Mind Your Language is a British sitcom that premiered on ITV in 1977. It was produced by London Weekend Television and directed by Stuart Allen. Three series were made by London Weekend Television between 1977 and 1979, and it was briefly revived in 1985 (or 1986 in most ITV regions) with six of the original cast members. The series shows people of different countries with different social background, religions, and languages existing in the same classroom, learning English as a foreign language.
Culture is a huge factor in how one uses language. It plays a particular role in determining what one may say in public and how. What is considered appropriate or acceptable in a given country may be way off-limits in another.
Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1464: Whoever utters any obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of radio communication shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.)
It should be noted that the considerations above apply to individuals as well as cultures. That being so, an interpreter may feel personally offended by the use of certain language, for moral or religious reasons, and consequently inclined to substitute what he considers offensive with less impactful language when given a chance. Is he in the wrong for doing that? If so, according to whom and, more importantly, where?
Number two, they rely on their interpreter to get their own message across as intended (which, mind you, may and often does differ from how it is said). Rather than a mere conduit or linguistic facilitator, the interpreter becomes a trusted adviser, a key PR official, who will try hard to help the President or PM stay objective and politically correct while delivering the message, as briefed.
Dear Cordelia (and Leticia),
Thank you for your expressing your opinions and for doing it so eloquently. I have since revisited the article and made a few minor changes to indicate more clearly where our views coincide: freelance and staff interpreters, by definition, are ethically obliged to say it as it is. Full agreement.
I believe the important thing to be taken into account, as pointed out many times by the author, is one single word: CIRCUMSTANCES. Should your life or that of your relatives be put at risk because of a few chosen words, what would you do? Should the safety of your nation be threatened or a diplomatic incident ensue because of a string of sounds that can be avoided or polished, what would you do?
In a recent assignment, my students identified the benefits of comprehensive sexuality education, and their research discovered this quote from Siecus, prompting us to have a conversation about the role of language in the #HealthEd classroom, how it has changed, and how it can make a classroom more inclusive.
The conversation above allowed us to identify that language, and education changes over time, just as we do as individuals, and for that reason, Mr. Milne from 1994 (my first year as a teacher), used language that present-day Mr. Milne would find exclusionary and harmful to students.
Many of my students raised their hands when I ask if, like me, they have been described as lazy. When asked if that was fair, I challenged students to describe themselves using person-centered language.
It's more a reference to remarks that people make like "you better act a certain way or not say those things otherwise I'll (post x y z) (go after you and make your time on the server hard) (do this)"
We often describe these interactions as the way we collaborate, the bonds we create and the relationships we establish. Those are the obvious ones. Interactions also cover the hopes and dreams we share, our common goals, our fears, the taboos that shall not be talked about, our values and beliefs, the way we communicate and, because of that, the language we use.
Every time we use the word resource to refer to people. Every time we refer to being on time, on cost or on scope rather that focusing on their equivalent principles for complexity of flow, value and fitness-for-purpose. Every time we pretend to have knowledge and certainty rather than embracing uncertainty and seeking learning. Every time we use the established terms, we are reinforcing the existing culture and, quite literally, destroying the emergence of an agile culture in your organisation.
Chiara taught my children online for around 2 years, and has been amazing throughout. My children are English/ Italian bilingual, but we live overseas where they have limited opportunities to speak Italian outside the home. They were 8 and 3 when they started classes. Chiara tailored her classes to their ages and interests, made the classes interesting and fun, and really understands how to use the online medium to the best advantage. Even when my daughter was tired from school she would come out of the classes cheerful and lively, having enjoyed the lesson. Her Italian progressed enormously and she is completely comfortable reading, writing and speaking Italian in a way that would not have been possible without Chiara. What I appreciate the most is that she understands bilingual children have different language learning challenges and needs than an adult learning a foreign language, so she is able to tailor her classes accordingly. Now we are moving into an Italian speaking environment and I am confident that my children will cope. Thank you Chiara!
I have been attached with this language school doing online class since 2020, I am still doing the online Italian classes. Chiara is my teacher, she is Italian and she does the lesson so well that you will not want to quit or absent for her lesson. All these 3 years I never absent unless if it is really necessary.
Prof. Chiara knows very well how to make you understand those complicated grammar lessons and she does it over and over again until it is definitely understood.
Trust me, I have tried one or two more language teachers online and in person but I still preferred Chiara to them. Now I can read and understand grammar well.
As a teacher Prof. Chiara is very dedicated and very very helpful. No matter how many times, she is always there to help you with your lessons.
With doing online classes I have come this far with the Italian language and I always imagine how it will be to attend the class in person with Chiara. ? Bravo to the language school. They will go very far in the future ???
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is an example. ADHD has become something of a household term as many parents and teachers have become familiar with this condition. The language used to describe children with an ADHD diagnosis is a constellation of terms from medicine, behaviour management and education.
The language used to speak about children with disabilities is not unlike the language South Africans use to talk about foreigners. During the xenophobic violence witnessed at the beginning of 2015, a journalist commented that South Africans are:
In Beijing, Zevin and his colleagues also observed the brain functions of study participants as they read fairy tales in English and Chinese while functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected. The scientists compared images of the brain when the same phrase was read by a Chinese-language reader and an English language-reader.
At USC Dornsife, he will use neuroimaging to study how the age at which one learns a second language influences their ability to perceive and recreate nuances in the sounds of that language. For instance, how do English-speaking college students learning a second language differ from children learning a second language in the time window during development from age four to eight when youths have an easier time acquiring language and other skills?
Have you ever struggled to write up your results into a publishable paper only to get it rejected? Richard Threlfall, Managing Editor, Asian Journal of Organic Chemistry, gives some insider tips on how to improve the language of your article.
The important point about our new passage is that the crucial technical information and its implications, that is, the electronic properties, fluorescence, the C5 benzyl group, and using this method to develop more photoexitable oligomers, has remained exactly the same. It is also specific; therefore, even if someone only reads your conclusion, they can get a good idea of the advantages of your method.
Bringing Your Message to the Reader/Editor/Reviewer
The thesaurus function is very convenient in the popular word processing packages for finding all sorts of alternative and more complicated words for whatever you want to say. However, as Oppenheimer showed in the study cited at the beginning of the first part, complicated words may sound impressive to you, but they often have the opposite effect on your reader. A reader/editor/reviewer may be turned off and may well miss the whole point of your manuscript if it is unnecessarily dressed up in difficult language.
The ability to learn structural information from our rich environments is crucial for understanding our world and predicting our future. From both infants and natural language processing algorithms learning the transition probabilities of human languages to learning to categorize objects based on visual regularities. Surprisingly, once language is learned it can in turn constrain perception; with abilities to distinguish different colour shades being related to the number of words used by language to describe them.
Judit Gervain
Judit Gervain is a full professor of developmental psychology at the University of Padua, and a senior research scientist at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Her work focuses on language acquisition and early speech perception. She implements behavioural and brain imaging techniques to understand cognitive development and native language learning in infants.