Metaglossia: The Translation World

Le succès des classes de sixième «bi-langues» a enrayé le déclin de l'apprentissage de l'allemand en France.

The ability to communicate in multiple languages proves beneficial in more ways than communication. Students able to speak multiple languages continue to reap the many benefits.

Moncton is looking for citizens to sit on two new advisory committees to help the city shape future decisions on downtown development and bilingualism.

Although Google Translate thinks that this means "Italy and salt", in fact it means "The Italy that moves up" or "The Italy that rises", or something along those lines. (The verb is salire, which can mean "rise", "come/go up", "increase", "grow", "advance", "progress", etc.)

However, a bit of translingual intervention changes the meaning into something less inspirational:

Languages are a curious thing; every single one of us speaks at least one, yet there are some people who can speak up to 5 times that amount. Research shows

IN “STAR TREK”, a television series of the 1960s, no matter how far across the universe the Starship Enterprise travelled, any aliens it encountered would...

IN “STAR TREK”, a television series of the 1960s, no matter how far across the universe the Starship Enterprise travelled, any aliens it encountered would...

1—Le matin.Ma mère me disait souvent « Il faut te lever tôt parce que le matin, l’intelligence nous fait crédit ». Elle me...

Un arrêt de la Cour européenne de justice affirme que les avis de concours européens ne peuvent se contenter d être publiés dans seulement l une des trois langues de travail de l UE.

L'utilisation du français au travail a progressé au Québec au cours des 40 dernières années, tout comme le bilinguisme au travail, selon une étude de l'Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).

ESSUP - When Paulette Maggiolo moved to America from France 65 years ago, she brought her languages with her. All five of them.

After she married an American officer she had met during World War II, she built her life in the United States teaching the languages - French, English, Spanish, Italian and German - in public and private schools.

Now 90, she is spending her retirement writing novels and nonfiction books in her native and adopted tongues.

Most of her works reflect parts of her life: "The Guilty Teacher" is about an educator dealing with the prevalence of drugs in schools; "No Such Word" traces the relationships of a war bride brought to the U.S. She has written books about cooking, grammar, graduation parties and immigrants. Now she is working on a book of conversations "between two old women," inspired by her talks with her sister in France.

s anyone who browses through enough of this blog will likely discover, my research interests are rather varied. I love technology, and I’ve presented and published papers and posts on crowdsourcing, website translation, and translator blogs. I spend a lot of time teaching, so I often post blog entries about my experiences in the classroom. But I also love history and politics–so much so, in fact that my doctoral thesis focused on the English and French translations of non-fiction texts related to Quebec nationalism, independence movements and the sovereignty referendums. So this month I’m attending two very different conferences held two weeks–and two continents– apart: the Translation in Contexts of Official Multilingualism conference in Moncton, New Brunswick, and the 12th Portsmouth conference “Those who can, teach”, in the UK. I’ve just returned from the Moncton conference, and I’ll be flying to the UK later this week.

Writing more than just a brief overview of the two conferences is beyond the scope of a short blog post (which is unfortunately all I have time to write), so I’ll share a few thoughts from the Moncton conference right now, and a few comments about Portsmouth later this month.

Some of the presentations I found particularly interesting were Chantal Gagnon ‘s presentation on Liberal, Bloc Québécois and Parti Québécois translation policies around the time of the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum, Kyle Conway ‘s research on (non)translation policies at Radio-Canada and the CBC, and Mathieu Leblanc ‘s talk about translation in a Moncton public-service agency.

Gagnon’s comparison of speeches made by the Bloc Québécois, Parti Québécois and Liberal leaders during and after the 1995 sovereignty referendum really underscored, to me at least, the advantages of having an official translation policy: while the Liberal Party was able to target voters differently by adapting the French and English versions of speeches to the two audiences, the speeches made by politicians from the Quebec parties (Bloc and PQ) were translated in newspapers by journalists. Thus, only partial translations of the speeches were available, and these translations often contained minor shifts in meaning and omissions of politeness markers that the Quebec politicians may have wanted to retain. Not providing an official English translation meant the two Quebec parties weren’t able to control the message English-speaking Canadians (and English speakers outside the country) were receiving.

Charlottetown remains overwhelmingly an English community, new census data shows, but an influx of Chinese-speaking residents over the last five years has changed the linguistic landscape.
English was identified as the mother tongue for 88.9 per cent of people in Charlottetown, Statistics Canada said Wednesday as it released new information on languages from the 2011 census. French, Canada's other official language, was cited by 2.3 per cent.
A total of 8.8 per cent of the population of Charlottetown reported a mother tongue other than one of Canada's official languages. That's an increase from 3.5 per cent in the 2006 census.
According to the 2011 census, the top five non-official languages spoken in Charlottetown: one of the Chinese languages (3.7 per cent); Arabic (0.7 per cent); Persian (Farsi) (0.6 per cent); Spanish (0.4 per cent); and Indo-Iranian languages, (0.3 per cent). Five years ago, the census reported the top five other languages spoken were Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, one of the Chinese languages and German.
Statistics Canada defines “mother tongue” as the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood at the time the census was taken in May 2011. The census also documented languages spoken at home and knowledge of Canada's official languages.
In Canada's major metropolitan cities, the linguistic breakdown was dramatically different. About half of the population of Toronto (46.1 per cent) and Vancouver (46.7 per cent) reported a mother tongue other than English or French, while cities like Montreal (34.4 per cent) and Calgary (27.9 per cent) also reported a significant proportion of residents with mother tongues other than either of Canada's two official languages.

...os anúncios de emprego e a indústria de tradução (by Susana Valdez)...

Environ 2 200 Internautes ont participé au questionnaire en ligne sur l'importance des deux langues officielles au pays, selon des données rendues publiques par le ministère du Patrimoine canadien.

Le formulaire était disponible en ligne du 22 mai au 12 octobre 2012.

Le sujet a également attiré 400 autres personnes qui se sont déplacées lors d'une vingtaine de tables rondes organisées par le gouvernement fédéral au cours de la même période.

Patrimoine canadien affirme être satisfait du nombre de réponses obtenues et que davantage de Canadiens se sont exprimés cette année par rapport à 2007-2008.

Le ministère entend désormais analyser les réponses pour, dit-il, « que tous les Canadiens puissent profiter des avantages procurés par nos deux langues officielles et puissent participer pleinement à leur vie de leur communauté. »

Réaction du Parti libéral

Une participation qui est loin d'être suffisante, souligne Bob Rae, le chef intérimaire du Parti libéral du Canada.

« Il y en a beaucoup [dans le caucus conservateur] qui ne sont pas tout à fait d'accord des programmes en faveur des minorités linguistiques. Je crois que le Parti conservateur préfère cacher ce qu'il est en train de faire ».

La consultation sur les langues officielles a été entamée le 22 mai dernier pour sonder la population sur le renouvellement de la Feuille de route pour la dualité linguistique. L'initiative gouvernemental

El actor de Hollywood recordó cómo su padre le exigió hablar español en casa.

Las personas bilingües calculan en la lengua en que aprendieron matemáticas
Lenguaje y matemáticas están más relacionados de lo que inicialmente se piensa. De hecho, una investigación realizada entre España y Estados Unidos ha puesto de manifiesto que las personas bilingües realizan las operaciones aritméticas sencillas en la lengua en la que aprendieron matemáticas porque el lenguaje deja una huella en la memoria durante el aprendizaje que permanece durante toda la vida.

EVA SERENO - REDACCIÓN APRENDEMAS - 05/10/2012

|Reducir el tamaño del texto

Las personas bilingües utilizan el idioma en el que aprendieron matemáticas para multiplicar o hacer operaciones aritméticas sencillas, según se recoge en un estudio realizado por el Centro Vasco sobre Cognición, Cerebro y Lenguaje (BCBL), en colaboración con la Universidad de Texas, en Estados Unidos, y del que se hace eco la agencia SINC.es [Ver cursos de Matemáticas]

En el estudio se constata que pensar las matemáticas en la lengua en la que se aprendió se debe a que el lenguaje deja una huella en la memoria durante el aprendizaje, poniéndose así de manifiesto la importancia que desempeña el lenguaje al aprender operaciones aritméticas sencillas como es el caso de las multiplicaciones y que, realmente, lenguaje y matemáticas están más relacionados de lo que inicialmente puede pensarse.

Esta investigación igualmente refleja que la variable delidioma puede influir de forma decisiva al abordar las dificultades en el aprendizaje de las matemáticas de niños escolarizados en un idioma distinto a la lengua en la que han aprendido a realizar esas operaciones sencillas, aparte de explicar algunos trastornos del aprendizaje de las matemáticas como la discalculia sobre la que los investigadores están realizando ahora más estudios.

Rockland County further enhanced its recently updated web site with the addition of a translation feature. County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef announced on Friday a “Google Translate” feature has been added to make it even more user-friendly. The upgraded is part of an ongoing effort to make government more accessible to the residents of Rockland County.

The new feature is located in the upper right hand corner of http://www.Rocklandgov.com, under the search function. When visitors click on the box, they have a choice of 65 languages the website can be translated into. They are listed alphabetically from Afrikaans to Yiddish.

Vanderhoef said the response so far has been positive.

“It’s a lot easier for residents to navigate to find information about County programs and services,” said Vanderhoef. “This new function allows the website to be translated into different languages to reach out to even more Rocklanders.”

L'eurodéputé conservateur français, Jean-Pierre Audy, président du groupe des élus français de l'UMP au sein du PPE, a dénoncé aujourd'hui la dégradation du multilinguisme, au profit de l'anglais, au Parlement européen.

Lors du vote sur le règlement financier, en début de semaine au Parlement, le texte de 407 pages examiné par les eurodéputés n'était disponible qu'en anglais. "Ce n'est pas la première fois que nous nous retrouvons dans une telle situation, et c'est une dégradation inacceptable du multilinguisme au Parlement européen", s'est insurgé Jean-Pierre Audy dans un communiqué.

"Ce que nous avons voté est un texte d'une importance capitale qui fixe les règles applicables à l'établissement et à l'exécution du budget général de l'Union européenne pour les trois prochaines années. Ne pas avoir de traduction ne permet pas de comprendre précisément les tenants et les aboutissants d'un document aussi complexe", a déploré le parlementa

\r\n\r\nLes élèves des écoles primaires pourraient bientôt écrire, compter et\r\n apprendre dans leurs langues nationales, en plus bien sûr du français.\r\nC’est en tout cas le vœu d’Ared, une Ong qui travaille dans l’éducation\r\ndes adultes...

Wednesday the 26th September will be the European Day of Languages. It is going to be another celebration of the rich linguistic landscape Europe has to offer. However, critics argue that multilingualism is a luxury and that all the translation work that is done (for example in the European institutions) is a waste of time and money. They would rather see enterprises and political institutions connected through one single language: English. You may have already heard sentences like :

“Why bother translating? Everybody speaks English nowadays.”

Over the past decades, people have always criticised the amount of money spent on translation and other related services. However, one cannot deny that in a globalised world languages have become an essential part of business communications. The internet has made communications across borders easier and faster, and and as the world is getting smaller and more globalised, language issues are of increasing relevance to everyone in business.

Le ministre des Relations extérieures et de la Coopération internationale, M. Laurent Kavakure a transmis dernièrement au président de la République du Burundi une lettre du secrétaire général de la Francophonie, M. Abdou Diouf et au secrétaire...

Q. I supervise a team of bilingual employees. They were hired in part due to their language skills, as our company has found our customers require services in English and Spanish. I am not bilingual in Spanish. My employees often speak Spanish with each other for both social conversations and business matters. This prevents me from being able to understand their conversations. I would like to think this is not done specifically to exclude me, but I do not believe that to be the case. Sometimes when I leave the 'floor' after a talk with the employees about work issues, the conversation is all Spanish. How should I handle this situation? Should I acknowledge this at all? What is the standard etiquette in work places for bilingual people?

A. As the work place continue to become more global, more languages will be used in corner offices, conference rooms, golf courses, men's and women's rooms - all the places business is conducted. And you will have skills managing multi-lingual employees which can serve you well in your career, or not, depending on how you handle this situation.

Some people worry that people speaking another language around them may be talking about them - in a derogatory fashion. And I am sure sometimes they are, which they would anyway (in any language) once people are out of earshot. Most often they are not, and are focused on work, or returning to a conversation they had been involved with prior to someone's arrival. You may share this fear, coupled with a concern your work group is excluding you. Are they giving you other indications of excluding you? Your relationship can be strengthened so you feel more confident about their respect for you and the expertise you bring to the work team.

Les ateliers d’été du CerLiCO se fixent pour objectif de regrouper chercheurs confirmés, jeunes chercheurs et étudiants autour d’un questionnement réflexif et épistémologique sur leur discipline et leurs thèmes et pratiques de recherche.

Cette année, et après le succès des premiers ateliers consacrés au positionnement du chercheur par rapport à sa discipline et son contexte, nous nous interrogerons sur la question de la diversité des langues et de celle, corollaire, des diverses approches de l’étude du langage.

Par diversité des langues, nous pensons d’abord aux langues que l’on pourrait qualifier de « rares » ou qui du moins ne bénéficient pas du même intérêt scientifique que d’autres, plus « dominantes ». Comment, par quels moyens, avec quels objectifs étudie-t-on une langue de ce type ? Quels problèmes scientifiques, méthodologiques, ou anthropologiques posent de telles études ?

Nous nous interrogerons par ailleurs sur ces problématiques à travers l’exemple d’une langue « dominante » : tout d’abord nous verrons comment ces langues ont évolué vers un statut de langue « dominante », puis nous aborderons les problèmes scientifiques et méthodologiques que ce statut soulève quand on veut les étudier, quelles sont les limites des analyses, etc ?

Multilingualism reflects the energy of America which in spite of all its problems continues to attract people from all over the world. Once America achieves full monolingualism it will mean immigration has ended.

USA: Bilingual or Multilingual?
Domenico Maceri - PVNN

In the last Republican presidential debate all the candidates favored English becoming the official language of the United States. The only one to hesitate was John McCain, senator of Arizona. The strongest supporter was Tom Tancredo, Republican Congressman from Colorado. “We are becoming a bilingual country. And that is not good. Bilingual countries do not work” said Tancredo. The Italian-American Congressman has created a name for himself with his “crusade” against undocumented workers and bilingualism which he sees as the symbol of illegal immigration.

Tancredo’s sense of alarm would be much stronger if he realized that the United States is not only already a bilingual country but indeed a multilingual one. More than 300 languages are spoken in the United States. Some like Spanish have million of speakers, but others little more than a few hundred.

Many languages were present in the United States before its formation in 1776. Obviously the languages before the arrival of Europeans are those of Native Americans who had been in the country for many centuries. These languages are still alive but many are in danger of extinction. The vast majority of Americans may have never heard about Zuni, Cushite, Amharic, or Hidatsa, Apache, Hopi, etc. However, the country includes speakers of these languages.

Other European, Asian and Africans languages have enriched the linguistic landscape of America by means of immigration. The presence of this multilingual mosaic has not been a challenge to the dominance of English. Americans and immigrants accept the language of Shakespeare as de facto the national language of the country despite the use of other languages in daily life. The presence of these languages has not caused the ungluing of the United States as alarmists would have you believe. Immigrants have adopted and they continue to adopt English as the language of integration into American mainstream. Even in areas of the country with strong presences of Spanish like Miami, Florida, knowledge of English is indispensable.

Two years ago Los Angeles chose Antonio Villaraigosa as mayor. Villaraigosa campaigned in English and also used some Spanish, but it is the English language that elected him. Other politicians have used and continue to use their Spanish even if they do not know it well. John Kerry and George W. Bush both used their weak Spanish in the 2004 election. Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, began his campaign for re-election with advertising in Spanish.

Growing immigration and multilingualism pushed twenty-seven American states to declare English their official language. Three states have even virtually abolished bilingual education. However, these actions have changed little. They have not accelerated the process of immigrants to learn English nor have they reduced immigration.

The declaration of English as the official language of the country would have little effect but the negative impact would emerge as a psychological slap in the face to immigrants with the suggestion that other languages have no value and as a result neither do their speakers. The psychological slap in the face would be even more painful to Native Americans who had lived in the U.S. several centuries before the English language was introduced in the New World. Having taken their lands and decimated their populations now they would be told that even their languages, symbol of pride in their culture, are invalid.

The declaration of English as official language should in theory unify the nation but the truth is that United States became the most powerful nation in the world without needing these types of laws.