A tool, a hurdle, a weapon. An inescapable part of our lives. Language is all that and more. It is also part of our identity as distinct human beings.
Research has shown that when we are born we think in pictures. Eventually, we link the pictures to the words we hear spoken around us. Our cognitive processes are thus all linked to our birth language and, therefore, language and culture are inextricably linked.
Language is an emotive issue with economic, social, educational and political implications, according to Professor Kathleen Thorpe, head of German studies in the School of Literature and Language Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.
The best example of the political implications of the use of a particular language, was the 1976 Soweto uprisings when pupils refused to be taught in Afrikaans, which the government had tried to force on them. Language — the use of one’s own mother tongue in particular — is a basic human right entrenched in the Bill of Rights in our Constitution.
Thorpe says the undervaluing of the humanities is having a disastrous effect on the general standard of education in South Africa. Young people are being deprived of learning to think critically, construct an argument, tolerate and appreciate difference — as well as improve their language and communication skills, a matter increasingly mentioned by employers, she says.
“The perceived hegemony of English is doing everyone a disservice,” says Thorpe. “South Africa seems woefully unaware of the value of foreign languages — a surprising fact in the light of the upcoming World Cup, at which hundreds of thousands of Europeans are expected. Neither in schools nor at university level, is the awareness of the value of learning a new language very high. Learning a foreign language will change your consciousness,” she says.
Language studies broaden one’s thinking and hone critical and interpretative skills. Learning a language is a way to gain new knowledge, and the knowledge inherent in each culture is woven into its literature.
Art in visual form is also a language, albeit more bodily directed and less mediated than discursive language. Over time, art forms transform into conceptual clarity, into new discursive language. Therefore a picture is much more than just an image the viewer looks at.
Monday, 3 August 2009
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Primary languages missing target
Almost a fifth of primary schools in England could miss a government target to offer language teaching by next year, a report says.
The National Foundation for Educational Research says overall language provision in primaries is increasing. There is a target for language lessons to be available for seven to 11 year olds by 2010 – with foreign languages set to become compulsory the following year.
Languages ceased to be compulsory for secondary pupils after the age of 14 in 2004. Instead the focus switched to increasing the number of younger pupils learning languages in primary school.
The report, commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, was intended to establish what progress was being made in primary schools. It found that in 2008, 92% of primary schools were offering foreign languages in some form. This was a rise of 22 percentage points from 2006. It also found the vast majority of primary schools were “making good progress” towards offering the full entitlement.
However, the NFER researchers found up to 18% of primary schools will not be able to offer the opportunity to learn a language to any seven to 11 year old child. This non-statutory target was introduced as part of the National Languages Strategy last year. But a higher proportion of schools – 26% – may not be ready to implement languages as part of the compulsory curriculum in 2011. About 30% of schools were currently not offering this level of language learning to their pupils, the research found.
One of the main barriers the researchers found was lack of time to fit languages into lessons. Languages will become a compulsory in primary schools from 2011, following a review of the primary curriculum by Sir Jim Rose. Numbers of GCSE entries in languages have declined since they were no longer compulsory.
A separate study undertaken by Cambridge University has found that a majority of head teachers feel there is a lack of continuity between primary and secondary school language learning. Almost 50% of heads questioned for this research said a language should be compulsory after the age of 14 for most pupils.
Schools minister Diana Johnson said: “We know that when children start learning a language at an earlier age they can absorb more, build more confidence and become more passionate about language learning. “That is why we are making languages compulsory in primary schools from 2011 and will continue to ensure schools teach them until age 14.”
The National Foundation for Educational Research says overall language provision in primaries is increasing. There is a target for language lessons to be available for seven to 11 year olds by 2010 – with foreign languages set to become compulsory the following year.
Languages ceased to be compulsory for secondary pupils after the age of 14 in 2004. Instead the focus switched to increasing the number of younger pupils learning languages in primary school.
The report, commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, was intended to establish what progress was being made in primary schools. It found that in 2008, 92% of primary schools were offering foreign languages in some form. This was a rise of 22 percentage points from 2006. It also found the vast majority of primary schools were “making good progress” towards offering the full entitlement.
However, the NFER researchers found up to 18% of primary schools will not be able to offer the opportunity to learn a language to any seven to 11 year old child. This non-statutory target was introduced as part of the National Languages Strategy last year. But a higher proportion of schools – 26% – may not be ready to implement languages as part of the compulsory curriculum in 2011. About 30% of schools were currently not offering this level of language learning to their pupils, the research found.
One of the main barriers the researchers found was lack of time to fit languages into lessons. Languages will become a compulsory in primary schools from 2011, following a review of the primary curriculum by Sir Jim Rose. Numbers of GCSE entries in languages have declined since they were no longer compulsory.
A separate study undertaken by Cambridge University has found that a majority of head teachers feel there is a lack of continuity between primary and secondary school language learning. Almost 50% of heads questioned for this research said a language should be compulsory after the age of 14 for most pupils.
Schools minister Diana Johnson said: “We know that when children start learning a language at an earlier age they can absorb more, build more confidence and become more passionate about language learning. “That is why we are making languages compulsory in primary schools from 2011 and will continue to ensure schools teach them until age 14.”
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Translation gets in the way of the message..
Translators and students of foreign languages are familiar with the problem of what the French call faux amis (translators’ false friends) – words that have the same origin and often look and sound the same but mean different things in different languages. Examples include the English word anecdote and the Russian “anekdot” (a joke) or velvet – in Russian “velvet” stands for corduroy.
Things get a little trickier and sometimes downright difficult when some meanings coincide and others diverge. A direc-tor, for example, is “direktor” in Russian when he is a member of a company’s board of directors but not when he is a film director (that will be a “rezhisser”); a Russian “director shkoly” is a school principal in America or a headmaster in Britain. A Russian “student” goes to college; in America, he might just as well be a 10-year-old schoolboy.
Experienced translators and interpreters are well aware of such words and, even though they are quite numerous (try Russian faux amis for accurate, carton, decade, novel, or revision) we very rarely confuse them. Language learners may be reasonably sure that as their proficiency improves they will get the right word almost automatically.
There is, however, a less well known but insidious problem: Take the word leadership, which is often translated into Russian as “rukovodstvo”. In nine cases out of 10, it is a mistranslation, for this Russian word means guidance, management, or even control.
So when a phrase frequently used by American politicians – US global leadership – is translated, sometimes deliberately and maliciously, as “amerikanskoye rukovodst-vo mirom” – something very close to American control of the world – it conjures up all kinds of nasty associations in the minds of most Russian readers.
The right Russian word is of course “liderstvo”. The word leader was borrowed from English decades ago and equipped with Russian suffixes to create derivatives – a verb, an adjective, and a noun. So Russian translators are in this particular case luckier than, say, the French, who simply have no equivalent for the English word; English-French dictionaries therefore recommend roundabout ways of conveying this concept.
When Americans speak of someone’s “leadership role” the meaning is best conveyed in Russian by the word “initsiativnost”. Sounds familiar? It’s because we both borrowed the word “initiative” from French.
Things get a little trickier and sometimes downright difficult when some meanings coincide and others diverge. A direc-tor, for example, is “direktor” in Russian when he is a member of a company’s board of directors but not when he is a film director (that will be a “rezhisser”); a Russian “director shkoly” is a school principal in America or a headmaster in Britain. A Russian “student” goes to college; in America, he might just as well be a 10-year-old schoolboy.
Experienced translators and interpreters are well aware of such words and, even though they are quite numerous (try Russian faux amis for accurate, carton, decade, novel, or revision) we very rarely confuse them. Language learners may be reasonably sure that as their proficiency improves they will get the right word almost automatically.
There is, however, a less well known but insidious problem: Take the word leadership, which is often translated into Russian as “rukovodstvo”. In nine cases out of 10, it is a mistranslation, for this Russian word means guidance, management, or even control.
So when a phrase frequently used by American politicians – US global leadership – is translated, sometimes deliberately and maliciously, as “amerikanskoye rukovodst-vo mirom” – something very close to American control of the world – it conjures up all kinds of nasty associations in the minds of most Russian readers.
The right Russian word is of course “liderstvo”. The word leader was borrowed from English decades ago and equipped with Russian suffixes to create derivatives – a verb, an adjective, and a noun. So Russian translators are in this particular case luckier than, say, the French, who simply have no equivalent for the English word; English-French dictionaries therefore recommend roundabout ways of conveying this concept.
When Americans speak of someone’s “leadership role” the meaning is best conveyed in Russian by the word “initsiativnost”. Sounds familiar? It’s because we both borrowed the word “initiative” from French.
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