Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Pay close attention to one of these letters and use it as the basis for your comment. Does one of these people say something new to you? Does someone bring up a new concept or say something in a new way? Do you firmly disagree with something someone says? State who and why in your response. And once again, this isn't about your personal views on racism or profiling. This is about your understanding of the concepts of language.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Next, I want you to visit this crazy PBS site on written forms of linguistic profiling. The article goes through how forensic linguists can help police apprehend criminals based on their ransom notes, etc.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Again, I would like you to comment on the language associated with this topic. Don't share stories or personal convictions - it's not the place. Why is it worded the way it is? What are the implications of using the term "DWB" or terms like it?
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Kiss Me, I'm Illegal
By Paul Vitello
Published: March 26, 2006
The New York Times
MURKY self-described patriot groups call them "terrorists." On combative talk radio shows the term is "illegal aliens." Advocates for immigrants prefer the Emma Lazarus-evoking "economic refugees."
The most common label attached to the estimated 12 million foreign-born people living in the United States without visas may be "illegal immigrants," even though some grammarians argue that the adjective can modify actions and things (like left turns and hallucinogenic drugs) but not people. President Bush, a proponent of offering citizenship to at least some of them, has used the more optimistic and implicitly promising term "undocumented immigrants."
There is an almost magical power in naming things. To give a person, an act or a group its name is to define it, assert a measure of control over how it is perceived. (See Adam, in Genesis 2:20, who "gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field." Also, see the playbooks of most campaign managers.)
Like the battles over civil rights and abortion, the contest over immigration has been joined as much in the naming of things as in the writing of laws. Consider the labyrinth of language in play as Congress grapples with an overhaul of immigration policy, its effort to fix what is widely considered a broken system of deciding how many and which foreigners are allowed to enter, work in or become citizens of the United States.
Tumbling in the air of the debate like so many juggled balls are enough words and catch phrases - some old, some new - to form a peculiar dialect of the national ambivalence: Guest workers. Willing workers. America's security. Permanent temporary residents. Immigrant smuggling syndicate. Earned legalization. Virtual fence. Birthright citizenship abuse (coined by lawmakers who would cancel the citizenship rights of children born here to illegal immigrants). Anchor babies (the term coined for such children). Police state (what Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York says would result if illegal immigration were criminalized). Two-time losers (Justice Antonin Scalia's phrase for illegal immigrants who are deported twice - one such immigrant brought a case heard by the court last week).
George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate," says the different language used in any public policy debate is ultimately a contest for the public mind. "Metaphors repeated often enough eventually become part of your physical brain," he said. "Use the word 'illegal' often enough, which suggests criminal, which suggests immoral, and you have framed the issue of immigration to a remarkable degree."
Every side, of course, claims that its choice of words is not only correct but a reflection of the literal truth. Those favoring more restrictive laws, for instance, assert that people who violate immigration laws are, de facto, illegal residents.
"Immigration is such an emotional issue at this point that every word is being hotly contested," said Frank Sherry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a group based in Washington that advocates a liberalized policy. "You know where people stand pretty much from the language they use," said Mr. Sherry, who uses the term "undocumented immigrants."
A House bill that would stiffen penalties for unauthorized immigration adds yet another term to the list of synonyms for the illegal immigrant: felon. Under that bill, which led to protests in Washington, Chicago and San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, illegal immigrants would be charged with aggravated felony and face five years in prison.
A Senate bill produced yet more terminology - earned legalization - which would apply to illegal immigrants who pay their back taxes and stiff fines, promise to learn English and wait in line. Earned legalization is not to be confused with amnesty, a word in the immigration debate that is a bugaboo to all sides, on the theory that rewarding illegal behavior would only lead to more of it.
The language can be so arcane that even people who track immigration policy might have been hard pressed to follow the conversation on ABC's "This Week" between the host, George Stephanopoulos, and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist. In one 10-second exchange, Mr. Frist said he was for enforcement, and Mr. Stephanopoulos asked if Mr. Frist was also for guest worker, to which Mr. Frist replied that he was for guest worker but against amnesty.
Enforcement, in the debate, is code for border security. The enforcement-only bill passed by the House focuses exclusively on tightening border security. It authorizes the building of a 700-mile fence, or the deployment of electronic devices and drone aircraft to create a "virtual fence." It does not establish a guest worker program.
The enforcement-plus bills under review in the Senate (there are three, with a fourth pending) tighten border security and create versions of a guest worker program. (In Washington, to be in favor of "enforcement-only" or "enforcement-plus" is to state one's immigration weltanschauung.)
As for the meaning of "guest worker" in the enforcement-plus universe, it depends. It can signify a long-term foreign worker who might eventually become a citizen. It can also indicate someone who works for two years with no such expectation, and then goes home. It can be a seasonal worker who goes home after every harvest. And in the most restrictive version, it is perhaps a little like the homey status of the political prisoners in Frank O'Connor's short story "Guests of the Nation." The prisoners are treated like friends of the family until one is ordered executed in the national interest.
Ultimately, there may be no neutral language possible in the immigration debate - any more than there is in other emotionally charged human interaction, said Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and the author of the best-selling "You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation." Ms. Tannen claims no special expertise about immigration, but she knows communication. "People cling to words, and use them, as a way of showing whose side they're on, who their people are," she said.
Guillermo Gomez-Pena, a performance artist and writer born in Mexico known for his observations about the cultural life of the border, has coined his own term for the movement of people, legally or illegally, temporarily or permanently, willingly or not, from south of the border to the north. In a recent performance, he mordantly referred to it all as "original sin."
Monday, September 11, 2006
English "world language" forecast
By Sean Coughlan
BBC News education reporter, Edinburgh
A third of people on the planet will be learning English in the next decade, says a report.
Researcher David Graddol says two billion people will be learning English as it becomes a truly "world language".
This growth will see French declining internationally, while German is set to expand, particularly in Asia.
But the UK Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, has warned against the "arrogance" of English speakers who fail to learn other languages.
Learning in English
The Future of English report, launched in Edinburgh at a British Council conference on international education, has used computer modelling to forecast the onset of a "wave" of English-learning around the world.
In the year 2000, the British Council says there were about a billion English learners - but a decade later, this report says, the numbers will have doubled.
The research has looked at the global population of young people in education - including 120 million children in Chinese primary schools - and how many countries are embedding English-language learning within their school systems.
The linguistic forecast points to a surge in English learning, which could peak in 2010.
'Pernicious'
Speaking earlier at the same conference, Mr Clarke argued that the UK needed to improve language skills - and conceded that the country was still lagging behind in learning languages.
"To be quite candid, I'm the first to acknowledge there is an immense amount to do," said Mr Clarke. "Not least to contest the arrogance that says English is the world language and we don't have to worry about it - which I think is dangerous and pernicious."
The report's author agrees that English speakers should not be complacent because they can speak this increasingly widely-used language.
He says Chinese, Arabic and Spanish are also going to be key international languages.
"The fact that the world is learning English is not particularly good news for native speakers who cannot also speak another language. The world is rapidly becoming multi-lingual and English is only one of the languages people in other countries are learning," said Mr Graddol.
He also says that language learning numbers will decline as English becomes a "basic skill" - learnt by primary-age children, rather than something that older children or adults might want to acquire later.
Mr Graddol also warns there could be a backlash against the global spread of English and a reassertion of national languages.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
PARIS (Reuters) - Brand names have become so abundant that in France they account for two out of every five words an average person knows, according to a study being carried out by French branding company Nomen.
Shocking as that may sound, Nomen Chief Executive Marcel Botton says the trend is creating a new international language that helps people communicate in foreign countries.
"The distinction between brand names and ordinary words is becoming quite blurred," Botton told Reuters.
"This is bad news for companies that have invested a lot of money in branding a product, but for the general public I see advantages. Brand names are more international than words and they are creating a new Esperanto, which I rather like."
Esperanto, an artificial international language invented in 1887 as a second language everyone could learn, never took off.
Learning brand names, on the other hand, is subconscious, as names seep into our brains through advertisements and shopping.
English speakers use trademarks like Frisbee, Hoover and Walkman as ordinary words, causing some to spread abroad. France uses "Kleenex" for tissue and "Scotch" for adhesive tape.
"You hear people abroad asking for well-known brands of food or drink when they don't know the word in the foreign language. It's irritating for Coca-Cola when rival products are treated as the same thing but it makes people's lives easier," Botton said.
Botton, who created such company names as Vivendi, Wanadoo, Arcelor and Vinci, began testing people in August to see how many brands they recognised and how many dictionary words they knew.
"It crossed my mind this would be an interesting study, as it seemed people knew more and more brands and fewer words."
Botton's team chopped up the French dictionary -- which lists around 100,000 words -- into bitesize chunks which were read out to different people within a test group. A list of 20,000 brand names was also split into chunks and read out.
While the study is not complete, the results so far suggest the average French person knows some 3,000 words and is familiar with around 2,000 brand names on top of that -- suggesting that 40 percent of total vocabulary consists of brand names.
Botton said there were enough possible permutations of pronounceable one-, two- and three-syllable words to cover several billion new brand names.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
The BBC presented the case in an article a couple years ago that provides a glimpse of both sides of the story. After you read that, check out this opinion piece by Timothy Noah. Finally, catch up on the recent stand against France in this Washington Times article.
What power is there in changing "French" to "freedom"? What was your reaction to the decision three years ago? Did you make the switch? Why or why not? This discussion requires a response deeper than "because I couldn't ever remember because I'm so used to calling them 'French fries'" or "because I thought it was stupid." Think about it...Why didn't the new name work?