Kein Akrobatik-Sex für Brasilianer

Posted on 19. June 2014 by schaefew

Verletzungsgefahren lauern für Fußballer überall: Paolo Guerrero verkrampfte sich einst aus Flugangst so sehr, dass eine alte Muskelverletzung aufbrach. Eine Bordkarte traf Milan Rapaić am Auge, ein Getränkewägelchen Jerome Boateng am Knie – beide fielen wochenlang aus. Charles Akonnor bohrte sich die Antenne seines Autos in die Nase. Mark Statham klemmte sich den Schädel in der Tür ein. Eine Seifenschale im heimischen Bad verletzte Oliver Reck, Kevin Keegan blieb mit dem Zeh im Badewannenabfluss stecken, Robbie Keane riss sich mehrere Bänder bei dem Versuch, den Fernseher per Fuß fernzubedienen. Alessandro Nesta daddelte an der Playstation, bis eine Sehne im linken Daumen riss. Kirk Broadfoot wollte sich Frühstückseier in der Mikrowelle zubereiten – bei der Explosion verbrühte er sich im Gesicht. Lars Hirschfeld hobelte Käse – und seine Daumenkuppe. Kasey Keller schlug sich die Vorderzähne aus, als er seine Golfschläger aus dem Kofferraum nehmen wollte. Der Argentinier Julio Arca verbrannte sich schwimmend die Brust an einer Feuerqualle. Die Statistik ist eindeutig: Auf dem Platz droht zwar die Blutgrätsche des Gegners – aber es ist der einzige Ort, wo Fußballer einigermaßen sicher sind. Felipe Scolari zog jetzt daraus die Konsequenzen und verbot seinen Spielern Akrobatik-Sex während der Weltmeisterschaft. (Willmann, Urs: “Leben ist gefährlich”, in: Die Zeit 20/2014:)

 

 

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Glocalisation

Posted on 7. June 2014 by schaefew

This term – a blend of globasation and localisation – describes the way in which practices that spread around the world will be “nativised” by local cultures. Multinational corporations take local practices and preferences into consideration. McDonald’s, for example, uses Asterix instead of Ronald McDonald in its advertising campaign in France. Imported cultural trends get adopted in a modified form by the local populations, resulting in phenomena like Korean hip-hop or Japanese R&B. The flow is not always only in one direction. US comic-book culture, for example, had a strong influence on post-war Japanese culture, this was then transferred into an indigenous Japanese art form, manga, which in turn has been exported back to the US. (Seargeant, Philip: “English and linguistic globalisation”, in: Seargeant, Philip & Swann, Joan (ed.): English in the World. History, Diversity, Change. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012: 179-80)

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Ebonics

Posted on 6. June 2014 by schaefew

It is well known that intelligibility is not enough to decide whether a variety is to be considered a language of its own or not. It leaves out of consideration linguistic attitudes, in particular the question of identity. Norway, Sweden and Denmark speak different languages, notwithstanding the considerable amount of intelligibility which exists between them. If the community wishes its way of speaking to be considered a language then it is one. Two criteria are required: to have a community with a single mind about the question and with enough power to make this decision respected by outsiders. Neither of these criteria was fulfilled in the case of Ebonics (a blend of Ebony and phonics), proposed for the variety of English formerly known as Black Vernacular English or African-American Vernacular English.  The intentions to give it language status were noble, but it was denounced by people from across the political spectrum, including individuals as the education secretary Richard W. Riley, the black civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and the writer Maya Angelou. Quite evidently, the two criteria above did not apply. (Crystal, David: “A global language”, in: Seargeant, Philip & Swann, Joan (ed.): English in the World. History, Diversity, Change. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012: 173)

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Global English

Posted on 5. June 2014 by schaefew

English has emerged as a world language for extrinsic reasons, not for intrinsic reasons. Popular ideas that English is easy to learn – few inflections, absence of lexical tones, grammatical gender and honorifics – disregard the fact that English is other respects is quite difficult. Besides, languages which do not have these characterstics such as Latin and French have been international languages in their day. It is the extrinsic factors which count: political power, technological power, economic power, cultural power. The British Empire and the two world wars, the Industrial Revolution and the Communications Revolution, the newspapers and the news agencies, broadcasting, television, the cinema, the advertising industry, popular music, international travel and education are at stake, not word order or morphology. (Crystal, David: “A global language”, in: Seargeant, Philip & Swann, Joan (ed.): English in the World. History, Diversity, Change. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012: 156-64)

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Do you speak English?

Posted on 5. June 2014 by schaefew

How many native speakers of English are there altogether? Perhaps surprisingly, this is not so easy to decide. The figures cited vary between 400 and 500 million – a considerable difference. This is probably chiefly due to differences of opinion as to what should be included. Are pidgins and creoles derived from English considered to be varieties of English and included? Or are they languages of their own? It is even more difficult to be sure about the total for non-native speakers of English. Is native-speaker-like fluency the criterion, or is every beginner to be included? And even if we take a middle-of-the-road course, some small deviation may have considerable effects. In India, for example, the figures vary between 3% and 33%, in real terms between 30 million and 330 million. So all figures have to be taken with caution, including the relatively informed survey of the British Council, according to which one billion people (i.e. one thousand million) are engaged in learning English. This includes all learners. If we take, as a criterion, a medium level of conversational competence in handling domestic subject matters, we can take between one half and two thirds of these as non-native speakers of English. Taking averages of the most recent estimates, we can assume that about one third of the world’s population can now communicate in English. This is a lot, but it also means that two thirds of the world’s population cannot communicate in English. One does not have to travel far into the hinterland of a country to find reality. Populist claims about the universal spread of English have to be kept in perspective. The second important factor is that the ratio of native to non-native speakers of English keeps changing. It is not estimated to be about 1:4. The proportion of the world’s population with English as a first language will decline further in the years to come.  (Crystal, David: “A global language”, in: Seargeant, Philip & Swann, Joan (ed.): English in the World. History, Diversity, Change. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012: 154-6)

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Nichts Neues, bitte!

Posted on 5. June 2014 by schaefew

Einer im Journal of the American Medical Association veröffentlichen Studie zufolge verschreiben Ärzte in den USA bei einer akuten Bronchitis immer noch Antibiotika, obwohl längst klar ist, dass die dabei keinen Nutzen haben. In offiziellen Leitlinien und Aufklärungsprogrammen wird darauf hingewiesen, und dennoch verordnen 70% der Ärzte weiterhin diese nutzlosen Medikamente.

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Passende Namen?

Posted on 5. June 2014 by schaefew

Da lacht das Herz des Linguisten: Der BVB hat eine italienische Neuverpflichtung, Immobile. Ein perfekter Name für einen Fußballspieler. Demnächst gibt es in den BVB gegen Bayern nicht nur Dante gegen Sokrates, sondern auch Lahm gegen Immobile. Jetzt heißt es, der BVB habe auch Interesse an Blind. (Schieber soll dagegen gehen, aber sie haben ja noch Großkreuz).

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English vs. Chinese

Posted on 5. June 2014 by schaefew

Which is the top language on the internet? The obvious answer seems to be: English. But Chinese seems to be catching up quickly. The question is, of course, what to count: users, sites, clicks, texts? And: what is a text? And what about multilingual websites?

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Welche Qual!

Posted on 1. June 2014 by schaefew

Bei einem Volkslauf in Luxemburg sah man aus der Ferne eine Bushaltestelle, die QUAL 3 hieß. Als ich mich über die überaus passende Namenswahl wunderte und der Haltestelle näher kam, konnte ich das Schild besser lesen. Darauf stand: QUAI 3

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Just talk!?

Posted on 1. June 2014 by schaefew

What happens if you get language learners to just talk? This was done in an experiment in which three learners were asked to do just that: talk. The result was a highly illuminating dialogue. The three learners talked about Tina Turner, asked each other how they were, where they lived, what the time was, what they did last week and what the weather was like. In other words: a highly incoherent dialogue. That is not surprising, as the learners did not have a reason to talk nor a topic to talk about. A closer analysis shows how this dialogues deviates from other, everyday dialogues: topic changes were abrupt, the speakers did not seem to be interested in what the others were saying, the interaction was mainly based on question – answer units, without the common third turn, the follow-up. There were basically no repetitions, no place holders or acknowledgements like well, erm, I see, no false starts, no self-corrections, no informal language, no hedges like you know, like, sort of, etc. A totally artificial dialogue. It is precisely this abnormal sample of language which makes us see what is normal. (Bygate, Martin: “TESOL and linguistics”, in: Culpeper, Jonathan, Katamba, Francis, et. al. (eds): English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009: 644-645)

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Story and plot

Posted on 1. June 2014 by schaefew

Although they contain the same elements, and the same information, plot is not the same as story. The story reports events in their chronological order, the plot is the order in which the text presents them. They frequently do not coincide. Events are not usually reported in the order in which they occur. They are scrambled. This can be done to create dramatic suspense or to highlight certain events. In reading a text, we form a mental model of the sequence of events being reported. (Chilton, Paul: “Text Linguistics”, in: Culpeper, Jonathan, Katamba, Francis, et. al. (eds): English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009: 183)

 

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Sentences? Utterances!

Posted on 1. June 2014 by schaefew

Sentences may contain the same proposition and still be different. As an evident case, a sentence in English and its equivalent in Polish are two different sentences containing the same proposition. A sentence may also contain elements which do not form part of the proposition: “Adam is still waiting for Roz” contains the same proposition as the same sentence without still. Finally, the same proposition can be expressed by different grammatical forms of different words: “The man patted the dog” and “The dog was patted by the man” contain the same proposition. What we usually produce is not sentences (unless we are in a language class, for instance) but utterances, i.e. instantations of sentences. The sentence “We’ve bought a new car” does not refer to any new car. Speakers use it to refer to a car. The same sentence produced by me this year and twenty years ago or produced by my neighbour refers to different cars. So strictly speaking, linguistics expressions do not by themselves refer, they can only be used by speakers to refer. (Siewierska, Anna: “Semantics”, in: Culpeper, Jonathan, Katamba, Francis, et. al. (eds): English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009: 188-201)

 

 

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Learning how to iron a shirt

Posted on 1. June 2014 by schaefew

How do you learn how to iron a shirt? In some cases, someone may show you how to do it, giving explanations as they are doing so. That is to say, language is involved. But even if there is no one around, you will probably use language in order to learn it. The most obvious case would be your reading the instruction sheet. But even if you do not do this, language will be involved. You may remember a family member doing it, and these memories may be visual, but they are almost certainly also accompanied by words which help to fix the experience in our minds. Even without talking or writing, we often process our action through words in the mind, which help us to understand what we are doing and remember it. We may also profit from something we have read about ironing in the past. (Roz, Ivanič: “Languages and Literacies in Education”, in: Culpeper, Jonathan, Katamba, Francis, et. al. (eds): English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009: 625-6)

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Der amerikanische Esel

Posted on 1. June 2014 by schaefew

Warum ist der Esel, ausgerechnet der Esel, das Symbol der Demokraten in den USA? Der Esel hat ja nicht gerade einen guten Ruf. Das Symbol hat seinen Ursprung in einem Wahlkampf in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Der Präsidentschaftskandidat der Demokraten wurde von seinen Gegners gerne als Esel diffamiert: Jackson = jackass. Der entschied sich, seinen Gegnern den Wind aus den Segeln zu nehmen und übernahm den Esel als Symbol im Wahlkampf. Mit Erfolg. Er wurde gewählt. (“Gar nicht so dumm! – Esel”, in: Matinee, SWR 2: 13/04/2014)

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Do it again

Posted on 1. June 2014 by schaefew

What happens if you get a learner to do the same task twice? Will he do better or worse or the same? This was tested in an illuminating experiment in which a learner was asked, without any previous preparation, to retell a story she had seen on a video, an extract from a Tom and Jerry video. The learner did what she had been asked to do and her account was recorded. On the following day, without any previous warning, she was asked to do the same task again. Surprisingly, the learner did better on almost all accounts. Though the content was basically the same, she added two utterances which made the motives and circumstances of the action clearer. She again used and a lot – a feature of authentic speech – and there were hesitations, repetitions and self-corrections, but rather fewer than on the previous day. Her language had become more fluent. In addition, her language had also become more accurate. Her vocabulary was more target-language like. She still had difficulty with put up and take down but her adverbials were more correct, and her collocations more appropriate. Even her grammar got closer to the target language. The general implication is that we can learn through communication simply by being challenged to try to do the same thing on more than one occasion. This experiment reminds of a personal experience I have on an almost daily basis: I read a text and, on the following day, read it again, and I always understand more on the second day, without having looked up a single word. (Bygate, Martin: “TESOL and linguistics”, in: Culpeper, Jonathan, Katamba, Francis, et. al. (eds): English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009: 648-654)

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