Handling more than one language: the relevance of gestures in second language acquisition

10. March 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Culture, Education, General language

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Marianne Gullberg dispels some of the myths about second language acquisition hand gestures, and questions why we think of bilingualism and second language acquisition as separate?

There is a great preconception that we use gestures, not when we are speaking, but to replace speech when we are learning a second language. However, as many of us who either learn or teach second languages will know, this is not the case. Students tend to use hand gestures to try to depict what they are saying, or to help “tease” the word out of them.

However, gestures and use of gestures vary from country to country, from culture to culture. Yet they can be used as tools for language learning. How?

First it is important to define a gesture. Within gesture studies, the definition used is “a movement related to what you are trying to express”. Gestures range from “conventional gestures”, or “emblems”, which have to be learned and relate to a specific word (think of scuba-diving gestures, or even the particular “ok” that has many culturally specific but emblematic meanings), to less or non-conventional “spontaneous” gestures, that are related to speech. People usually are less aware of the practice of spontaneous gestures.

Emblems tend to be language and culture specific, and spontaneous gestures are more individual but aspects of language, such as verb semantics, can affect the types of gestures used.

As regards tools for second language acquisition, different solutions can be found for issues with vocabulary, grammar and non-fluency. Vocabulary can be teased out by the use of gestures, whilst using words and explanations to accompany such gestures. Grammar and tense in particular can be aided by making spacial gesture that indicate concepts such as present, past or future.

There is also a gesture that appears cross-culturally in second language learners which is described as “whisking”, a swirl of the hand which is common when language learners are thinking.

It has been found that vocabulary learning can be aided by the use of accompanying gestures at the time of teaching the vocabulary. It is also true that a negative effect is found if the gesture has nothing to do with the word in question. Therefore using relevant gestures to aid the retention of new vocabulary in language learning is one way of using gestures as a tool.

There are many other things that can be said about gestures – their use in interpreting, the gesture “accent” that you may have, how to assimilate gestures in your target culture. Also, hearing children to deaf parents and their use of gestures. These all are things that I will look at in future blog posts. In the meantime, get in touch – What are your thoughts on gestures?Do you use gestures in language acquisition or teaching?

Intercultural Communication and the Olympics

01. March 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Culture, Education, General language, Sport

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A cold and snowy Soria welcomed me last Monday to give a talk on intercultural communication. In the Sala Roja of el Instituto Antonio Machado, so named in honour of the poet who taught there, intermediate and advanced level English students of the Escuela de Idiomas de Soria braved the weather to attend my talk about intercultural communication.

The theme I chose for my talk was the Olympic Games. Through the use of sport I could explain some underlying themes of intercultural communication using concrete examples, and allow the talk to be understood by a wide range of English proficiencies. The talk was given to groups ranging from B1 (intermediate) to C1 (advanced).

I wanted to use the theme of sport to express some ideas to the students in order to explain to them that subject specific  language can be exclusive, and therefore exclude those with no previous experience of the subject, and inclusive to those who do – and in this case can transcend linguistic boundaries.

To follow from this I wanted to stress that intercultural communication can therefore be both inter- and intralingual. Given my experience as a volunteer interpreter at the Olympic Games, I drew on the nature of preparation for interpreting to explain my ideas. I wanted to stress to these English learners the different knowledge pockets that we all have – and that our linguistic knowledge is not as complete in our own language as we may think. We are simply better equipped to deal with the gaps in our knowledge.

I wanted to use many activities to demonstrate the different levels of linguistic competence we have regarding different sports, not only in English, but also in their native tongue, Spanish. I felt that this was important as sometimes it can seem very daunting learning a new language, having so many gaps in our knowledge. Sometimes it helps to realise that in our own language there are so many things that we don’t know either.

I kicked off with the example of football, as one of the most widely played sports across the world, and certainly a very important sport both in the UK and Spain. I asked them to connect the Spanish terms for common football terms such as “goal”, “throw in” and “free kick” to the English terms. As expected, most dealt with this without much difficulty.

I was using this to explain the inclusive nature of sports language. When you understand the terms being used it brings people who understand both the language and the actions of such a sport together. However, I wanted to explain that football can also be exclusive to those who are not very interested in football, by giving examples of nicknames that football teams have. For people who follow football, this would still constitute an “inclusive” element, but for those for whom football just happens to be a popular sport in their country, this now moves into the “exclusive” realm of the culture.

To switch from common, popular sports, I then moved to the sports I actually interpreted for at the Olympics. I was based in the Excel Exhibition Centre, so I was interpreting for boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, fencing and taekwondo. These are minority sports and so the language used to describe the techniques, the kit and the format of the games are familiar to a smaller audience.

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I chose to use fencing and boxing to demonstrate my point. As regards fencing, I used an image showing various items of fencing kit. I first asked the students to try to name the kit in Spanish, and then in English. I stressed the point that whilst some of the kit items are named using normal, everyday words in both Spanish and English (e.g. chaqueta, jacket), others are not (plastrón, plastron). I used this to emphasise that sometimes it is not being a native speaker of a language that matters, but an interest or knowledge of a subject area.

Mexican Boxer Oscar Valdez being interviewed after a fight

Mexican Boxer Oscar Valdez being interviewed after a fight

Finally I moved to boxing, to look at stances, punches and defence. This was the most complicated exercise, but the students maintained interest and kept going for the final round. They found that as a group they could name most of the punches in Spanish, and therefore some in English, but the stances and defence was more difficult. Once again, often the names in Spanish of the moves were very similar if not borrowed from the English. This had not been my original intention of demonstrating that sport transcends language barriers, but it did have the added bonus of showing the importance of subject knowledge contrasted against language knowledge, which I think can be a useful tool in language learning.

This brought me to my final point, in that intercultural communication can be extrapolated out to many different cultures – it depends on how you define culture. You can define culture as a language group, you can define it as a country group, a regional group and so on. But, you can also define it by different subject “cultures”. Different sports have their own culture, just as companies do, as well as different professions, and any other group that share a common interest or need. And with this comes different terminology and linguistic expression. Whether you are talking about a Geordie from Newcastle, a social worker (think of all those acronyms), an activist, or a scientist, each of these represents a specific culture, which is one of the many cultures that each person belongs to.

In the end I wanted to express to these students that language is complex and diverse. It is fluid and not static, and that in our own native language there are many gaps in our knowledge, just as there are in any second or third languages that we might learn. However, with our native language these gaps seem small and insignificant most of the time. If we can apply some of the coping mechanisms we apply in our native language to our learning of new languages, then the interlingual gap will become smaller.

 

Global Food Security – The Future of the Smallholder Farmer

31. January 2013 · 2 comments · Categories: Agriculture
From Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Photo from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website

On Monday 28th January I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful talk organised by the University of Cambridge. It was the second in a series of three talks surrounding the issue of feeding our growing population. Having spent time last year in Brazil, working with small farmers, and the NGOs supporting them, this is an issue that is of great importance to me, and also one in which I was interested in hearing the panellists points of view. I felt that Dr Marion Guillon ended the debate with three words that will determine the future for smallholder farmers, “necessity, attractivity and competitivity”. Without these, there will be no reason for the smallholder to stay, but from my experience, and from what the panellists said, then I believe that there is hope, at least in some parts of the world, to believe that the smallholder may be able to consolidate and thrive well into the future.

So what is happening in the world of the small farmer? What work is being done? And what do they need to be able to thrive in the future?

Feminisation of agriculture

In recent times, agriculture has become more and more feminised. This is a phenomenon that is the result of male migration to urban centres, leaving mothers and children in the rural areas to tend the land. This is therefore creating new adaptations for women farmers, as they have more responsibilities that reduce the amount of time that they can spend on the land, such as child rearing and cooking for their families. It also represents an opportunity for women to become more empowered. With access to training, then they can really take a proactive step to becoming economically more independent, and also develop their agricultural work as a business. This is something that I saw when I was working in Brazil, with CECOR. Within the community that we stayed, the majority of those working the land was principally the job of the women of the community – they tended to the small hold, and the chickens, whilst the men tended more to the larger livestock if they had any. Through CECOR women had become empowered through access to selling their produce at a local agroecological market. This passed responsibilities to women and gave them more autonomy.

Land policies

Judi Wakhungu, from the African Centre from Technology Studies, stressed that in Africa the problem is not so much with policies as in the enforcement of such policies, which therefore relies very heavily on support from the government leadership.

The issue of landgrabbing is something very much on the agenda these days, and countries’ responses to this will be indicative of the success of smallholder farming in these regions in the future. Judi also highlighted this point, and drew our attention to great variations of behaviour across the continent. She stressed that countries like Kenya and Ghana have much more progressive policies that do not “give” land up to foreign investors, unlike what is happening in Ethiopia, for example, leading to the forced displacement of many.

Whilst I do not know a great deal about African policies and am still doing research, in Brazil the experience was that there is a lot being done to redistribute land to the previously landless, as was the case in Poço do Serrote. However, I am also aware of the strong push for sugar cane production and soya in the country, which causes similar problems to those mentioned above. I will be writing a blog on a later date to look into the issues of property rights in more detail.

Crop diversification

The issue of crop diversification, and the cultivation of site specific crops, is also very important on many levels. With the increasing problems related to climate change, and also environmental effects coming from the loss of diversification, which makes crops much more susceptible to mass failure through disease, this is essential for smallholder farmers to be able to maintain their livelihood and feed themselves.

Efforts are being made for smallholders to revert to more traditional crops for the areas in which they live. This in the case of Africa means reverting to cultivation of traditional crops such as sorghum, millet, yams and cassava. This is important as these crops are usually more resistant that wheat and other traditional cash crops. Sam Dryer, who was at the debate speaking on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, explained how the foundation is working with small agricultural communities working towards these aims, and also working in conjunction with local markets and chains to encourage the sales of alternative produce, to gain an entrance of these products into the market.

There was also mention by Sam of the work the foundation does in identifying genotypes for computational breeding, which is nothing to do with GMO, to help to develop better resitant and high yielding crops. The issues of uniformity created by this was raised by another member of the panel. Crop diversification is another issue I will look at in more detail in another blog post in the future.

Farmers’ organisations

The importance of creating “circles of trust”, as termed by Sam Dryer, was raised on various occasions during the debate. This often comes in the form of farmers’ organisations, unions, and also, in reference to foundations such as the Melinda Gates Foundation, or INGOs, for example, making sure that people that go and do the training, or workshops, or whatever work it is, have a real connection with the people that are receiving the services.

When I was in Brazil this was exactly how CECOR worked. They were a local NGO, which was comprised of people from varying backgrounds, some were even farmers themselves. When they were doing any training, they would train someone from a community, who would then in turn go to train other people in the community, who could then move to train other communities. This ground up approach ensures the empowerment of the people in question, and also ensures that they can work with people they trust.

Training and education

Education is essential to ensure the maintenance of healthy soil, to ensure better nutrition (not just growing cash crops, for example), to allowing smallholder farmers access to markets and to be able to access markets in an equitable way for themselves. Through farmers organisations this education is possible as in encourages an exchange of information and support network that otherwise would not be there.

The sorts of training that were available to farmers in the area of Brazil where I was based were varied. They tended to be offered either by local NGOs or also Government Departments. You can see a description of one such event we attended in my blogpost about feed preparation and storage. This is actually a subject that is particularly relevant to working within farmers’ organisations, as the access to the group can lead to the possibilities of buying between the group the equipment necessary for drying and storing crops to reduce losses.

Funding programmes

Finally facilitating the entrance of smallholder farmers into the market through the use of funds and also the provision of insurance is also essential to the success of the smallholder farmer in the future. These people have traditionally been excluded from formal routes to credit, but through technology, particularly such as mobile phones, access to banking systems and bank accounts is becoming easier.

Judi mentioned a programme called the “One Acre Fund”, which provides farmers that form part of farmers’ groups with $75 dollars with which to gain access to education, money to buy quality seeds and fertiliser and also  market facilitation which can be facilitated through handling and storage. This is something that promotes group organisation, which work as support networks, as well as giving smallholder farmers an opportunity to start up and gain access to markets.

There is a long way to go, and in this blog I have not even touched upon many of the relevant issues nor gone into the detail necessary to look into any of the topics above described. This will keep for a later date. However, I do think that the debate provided a good background from which to start thinking and looking at how the small farmer should figure in the future of agriculture, and how this can be made beneficial for everyone.

 

IATE Terminology Database Talk 18-01-13 Part 2

25. January 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Education, General language, Translation Methods

words-cant-describeLast week I gave Timothy Cooper’s wonderful insight into the field of terminology. This week, with the theory about terminology mainly out of the way, I will share with you what Timothy said about IATE itself. The database is a share database for all the European Institutions, bodies and agencies, for all activity fields for LSP. It includes terms, definitions, references and snippets of context.

The aim of the second half of the talk was to equip translators with the information to use IATE effectively in our work. Whilst IATE boasts a huge amount of information, there are drawbacks, which are outlined below, along with useful tips about how to overcome these pitfalls to get the most out of IATE.

Domains

The issue with domains stems from the fact that IATE was not created from scratch, it was based on EuroVoc. Automatic mapping was necessary, and this often does not result in very accurate allocation of domains. Therefore it is not advisable to search by domain, as it may exclude entries that could be useful, and include entries that are not.

Reliability scores

These are also not reliable as different individuals and different language departments have different systems for allocating reliability scores. Timothy, for example, would only allocate four stars to unequivocal terms, such as the terms for different organisations, created by a legal instrument. However, for example the Greeks allocate this to any term that has gone through the terminology committee and has been validated. Timothy would allocate three stars for a validated term. Therefore looking at the context, the references in which these terms can be found is much more important. Reliability scores are generally more accurate for more recently added terms.

Language pairs

It is not recommended that you search solely in your language pairs as this is too restrictive and will often exclude useful information. The more languages you include then the better the chance of finding what you require. You can select personal preferences to be remembered on your computer, but if you select “to any” language this will give you the widest search results. If the search throws up a very high number of hits, you can then restrict language pairs. Even when searching to all languages, if you click full entry, you can then select the language you are interested in and it moves to the top of the screen, to look at the appropriate language pair together.

Irregularity in the entries

Different people enter different things into the IATE database. Whilst the description is supposed to be a delimiting definition of the concept behind the term, often this is not what is included, merely a description of the use of the term in a particular context. Some entries will include an encyclopaedic entry, others dictionary entries and others do actually give the concept definition. For this reason it is always important to look at the references to find the terms in the different contexts in which they are used.

Bugs

There are some bugs in IATE such as the fact that the hits that show up in the internal database sometimes come up in a different order to the public database.

 

Interesting things to know

 

-          Icons on the right of the screen with search results, from left to right – References for term, Context, Note term.

-          Misspelled items or items spelled with different style practices (i.e. American spelling) will sometimes show up if the terminologist provided these alternatives in a look up form when creating the entry.

-          If you cannot find a term, make sure you are not putting it in the plural if it is usually used in the singular.

-          Search to all languages, and then select the language that you are interested in. Why would you be interested in other languages? Because there is often interesting or useful information in the full entry of other languages. You may be able to follow a link to texts which include the term, and you may be able to find the text in your language there.

-          Follow links in texts to find the terminology in context. For example if there is a link to a document in the EuroLex database – this has documents in all the current EU languages. You need to copy the document number and search by Celex number. This will give you a hit list, and include the original document and also any corrigendum linked to this document. This is essential to check the validity of the term, as IATE may be out of date. Also in EuroLex the bilingual display of documents is possible.

-          The note section in an entry can be particularly useful as it serves as encyclopaedic information. It does not form part of the definition (if information in the note changes it does not stop the term from representing the same concept).

-          Feedback button – make comments about specific entries to the EU Commission.

To finish, IATE is a facilitator of information, and a good starting point in a search as it may lead you to the references you require to confirm a term. If it is employed in this way it is a very useful tool.

 

 

 

 

IATE Terminology Database Talk 18-01-13 Part 1

19. January 2013 · 2 comments · Categories: General language, Translation Methods

words4Timothy Cooper from the English terminology department at the European Commission braved snow to come to speak to us about how to make the most of the IATE (Inter-Active Terminology for Europe) Database on Friday 18th January 2013.

The beginning of the talk focused mainly on the importance of being clear in our minds about what terminology is. Terminology is not about terms, but about concepts, and therefore about the relationship between concepts and the terms allocated to them.

IATE is a database concentrates solely on Language for Special Purposes (LSP), so if you want to know more about collocations, for example, the British National Corpus will be much more useful.

To make this point, Timothy gave the example of if one of his underlings came to ask him about “How do you translate the word “coeur” to English?” As a terminologist he would have to say that he was sorry but that he could not possibly answer that question.

How about, “What is the equivalent term?” This would be met with a similar response, but it can be either “heart”, or “core”.

However, the question that needs to be asked is, “What does “coeur” mean in the context of the document that I am translating? What is the English term for this concept?”

The importance of this is that before we can look for the term in the target language, we need to go through a process in which we find the underlying principle of the source language term, to be able to find to correct term to use in the target language. In this case, as regards anatomy, coeur refers to a muscular organ that beats pushing blood around the body of a living thing, and therefore would refer to the English term “heart”. However, in the domain of nuclear power, it refers to the innermost part of a nuclear reactor, the English equivalent of which is the “core”.

Whereas lexicography is about words, and dictionaries are usually ordered from A-Z, with homonyms together and synonyms apart, terminology deals with terms and concepts and terminology databases follow a concept structure in which synonyms are kept together but homonyms are apart.

In an ideal world then it would be possible to have one concept linking to one term, but in the real world this is not possible, and so this must be borne in mind when considering the set up of IATE.

So, in the mind of a terminologist you have four elements:

Object – concrete or abstract “thing”

Concept – the mental abstraction of the object

Definition – the representation of said concept by a description statement (this should always be delimiting and differentiate the object from all other objects)

Term – the verbal designation of the concept in a specific subject field

To be able to successfully work as a terminologist, or to use tools such as IATE to their full potential, you must always bear these elements in mind. Next week I will post about Timothy’s advice on how to make the most out of IATE.

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