? No really, what foreign language?

The reader blog "What do world language teachers need to know and be able to do?" lists the following seven requirements below as the current World Language Endorsement--or common core knowledge--requirements for K-12 teachers in Washington public schools:

1. Child and adolescent development, individuality and diversity
2. Language and culture
   
3. Language acquisition
4. Learning environment
5. Assessment
6. Professional development
7. Classical language

The author then later brought up an anecdote about a high-school senior staying seated at a reception when the speaker asked all those who speak another language to stand up, saying that she had only studied Latin during high school. While the last category of the above requirements suggests how much weight school officials still put on knowledge of classical languages and cultures, the anecdote seems to suggest public ambivalence regarding Greek and Latin. Indeed, it looks like "students themselves perceive that learning Latin is not the same thing as learning to speak another language," that it's no longer any useful to study classical languages like Greek and Latin now that they are no longer spoken. I personally would love to study Latin, and believe in the immense advantage of a basic understanding of Latin roots, so I had to disagree with this. The anecdote did make me wonder, just how important (or unimportant) classical languages are to people's studies of modern languages as well as to modern world cultures, so I researched the specific case of Latin, and found some very interesting language-related specifics.

Latin, for example, is more or less the direct ancestor of the Romance languages of the Indo-European language family. In the modern world, the Romance languages have more than 700 million native speakers worldwide, most of whom are in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. The most dominant Romance languages include Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Calatan. Among these, Spanish ranks second or third in the world for language with most native speakers, and Portuguese ranks seventh. (English--arguably the most "important" language in the world right now--borrowed many of its words from French, and is therefore under Latin influence as well.) Except for some pre-Roman influences, "the phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax of all Romance languages are predominantly evolutions" of Vulgar Latin--the "language of soldiers, settlers and merchants" of the former Roman Empire. Latin, at least the Latin of the people, then carries paramount importance in the modern world.

This brings back the question of dying languages. Though an extreme case, Latin is a dead language that was "saved." Dead, in the sense that people no longer speaks it in daily lives, and saved, as in records of it are still preserved in the modern world. Saved, but not revived. If the anecdote does indeed reflect public opinion--if people are not and do not want to revive even such a significant language as Latin, I wonder what chance other dying languages have of being revived (or even saved) by society--the only force with the power to save its own dying languages.

This week's interesting fact: the term "romance" (as in romance novels and love) comes from the same root as the Romance in Romance languages, which comes from "romanice" in "romanice loqui," or "to speak Roman." Roman here refers to Vulgar Latin, or the spoken language as opposed to Classical Latin used in proses, poems, and other written works. According to wikipedia, "in the medieval literature of Western Europe, serious writing was usually in Latin, while popular tales, often focusing on love, were composed in the vernacular" and therefore came to be called "romances."


The very interesting sources I used to write this post (that you should definitely check out):

• Wikipedia - Romance languages
• Wikipedia - Latin

Saving the Welsh language

We have been discussing a lot in class and through our blogs about the reality of saving languages: whether it is possible, viable, or even necessary to save a dying language, what we can gain or preserve by saving one, and what we might or might not lose by letting one die away. Debating the need and benefits of saving dying languages, it would be very helpful to observe and analyze the benefits and problems of a success story, also. The effort to save and revive the Welsh language is such a story.

As writer Eluned Morgan states in the article "Language should help unite the nation," Wales "should be proud of the fact that it is one of the very few countries in the world that has managed to turn around the fortunes of a minority language and increase the number of its speakers" through "direct and targeted government intervention." Before this, however, Wales must face and address two main concerns from its people and other countries. First, it must answer criticisms of the resulting reverse discrimination against non-Welsh speakers, especially in the labor market. This is not exactly a concern specific to the language revival in Wales, though. A bilingual laborer almost anywhere in the world will have a better chance of getting a job than a monolingual applicant, assuming they are similar in other aspects of their application. (Once this condition fails, of course, discrimination truly sets in, and is in no way tolerable.) Language-wise, "it goes without saying that to ensure the continued revival of the language we must ensure that, where relevant, there are opportunities to use that language," which means "some employees must speak Welsh." Just like it is necessary in California to hire bilingual medical employees to communicate with non-English speakers, it is necessary and socially beneficial to hire Welsh speakers to communicate with non-English speakers (especially as most of them are senior citizens whose social needs are greatest).

The second concern the article addresses is one much more relevant: how best for a government to allocate scarce resources in attempting to revive a language. The writer phrases it best: "Would the money currently spent on reams of complex and costly Welsh documents read by very few not be better spent on expanding the opportunities to speak Welsh at the grassroots level, with for example help to open a Welsh-language nursery school in every small town in Wales?" What is the perfect balance between policies and outreach? Between official literature and everyday, informal conversations? In the case of Wales, what about the 80 percent of the population that are non-Welsh speakers? How can the government reward and encourage Welsh speakers without leaving out and angering the rest of the population?

Here in lies the problem of saving minority languages: the government must actively take part in the process in order for it to succeed and last, but the fact that it is a minority language prevents the government (especially democratic governments) to properly dedicate to it, what with the many other social issues it must deal with that much more directly affect its citizens' daily lives. Saving languages, at least in the most literal sense of preserving the vocabulary and grammatical structures themselves, are not impossible. Today's recording technologies can ensure so. Whether communities can rally the financial and social support to do so, however, remains a tricky question to be answered only by each community itself.

Good luck on your midterms, everybody! =]

When "I heard you" becomes "I saw you"

Our language is what makes us human, what distinguishes us from other mammals in particular and other animals in general. A lot of you guys agreed with me on this in your comments on the Neanderthal articles. Not only does it allow us to express and communicate complex thoughts, language socially unites communities and countries together, connecting individuals who speak the same language much in the way a same hometown or birth country does. In other words, language allows us many of our identities, and plays a large part in shaping us into the unique social humans that we are. The same is true even for languages that are not spoken, as Sara Petersen, a Sign-language teacher at a Minnesota elementary school, realized. In the article "Teacher 'jazzed' by work with hearing-impaired students" by Joanna Miller, Petersen comments that the more deaf children "know about themselves and what’s different about them, the more they can do to help themselves.” This, according to Petersen, is achieved by teaching them Sign language and surrounding them with deaf peers, so they “would not have to go through an adult for everything they need to talk about," and have the communications tool to build for themselves "a better self image.” Even for deaf people, then, language helps create a deaf culture to unite individuals.


If language's paramount importance in communicating and uniting "normal" folks holds true as well for deaf folks, I can't help but wonder if the same is also true with language's role in shaping thought. As we discussed in class, humans think not only in spoken language, but also in images and with other senses. What if these visual images ARE the language, as is the case for the "profoundly and prelingually deaf"? People who have acquired language before they became deaf, as Cecil Adams says in his 2003 Straight-Dope article "In what language do deaf people think?", have a problem "not minor, but manageable." They think with the language they once spoke, much like normal humans do, and may learn Sign only in order to communicate. People who were deaf at birth or became deaf before they acquired language, however, need Sign not only to communicate, associate and form identities, but in order to do the very act of thinking itself. How different is the role of images for them, then, if most sign languages use the hands to create images in order to communicate? Are the images of Sign distinguished from other images in their thoughts, or are they treated the same way?


A native deaf signer reported to have been asked the question "How do you think?" many times. Here is her answer, which I find fascinating: she sees her mouth forming words or herself signing words in her head, and she sometimes also hears the "little voice in the back of the head" that all of us do when we think, even though she has no idea what it's like to hear a voice. She herself has no idea how this is possible, though she guesses she may have an idea of how words should sound through experiences with speech therapy. This brings up yet another interesting question: how does the way a deaf person thinks changes when he begins learning another spoken language in addition to Sign (in this case, English)? How about the difference between learning English in comparison to Sign, as opposed to learning Sign after speaking English, if the natively deaf are biologically different from those who became deaf after spoken-language acquisition?


Extremely random side note(s):

In trying to decide whether language shape thought, I attempted to define thought, and realized that we humans define great thought in context of culture. We might or might not need language to perceive or appreciate, but we need it in order to formulate our thoughts, compare it to those of others, and build upon them. We need it to develop our intellectual potentials and achieve thought maturity, as least as it is defined in our cultural context as knowledge, wisdom, and well-supported opinions. What do you guys think thought is?

What about memories? I'm not sure how everyone else is, but I typically analyze in words and remember in images; my thoughts are usually in words, and my recalled memories are mostly visual. I say mostly, because I'm unsure where to draw the line between memories and thoughts, as memory leads new thoughts as often as it does other memories, and the switch back and forth is usually unnoticeable. Should we simply consider memory a form of thought, then?


Sources aside from articles mentioned above:

• My answer to the question: How do deaf people think?
• Sign language - Wikipedia
• 
  

Happy reading, and have a great weekend! =]

Nature vs. Nurture: Language

This week, the language alerts brought back several articles on Neanderthals, and the possibility that they shared the ability to create language with the modern human. Johannes Krause and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology "extracted DNA from two 38,000-year-old Neanderthals collected from El Sidron Cave in Austurias, Spain," and found a specific form of the gene FOXP2 or Forkhead Box P2--a variant form similar to that of humans that has been linked to language development.

FOXP2 is required for proper brain and lung development. Mouse studies and known gene mutations suggest its involvement in the development of tissues in these areas, as well as the gut. Scientists first discovered the gene's role in speech and language in 2001, when they studied the Pakistani KE family, in which "half the members suffered from a disorder that interfered with their ability to understand grammar and to speak." Brain scans of both affected and unaffected family members "limited the affected region to a spot on chromosome 7," and further gene sequencing pinpointed a point mutation in this chromosome. This is now called the FOXP2 gene, and considered an important language gene, " not only in humans but also in animals.

Indeed, many related animal-studies I found suggest FOXP2 as one of the specific genes that enable language learning. Though on humans (and Neanderthals) carry the version that allows for word formulation, grammar competence and complex language, many birds, mammals, fish and reptiles carry similar FOXP2 genes, with a difference of only a few amino acids. And studies on zebra finch shows that levels of FOXP2 in the brain "significant change when males are learning or practicing their song, but not when they are performing their song for females." If this applies also to human, it could have provide great insight into the human ability to learn language, and possibly also into the difference between learning a first and a second or third language. In humans, however, studies have only linked FOXP2 mutations with problems in the motor coordination required for speech. MRIs of individuals with mutated copies of the gene also reveal "underactivation of Broca's area and the putamen--brain centers thought to be involved in language tasks." In other words, FOXP2 could be associated with language only on a superficial level, affecting our ability to express language rather than that of producing language.

I am constantly amazed at the intricate complexity of the human body in general, and the human mind in particular, but it's hard to imagine how the evolution of ONE single gene by a few amino acids could possibly make a difference as significant as the human language. I have in fact always believed language to be an acquired skill, something of nurture that we learn through social interaction out of social necessity. This article did suddenly remind me, though, that our very bodies make us human--one of those basic yet profound facts that many kids seem to know, and many knowledgeable, analytical adults seem to forget. (That sounded funny, didn't it? =D)

Another interesting fact: By comparing different FOXP2 genes in different people, scientists have estimated the time our version of FOXP2 developed through natural selection to about 100,000 years ago--"the time when archaeological evidence suggests that we began using language."



Sources:

• Article: Neanderthals: Did They Have Language?
• FOXP2 - Wikipedia
  
• Another article I found: From Genes to Word
  

Spoken fluency

About four or five months ago, I was walking through the Berkeley campus one night, on my way back to my friend's apartment. In front of me walked two professionally dressed guys in a heated discussion. They were probably both either seniors or graduate students, as they looked to be in their early twenties. Alright, I'll admit I eavesdropped a little, but only because they were loud, and my ears would've caught their conversation involuntarily either way. And I was, well, surprised. Surprised to hear how intellectual their casual conversion was, and surprised how many times I heard the word "like" in the few minutes they were in front of me. I was in high school at the time, and "like" was an integral part of the daily vernacular, but I definitely didn't imagine it frequenting college campuses then.
"
"Like" seems to be the teenage version of "um" or "uh," what Ted Landphair in his article "Spoken Language Is, um, Difficult" would agree to be speech disfluencies. The article, in fact, presents Texan journalist Michael Erard's take on our daily "spoken blunders," which he categorizes either under "slips of the tounge" or "speech disfluencies" in his book Um...: Slips, Stumbles, Verbal Blunders and What They Mean.

Speech disfluencies, as defined by wikipedia, are "any of various breaks, irregularities, or utterances that are often not consistent with any specific grammatical construction and occur within the flow of otherwise fluent speech." They are "among the characteristics distinguishing spontaneous speech from planned or read speech"--our way of covering up the gap whenever we could not find the right word fast enough in spoken conversation. The three most common types of disfluencies are:

• Filled pauses: and the use of pause fillers such as "uh" or "um"
• She will, uh, celebrate it tomorrow.
  
• I need to, um, find it first

• Repetitions: of words or phrases
• Did you, did you see her?

• Deletions: or "repaired utterances"
• He doesn't, didn't want to go.
  

[Source: Disfluency types]

The person I admired most during high school, now that I think about it, was the eloquent friend who never needed the aid of disfluencies when composing her oral sentences. All of us, I think, admire or strive for eloquence as human beings. As Erard reminds us, however, "only a rare and unusually brilliant person--such as the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill--can speak without a hesitation or flub." The rest of us will speak in disfluencies as we search our brains to find and analyze words. Disfluencies therefore do not imply stupidity in any way. With some conscious effort, relative eloquence is acquirable, however. If you simply slow down while you speak, and pause to gather your thoughts instead of blindly pressing on in disfluencies, you could soon find yourself sounding as knowledgeable and assured as you know you are. (And if only I could follow my own advice...)

Saving Languages

As globalizing becomes the only way for countries to survive economically, and as more people learn to speak "dominant languages" such as English and Mandarin, more and more aboriginal languages are dying out. Every two weeks, yet another language disappears somewhere in the world, possibly bringing with it centuries of history, of experience, of traditions never to be communicated again. "Australia, a very large island with over 250 plus languages with each language probably having 5 or so dialects is more at risk" of losing its languages. What could we do to stop indigenous languages' seemingly inevitable death in this modern age? What to do, Australia's Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association (ACRA) decided, but using modernization's very tool of globalization: the computer.

Winsome Denyer introduced the ACRA's solution in his article "How technology can save dying indigenous languages." In an attempt to revive and disseminate their own Arwabakal language, members of this cultural organization developed a computer program aimed directly at indigenous communities to save their languages. The program, called Miromaa, allows speakers (sometimes the last living speakers of a language) to record and explain a language with audio clips, still photos, and clips. Extremely user-friendly, the program works on both stand-alone desktops and within a network, and can aid not only in the storage, but also the teaching of a language. It is blank in its original form, allowing each user, each community to record and store their languages however they want to. Miromaa is protected by a secure network and a user-password system, and also has a learning tab, where you can access the information stored and begin learning right away.

In Arwabakal, Miromaa appropriately means "save." This program, indeed, might be the most effective way to save many dying oral languages--languages that can't otherwise be preserved after the last speaker passes away. Currently in Australia, Miromaa is used around Queensland, in New South Wales, and Victoria. Its developers hope to get it out to at least thirty eight language areas in the near future.

Miromaa, in my opinion, is a great and creative effort, but it will not be enough of an effort to save many languages. Many communities of indigenous speakers have neither the computer access nor the technological knowledge to make use of Miromaa, and most countries will not have the funds to support such an effort (especially poor, underdeveloped nations in Africa, where indigenous languages are in the most danger). As an effort to preserve cultural identity, however, Miromaa can help provide great insight into communities' history, customs, and views of the natural world: by listening to and analyzing the information each community chooses to record in their program, researchers, scholars and anyone interested can peek back into the past and pinpoint that community's most significant outlooks, beliefs, and values. This will allow to study these communities as building blocks of the larger community, city or country they together made up, and help us better understand this larger community as a whole.


Sources I used for information:

• The ACRA website
• How technology can save dying indigenous languages
  

Traveling the right way

My middle-school best friend used to excitedly email me stories of her conversations with American or European backpackers whenever she had a chance to meet one on the streets of Vietnam. Currently majoring in international relations at a Vietnamese national university, she studied English extensively during high school, and seized every opportunity she had to practice speaking the language. The best way to practice, she said, is approaching backpackers, especially backpacking native speakers. Just by asking them if they need help with directions, or by simply saying hi, she has struck up plenty of interesting conversations, improving her English pronunciation and speaking confidence while.... teaching strangers Vietnamese. (As it turns out, some backpackers are even more adept than us Vietnamese natives with directions and at our own game of bargaining, and just wanted my friend to teach them some more Vietnamese.)

Now why did I bring this up? An article titled "7 Tips for Learning a Foreign Language on the Road" appeared yesterday on Brave New Traveler, an online travel magazine. Its seventh and last tip encourages travelers to "reciprocate;" in trying to learn a language from the locals, an American traveler should "be patient and indulge them in conversation" when approached by locals "eager to practice their English." If my friend's stories are any evidence, this is a great way to immerse yourself in a new country's language and culture (and, as the article notes, to possibly find yourself invited to dinner during the conversation to sample more of the cuisine).

The columnist, Tim Patterson, also advises travelers to learn a few good jokes for conversation starters. If you know the locals are going to laugh at your funny accent either way, why not talk funny with an even funnier joke, and make them laugh at the joke instead? "Speaking with your stomach" and going shopping are other great ways to quickly learn to communicate the necessities: learn the word "delicious," followed by names of common and culturally relevant foods, as well as how to say "This is too expensive" or "I want the local price."

Behind these tips, the article makes a great point about traveling in the modern world. Why would an English speaker need to learn any languages while traveling, you might ask, if everyone else can speak enough English to communicate with you? Because you want a "more authentic, fulfilling, unique, and memorable travel experience," of course. As we already discussed in class, language can miraculously unite and open people up to each other. By learning just a few common phrases in a language and using them during your travel, you can much more easily connect with the locals, learning from them first-hand accounts of the country you are traveling in. Some language knowledge will enable you to actively interact with and participate in a new country's culture, which makes traveling a whole lot more rewarding than simple sightseeing and picture-taking.

Have fun learning!

Is language like cooking?

Have you ever wondered how the human mind pick up a language? Or why learning to speak a language take much less time than learning to properly read and write? Indeed, research shows that though ESL students take an average of five to ten years before they can read and write at par with native-speaking peers, they only need about two years to develop adequate speaking and listening skills. The same thing is true, also, for children learning their first language. Observe pre-school children, for example. Most of them still have absolutely no idea what the word "grammar" even means, and yet many can and do talk in properly constructed sentences. How? You guessed it. By memorization and imitation, of course. This is the basic of what linguists call the "lexical approach" to learning.

Lexicology is the branch of linguistics that studies words and everything about words, including their nature, meaning, elements, groups, and relationships with each other. (The name originated from the Greek "lexicos," meaning "of words.") Lexis is at the heart of lexicology and the lexical approach to language. Lexis "describes the storage of language" in our brains as "prefabricated patterns that can be recalled and sorted into meaningful speech and writing." In other words, the words combination of our vocabulary. Unlike grammar, lexis defines "probable" instead of "possible language use."

Tom Hayton, in his article "Why language is like cooking," reiterates this difference to argue lexis' superior importance to grammar in learning languages. Since "most sentences have been uttered before" and much of language is like Maggi noodle, he claims, it is much easier to memorize and use "phrases as ready-made linguistic chunks" than to analyze and recompose a common phrase every time you use it, as it is much faster to simply pull packaged noodle off the shelf and cook it than to make the noodle from scratch every time you want them. In fact, this IS what people do, he states: the mastery of grammar is not as essential to learning a language as many believe or claim it to be.

The lexical approach holds similar claims: (1) lexis is the basis of language, and (2) "the key principle of a lexical approach is that 'language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar.'" This emphasizes the importance of memorized word combinations in our brains, and has important implications not only to the learning, but also the teaching of a new language. Believers of the lexical approach indeed argue that lexis "should be a "central organizing principle" in any syllabus.

I myself believe in the necessity of polished grammar for fluency in a language, but I agree with Hayton that if communication is the goal, the lexical approach is much more effective than the grammatical approach in teaching language. I myself learned English by memorizing the common word phrases I hear during conversation, and imitating both their pronunciation and context of usage. (Up until today, whenever anyone asks me how I learned English, I jokingly answer: "I talked a lot.") I also read a lot of translated manga--Japanese comics--the first year, and this helped me see a lot of these common phrases in context and on paper to better remember them. Once I had the conversational basis, I could much more easily communicate with teachers and friends to learn advanced vocabulary and grammar structure. In this way, the lexical approach is not only a better beginners' approach, but also a great basis for the grammatical approach. Allowing us to communicate with each other and with the world, it provides each of us with the basics to experiment with and build our own unique brand of language from.

Thanks for reading, and have a great 3rd week of college =D


Other links I used beside the article:

• Student with limited English skills pose special challenges for testing
• Wikipedia - Lexis and Lexicology
• Lexical approach

Forensic linguistic analysis

Novelist and essayist Christopher Morley once said "There are no precedents: You are the first You that ever was." That, apparently, is true language-wise as well, and law-enforcement departments around the world have been using this to help them identify authors of criminal documents. Dr. Ernst Kotze--Head of the Department of Applied Languages Studies at a university in South Africa--is confident that this method of identification, called forensic linguistic analysis, is "a more reliable means of identifying the author of a document" than handwriting, fingerprint and DNA analysis. (Link: Language errors used to establish identity)

Forensic linguistic analysis studies a document's language usage, word pattern, stylistic errors, and literary techniques to pinpoint the author, typically employing a method called stylometric analysis. Stylometry originated from earlier techniques developed to verify authenticity and authorship for artworks and plays, emphasizing "the rarest or most striking element" of a work. In modern time, with the help of computers, stylometry can reveal identifying patterns in even seemingly common speech. Some common methods of stylometry are:

- Writer invariant: the computer scans an unverified text to find the 50 most common words, breaks the same text down into 5000-word chunk, and scans the chunks individually to determine the occurrence of these 50 words in each. The occurrences are plotted on the same plan as numbers from a verified text, and analysts can from this determine if the two texts are from the same author.
- Neural network: providing a network with texts of known authors to train it to identify texts written by the same authors.
- Rare pairs: analysts study the rate of occurrence of a sequence of words. People often associate and use some words with a certain other word, so rare pairs can be a powerful tool in identifying authorship.

(If you would like more information on stylometry and the methods, here is the wiki link: Stylometry)

Even when it does not have sufficient information to identify authorship, forensic linguistic analysis can point out astounding connections and similarities between texts to estimate testimonies' reliability, etc. Language Log's Roger Shuy, for example, mentioned one such example in his September-27th post titled "Treason in Georgia." Shuy was a language analyst in a trial condemning Maia Topuria--a Georgian opposition-party leader--of plotting to overthrow the Georgian government. Using topic sequencing and phrase comparison, Shuy proved all eleven, supposed "independently produced" witness statements to be composed by the same person, in this case possibly the main-party police: the statements all introduce different topics in an almost identical order, and all contain phrases such as " "elucidation by television," "pretext of protection," "to liquidate the ministers," etc. worded in exact same ways. I won't go into more details, as all of you are probably familiar with this case already. (Link: Language Log-Treason in Georgia)

To me, it is extremely interesting that language can act both to unify us and to identify us. It connects us with the world, and yet at the same time allows us to add our own personalities and styles to the world through it. Languages and cultures are constantly evolving and transforming. Probably, in part, because of this unique feature of the language itself.

A side note: I decided to bring up this article because of what Professor Boroditsky said in class the other day: "We all speak English, but you probably speak your own English, and I speak my own English, and chances are our English are very different." (Or something along the line. I'm not sure of the exact quote, but I couldn't agree with it more.)