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The default answer to the above is surely "making it worse." When it comes to social networks, grammar, syntax, spelling, and all the rest of it give way to decomposed bites of, hopefully, meaning. If meaning is sustained, what difference do the materials make? Just the other day my dad was ripping on me for using bad grammar in a text message (note: it wasn't that bad), with my reply being something along the lines of, it's just a text message.
I don't really believe that answer, understanding well enough why rules of language exist, but that worry dominates most of the conversation about language and social media, and even digital communication in general. There are other, more interesting possibilities for language in the new world. One of those is the possibility of rapid language fragmentation, or new online subgroups generating new languages or language variants. So, rather than the many hundreds of years it took for all of the different languages of the Germanic people settling Great Britain to melt together into English, we have very fine-tuned communities coming together in zero time, relatively speaking, and spending tons of time communicating with each other online. Groups of Twitter users based on language, from Bryden et al. So, you could view our current situation as language evolution in fast-forward, and now it seems that we have some proof. A trio of researchers led by the University of London's John Bryden has a new paper out suggesting that, based on language analysis, Twitter users are separating into communities (the Guardian says "tribe," rather unfortunately). In the author's words, "... we were able to predict the network community of a user, a purely structural feature, by studying his or her word usage, and we found that this was possible with rapidly growing accuracy for relatively few words sampled." So, based on things like word length, words, and word-fragments, the team was able to pick out which online communities were which, or even that those communities exist. No hashtags needed. Most of the paper's discussion has to do with information/belief spread and community identification--and new, better ways of doing so--and less so with language development, but it's interesting to consider Twitter communities in the more distant future and what they means for words. I can think of obvious anecdotal stuff like 4chan slang or whatever, but this seems to suggest something more natural. If we can pick out online communities--perhaps so-far undefined communities--by the words they use and how they use them, define them by language, it would seem those divisions should influence the development of that language. http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/what-is-social-networking-doing-to-language
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A study comparing mood-related words in U.S. and British books shows that Americans increasingly use emotional words more often. By Shaunacy FerroPosted 03.22.2013 at 12:58 pm2 Comments Mood Madness Intgr via Wikimedia Commons If you pick up a British book, a few cultural differences might easily differentiate it from a member of the American canon -- a penchant for spelling words with an extra "u," an unfamiliar slang word...and perhaps the literary equivalent of a stiff upper lip. According to new research, over the last half a century, American writing has shown a significant uptick in emotional wordscompared books written by our friends across the pond. A study published in PLOS ONE this week examined books from the last century in Google'sNgram Viewer, a database that visualizes the frequency of certain keywords in more than 5 million tomes, and found that since the mid-century, American and British word usage has diverged. Tracing the usage of words that convey six moods (joy, surprise, anger, sadness, fear, disgust), the authors found that in general, words that indicate mood have decreased over time -- except fear, a mood that has been enjoying a resurgence since the 1970s. Usage of words that indicate positive and negative emotions also corresponded to larger historical trends. There was an increase in joy during the roaring '20s and the swinging '60s, for example, but a drop toward sadness in during World War II. Spikes In Emotion: Usage of positive and negative mood indicators corresponded to historical trends. During World War II, negative emotional words were more prevalent. Acerbi et al. During the first half of the 20th century, British books were similar in emotional content -- or even a little more emotional -- than American books. But since 1960, American literature has had more and more emotional "mood" content than their British counterparts. The same trend was found in American and English usage of content-free words like "and," "but" and "the," suggesting that a larger stylistic difference has emerged. Decreasing Emotion In Fiction: The decrease in emotional words used in fiction over time. Fear (red) had the highest final value, while disgust (blue) had the lowest. Acerbi et al. In a statement from the University of Brisol, co-author Alex Bentley, a professor of archaeology and anthropology, explained one possible reason for the divergence: We don't know exactly what happened in the Sixties but our results show that this is the precise moment in which literary American and British English started to diverge. We can only speculate whether this was connected, for example, to the baby-boom or to the rising of counterculture. In the USA, baby boomers grew up in the greatest period of economic prosperity of the century, whereas the British baby boomers grew up in a post-war recovery period so perhaps 'emotionalism' was a luxury of economic growth. However, the authors write that while the study certainly reflects a trend in published language, it's uncertain whether or not that trend is present in the population at large. It has been suggested, for example, that it was the suppression of desire in ordinary Elizabethan English life that increased demand for writing “obsessed with romance and sex." So while it is easy to conclude that Americans have themselves become more ‘emotional’ over the past several decades, perhaps songs and books may not reflect the real population any more than catwalk models reflect the average body; the observed changes reflect the book market, rather than a direct change in American culture. So it's possible we're not a complete emotional mess. We just want to read about people who are. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/american-english-has-become-way-more-emotional-british-english ENGLISH IDIOMS AND THE WORLD OF FASHION0 2/10/12
The language of fashion is often as creative and diverse as the garments it describes. However, there are a number of English idioms that pop up again and again when talking about clothing and trends. The following list entails 32 of them: 1. au courant The term au courant refers to ❛something that is up-to-date and/or reflects the latest styles and trends❜. Example: Fashion magazines are full of glamorous pictures of au courant clothing and accessories. 2. avant-garde When something is avant-garde, it is ❛very modern and revolutionary❜. Example: What one person might describe as avant-garde, another might find over-the-top and silly. 3. blast from the past The English idiom a blast from the past refers to ❛something that makes you think of the past❜. Example: These polyester jumpsuits are a real blast from the past. My mother wore similar ones in the 1970s. 4. can’t hold a candle to someone/something When something can’t hold a candle to someone or something, he, she or it is ❛not as good❜ in comparison. Example: This season’s fashion show can’t hold a candle to those from last year. It was phenomenal. 5. to blaze a trail /to be a trailblazer Someone who blazes a trail, i.e. a trailblazer, is ❛a leader or revolutionary in a certain field❜ . Example: Is Lady Gaga a fashion trailblazer? 6. cheap and cheerful Clothing that ❛does not cost much but is attractive❜ can be described as cheap and cheerful. Example: If you like cheap and cheerful fashion, this clothing line is the right one for you. 7. Clothes make the man. This English idiom implies that ❛people will judge you by your clothes❜, i.e. good clothes will make people respect you more. Example: Why did Sam go to the job interview looking like that? Doesn’t he know that clothes make the man? 8. fashion victim A fashion victim is ❛someone who wears fashionable clothes even when they do not look good on him❜. Example: Those capri pants might be in style, but they don’t look good on you, Louise. Don’t be a fashion victim! 9. free and easy The term free and easy refers to something that is ❛unconstrained and informal❜, i.e. the opposite of stiff and formal. Example: This summer’s designs are free and easy. 10. fashion faux pas A fashion faux pas is ❛a fashion mistake❜. Example: Wearing green and yellow tennis shoes to the wedding was a fashion faux pas that Bernice will never forget. 11. to be a cut above Something that is a cut above is ❛superior❜ or ❛better❜ than something else. Example: The workmanship of this dress is a cut above. 12. to be a slave to fashion Someone who is a slave to fashion is ❛someone who wears clothes and accessories solely because they are in style❜. Example: Too many people are slaves to fashion. Forget about trends - wear what looks good on you! 13. to be all the rage Something that is all the rage is something that is ❛in❜ or ❛currently fashionable❜. Example: Floor-length dresses are the latest rage. 14. to be dressed to the nines When you are dressed to the nines, you are ❛wearing fashionable, fancy or attractive clothes that make you look very good❜. Example: Did you see Beverly at last night’s reception? She was dressed to the nines. 15. to be in (style) When something is in or is in style, it is ❛fashionable at the moment❜. Example: I didn’t know that harem pants were in last year. 16. to be striking / stunning When something is striking or is stunning, it ❛attracts attention because it is exceptionally beautiful, different or unusual❜. Example: The blouse’s asymmetrical neckline is stunning. 17. to be out (of style) When something is out or is out of style, it is ❛no longer fashionable❜. Example: I didn’t know that harem pants are out this year. 18. to catch on The English idiom to catch on means ❛to become popular or fashionable❜. Example: A-line skirts have really caught on, although I, personally, prefer pencil skirts. 19. to catch someone’s eye / to be eye-catching If something catches your eye or is eye-catching, it is ❛exceptionally attractive or noticeable❜. Example: This year’s bright colors are very eye-catching. 20. to come into fashion If something comes into fashion, ❛it becomes fashionable❜. Example: He wondered whether leather hats will come into fashion again. 21. to cut a fine figure If you cut a fine figure,you ❛look good and cause others to admire your appearance❜. Example: Bruce cut a fine figure in his new black suit. 22. to dance to someone else’s tune Someone who dance’s to someone else’s tune ❛does what he is told or in the same way that others have done before him❜. Example: A revolutionary designer does not dance to anyone else’s tune. He dances to his own tune. 23. to each his / her own The idiom to each his own means that ❛people have different tastes❜. Example: In my opinion, the colors were not complementary. To each his own, I guess. 24. to fit like a glove When something ❛fits very well❜ or ❛ fits perfectly❜, it fits like a glove. Example: Her wedding dress fit like a glove 3 months before the wedding, but it needed to be let out just before the ceremony. 25. to go out of fashion When a style our item of clothing goes out of fashion, it is ❛no longer fashionable❜. Example: Shoulder pads went out of fashion in the late 1980s. 26. to go overboard (on something) The expression to go overboard (on something) means ❛to use or do too much of something❜. Example: I love, glamor and shine, but it is not a good idea to go overboard on the glitter. 27. to have had its day When something has had its day, it is ❛old, no longer useful, no longer successful or outdated❜. In the world of fashion, this expression could apply to a piece of clothing, a trend or a person working in the industry. Example: I think that Dad’s checkered suit has had its day. It’s time to buy a new one. 28. to have had one’s fill of something If you have had your fill of something, you ❛have had too much of it and don’t like it anymore❜. Example: I have had my fill of pastel colors. From now on, I only want to wear black. 29. to make a fashion statement If you make a fashion statement, you ❛wear something that expresses your personal taste and/or is attention-grabbing❜. Example: Michael’s pink plaid pants made a fashion statement at work last week. 30. to turn heads / to be head-turning When something or someone turns heads or is head-turning, it ❛gets people’s attention❜. Example: The designer’s polka-dot patterns and bright colors were head-turning. 31. to work wonders The English idiom to work wonders means ❛to improve something a lot❜. Example: That style works wonders for your figure. You look fabulous! 32. yesterday’s news The expression yesterday’s news refers to ❛something that everyone already knows❜ or ❛something that no one is interested in anymore❜. Example: These bold patterns are yesterday’s news. Today, people are wearing solids in subtle colors. http://www.english-idioms.com/articles/files/fashion-idioms.html [Date: 2013-06-12] European cooperation is based on our ability to understand each other. Given that there are presently 23 official EU languages, the availability of online tools to facilitate accurate translation is fundamentally important. An EU-funded project has developed an innovative online tool that will enable web-content providers to automatically create publishing-quality translations. This tool has been calibrated to apply to specific professional fields, yet requires no specific training to use. A number of online translation tools are currently available to the public. Some programmes are already used by many people worldwide, and improve the quality of their translations through machine learning. In other words, these systems use feedback to learn from their own mistakes. The disadvantage to this, however, is that explicit grammatical rules are the exception rather than the rule. This is where the EU-funded MOLTO ('Multilingual on-line translation') project comes in. The project, which finished in early 2013, set out to develop a system with grammar rules already in place. The ultimate objective was to create a translation technique so accurate that people could produce texts using the translations directly, without fear of mistakes. As a demonstration, the project aimed to produce a set of translated articles in the domain of cultural heritage on the Wikipedia website. An important point to note is that while existing online translation tools are often designed for consumers of information, MOLTO targeted producers of information. The quality therefore needed to be good enough so that, for instance, an e-commerce site could translate their web pages automatically without fear that the message would change. This project is expected to have a major impact on how automated translation is viewed. The field is currently dominated by open-domain browsing-quality tools, which are not always accurate and not always trusted. Using existing tools, potential mistakes can arise where the system might have translated a price of EUR 100 into, say 100 Swedish Crowns (which in fact equals around EUR 10). While the customer might realise that there has been a mistake, this could prove costly if company does not notice the error. On the other hand, domain-specific, high-quality translation can be both expensive and cumbersome. As a result of MOLTO, it should now be possible for a producer of web documents to automatically generate them in many languages. The MOLTO project makes it easier to provide high-quality translation across a number of domains. Indeed, potential areas - in addition to MOLTO's case studies - cover distant learning, electronic commerce, encyclopaedia articles, contracts, manuals, and user interfaces. Other areas include, for example, the translation of patent descriptions, along with descriptions of cultural heritage and museum objects. Another important area of development has been the translation of mathematical teaching material. The MOLTO project has succeeded in ensuring that content producers will be able to use this innovative technology without necessarily being fluent in the language in which, say, the patent description was written, or without being a computer expert. This means that, in the future, information producers will be able to freely download this tool and translate texts into several languages simultaneously. This technique has the potential to be applied to a wide range of web documents, within sufficiently well-specified domains and clear semantics. Ultimately, it could revolutionise automatic online translation, to the benefit of citizens everywhere. http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS_FP7&ACTION=D&DOC=1&CAT=NEWS&QUERY=013f38036557:ce5b:226b2c67&RCN=35794 For more information, please visit: http://www.molto-project.eu/ 
The rise of social media has put "conversation without speech" at the centre of millions of lives, as Tom Chatfield explains Where once speech was the driving force behind language change, we are moving into an era where writing – or, more precisely, the act of typing on to screens – is a dominant form of verbal interaction. And this has brought with it an accelerating transformation of not only the words we use, but how we read each others' lives. Consider the emoticon: a human face sketched from three punctuation marks. Born during the course of an early online discussion in 1982, courtesy of computer scientist Scott Fahlman, it addressed one central absence of onscreen words: a human face able to indicate emotional tone. Fahlman coined two basic expressions – "happy" and "sad" (signalling "joking" and "not joking" respectively) – but further variations almost immediately began to spring up, stretching today into many thousands. Aside from bewildering ingenuity, one thing all of these share is that they are unpronounceable: symbols aimed at the eye rather than at the ear, like an emotionally enriched layer of punctuation. There's nothing inherently new about such effects. In 1925, the American professor George Krapp coined the phrase "eye dialect" to describe the use of selected mis-spellings in fiction signalling a character's accent without requiring a phonetic rendering of their speech. Mark Twain, for example, used just a handful of spelling variations to convey the colourful speech of his character Jim in Huckleberry Finn (1884), such as "ben" for been and "wuz" for was. The "z" of Twain's wuz might have a strangely contemporary feel to some readers, courtesy of the so-called "internet z" – a common typo for the letter "s" that has taken on a new life in typed terms such as "lulz", denoting an anarchistic flavour of online amusement via the mangling of the acronym "laughs out loud" (LOL). While he was a master of visual verbal effects, Twain wouldn't have recognised the strange reversal of traditional relationships between written and spoken language that something like LOL represents. For, where once speech came first and writing gradually formalised its eccentricities, we're now typing some terms and only then learning to speak them. LOL itself features increasingly in speech (either spelt out or pronounced to rhyme with "doll") together with its partner in crime, OMG (Oh My God!), while some of the more eccentric typo-inspired terms used in online games (to "pwn" someone, meaning to subject them to a humiliating defeat) can't even be said out loud. And if that lies outside your experience, consider the familiarity with which almost all of us now say "dot com" or talk about a "dotcom" business: a web-induced articulation of punctuation that would have inconceivable in any other era. These may sound like niche preoccupations but, in the past few years, the rise of social media has put what you might call "conversation without speech" at the centre of millions of lives. Every single day sees more than 100 billion emails and 300 million tweets sent. Video, audio and images are increasingly common, too, with more than 72 hours of new video uploaded to YouTube every minute. Yet almost all our onscreen exchanges still begin and end with words, from comments and status updates to typed search queries and the text message. There's something magnificent about our capacity for cramming emotional shading into even the most constricted of verbal arenas, and making them our own. From text messages with more punctuation appended than most standard paragraphs to tweets with startlingly elaborate subtexts spelled out via hash tags (#gently- selfmocking), our creativity knows few bounds – together with our ability to read between the lines and convert even the unlikeliest sequence of 140 characters into a human story. Similarly, the democratisation of written words is an astonishing thing, not least because it gifts permanence to so much that has historically been lost – and supplants those speaking on others' behalf with an opportunity to directly encounter every individual's words. Yet there are hazards and seductions within our ingenuity. As writers, our words belong to the world rather than simply to us, and they can be both read and used in ways we cannot foresee – not to mention aggregated, shared, copied and analysed for far longer than we ourselves may exist. Then, too, there's the fact that we cannot see or know what the faces behind typed words are actually doing; or what the grand performance of social-media selves conceals as well as reveals. We are, in this sense, vulnerable precisely because of our lavish linguistic talents. We cannot help but read our own meanings into everything we see, forgetting the breadth of the gulf between words and world. "The man who does not read," Twain once wrote, "has no advantage over the man who cannot read." What might he have made, though, of the man who only reads, or does not know how to listen? Professionally and personally, we live in an age where the messy self-exposure of speech – of even a conversation by phone or Skype – can seem at once too self-exposing and ephemeral to be useful. Onscreen, typing, the world seems clean and comprehensible; ripe for copying, pasting, sorting and – if necessary – for the most careful construction of even the most spontaneous-seeming quip. We have never been more privileged as readers and writers, or more finely attuned to the subtexts that can lurk within even a single letter. Yet conversation is an art that must not be supplanted, not least because it reminds us of what the screen cannot say; and of the constant fiction between what is thought, written and understood, and whatever truths lie behind these. Tom Chatfield's book, 'Netymology: a Linguistic Celebration of the Digital World' is published by Quercus http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/say-what-you-see-how-language-is-being-transformed-by-the-way-we-type--rather-than-the-way-we-speak-8656187.html By Palma Chatonnet-Marton, M.Sc.
certified medical and legal translations Objective This small compilation aims to help translators quickly find information on nomenclature and abbreviations from reliable sources in order to better adapt themselves to the market. Introduction It is essential to thoroughly understand the subject before starting translation...In nature, the specialization of a species is detrimental to its long-term adaptation to an ever-changing environment. Does translators’ survival follow the theory of natural selection? Specialization seems a must and clients require that translators strictly follow the jargon used by the professionals who will use the target documents. However, this does not mean that translators cannot adapt to the evolution of the field. Contrary to biological evolution, where both specialist and generalist species co-exist in a dynamic equilibrium to share niches, the struggle for life of translators is more efficient when they are specialized but have tools and information to adapt themselves to the large variety of needs of clients. Nevertheless, this adaptation raises myriad questions for a translator: where do I find information quickly? Can I rely on the source? Shall I be able to explain my choices to the clients? Furthermore, even for a professionally trained translator, if the time spent on foraging for nomenclature, abbreviation and jargon is wasted at the expense of time necessary for ensuring proper linguistic quality, then fluency and clarity of translation can be jeopardized. Thankfully, there are many ways of supplementing our initial knowledge with minimal cost and energy in order to fulfill the requirements of the market. The aim of this paper is to share some website addresses and references for medical translators. If there is a naivety in promoting open source and sharing hints, we wish to advocate the idea that it is necessary to share as many good standards as possible in order to foster good comprehension. We can take it as a duty and truly a literally academic endeavor or win-win game. It is without a doubt easier to specialize when we have degrees in the sciences, medicine, pharmacy, engineering or aeronautics. Nevertheless, anybody can earn experience by following three simple rules: we understand our source texts, we use good terminology and we keep ourselves updated on grammar and style issues. These three rules will be our guide. 1. Thou shalt understand thy source text It is essential to thoroughly understand the subject before starting translation. It means knowing “everything” on the subject. Nevertheless, finding a good starting point for reading is not an easy task. The most easily accessible sites such as Wikipedia can be useful for rapidly understanding the background of a subject, but they can be misleading if we rely solely on this type of source. The quality of expert review is not homogeneous and jewels stand side by side with poor-quality articles (reports). There are other ways to find peer-reviewed information on health-related subjects. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) houses the site of “PubMed,” the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) National Institutes of Health database of all the scientific literature related to health: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ With more than 22 million citations from biomedical literature, it is considered the Holy Grail for getting up-to-date information. With the PubMed Central initiative, not only article summaries are freely available but also full-text pdf. At first glance, it may seem overwhelming; however, data mining in this place is made easy with user-friendly tools. Other related sites of the NLM are also very valuable resources: “Genetic Home Reference” is a guide to understanding genetic conditions: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/ while “Medical Subject Headings” is a dictionary of medical terms:http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html. Translators working on medicine release documents and clinical trial reports should be aware of the differences between the European Union and US legislations, which still need to be resolved. The International Conference on Harmonisation (ICH) guides are useful: www.ich.org/products/guidelines.html. See also the sites for multidisciplinary guidelines—the ICH medical terminology (MedDRA), the Common Technical Document (CTD) and the development of Electronic Standards for the Transfer of Regulatory Information (ESTRI) among others. The site of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on ICH is: www.fda.gov/regulatoryinformation/guidances/ucm122049.htm; and the ICH Guidance Documents can be found here: www.fda.gov/.../ucm219488.htm The guides on Good Clinical Practice in English, German, Spanish, French and other languages with their incorporated glossaries can be found at: http://ichgcp.net/download http://www.ich.org/.../E6_R1__Guideline.pdf http://www.gcphelpdesk.com/index.php/glossary/8-a Guidelines on good pharmacovigilance practices: http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/Scientific_guideline/2012/06/ The European Medicines Agency’s site informs us on human and veterinary medicines: http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/ 2. Thou shalt use the proper terminology For gene and protein names (always a source of confusion for all of us), we can find useful information at: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/pages/scientific-nomenclature.htm The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) has assigned unique gene symbols and names at: http://www.genenames.org and again the NCBI for chemical database PubChem: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/guide/chemicals-bioassays/ The http://tinyurl.com/2wzxrrs link refers to the European Medicines Agency’s templates for product information for use by applicants and marketing-authorization holders for centralized procedures, mutual-recognition, decentralized and referral procedures in the official EU languages. Quality Review of Documents (QRD) conventions to be followed for the EMA-QRD templates can be found at the link: http://www.emea.europa.eu/.../WC500005091.pdf Below, we present some sites not really specific to biomedical translations, but which may turn out useful as legal, environmental, and more general public safety issues are involved. There are two important reasons for using these sites: Researchers, laboratory workers, medical and clinical staff are more and more subject to internal and external audits. Keeping abreast of regulations helps them fulfill successfully standardized requirements. Translators who follow these updates and understand these systems can become real specialists in these fields. Multilingual sites offer true parallel corpora for the linguists. By definition, “a parallel corpus is a corpus that contains a collection of original texts in language L1 and their translations into a set of languages L2 ... Ln. In most cases, parallel corpora contain data from only two languages. Closely related to parallel corpora are "comparable corpora", which consist of texts from two or more languages which are similar in genre, topic, register, etc. without, however, having the same content.” Source: http://www.glottopedia.de/index.php/Parallel_corpus Unidirectional (e.g., from French to English), bidirectional (e.g. from German to English and vice versa) or multidirectional parallel corpora are always much more efficient sources compared to dictionaries (see the legislation of the European Union from English into the official 23 languages of the EU and vice versa at the eur-lex site: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm). Two advantages of these resources are obvious; on the one hand the terms appear in different contexts while on the other hand, these parallel corpora can be easily found online with a click without wasting time searching through heavy dictionaries. Despite the fact that I have an entire collection of “those heavy books,” I work under the pressure of the demand of a high quality output in the least possible time (although we all know that lack of time plays against quality; however, that is an issue that deserves another article). As mentioned above, if translators can reach a site where they can find terms from reliable sources with a click, they can use the saved energy and time to polish the quality of their work. The freely accessible eur-lex site (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm) containing the European Union law is available in the 23 official languages. This huge multilingual corpus is the source of many pertinent medical (e.g. bird flu), environmental, pharmaceutical terminology in the EU-27 languages with its Simple and Advanced Search interfaces. The IATE (InterActive Terminology for Europe) database regroups all synonyms and variants used by the different institutions of the EU:http://iate.europa.eu/iatediff/SearchByQueryEdit.do. The 229 Corpus-Based Monolingual Dictionaries: http://wortschatz.uni-leipzig.dehosted by the University of Leipzig offers "mega-meta-search": examples of sentences, frequency analysis, graphical word compilations for words of all languages which have corpora. Another storm is brewing at the interface of environmental or medical science and legislation. For decades, a huge number of chemicals has been manufactured and released on the market in Europe, sometimes in very high amounts, without sufficient information on the hazards that these compounds might cause to human health or to the environment. This realization led to the REACH initiative. REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical substances) is the European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_intro.htm. Under these upcoming laws, industrialists, manufacturers and importers are required to produce information on the properties of their chemical substances, which will facilitate their safe handling. The information has to be registered in a central database run by theEuropean Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the central point in the REACH system. This agency hosts the databases necessary to operate the REACH, coordinates the evaluation of suspicious chemicals and is currently building a public database with chemical safety-related terms and information on alternative chemical names in mixtures. The agency also addresses the same safety issues for nanomaterials. The database includes CLP (CLP stands for Classification, Labeling and Packaging), Chemical Safety Reports (CSRs), Predictive Toxicology (QSARs), the Chemical Safety and the Exposure Assessment, as well as the IUCLID database and the REACH Guide: http://www.reach-compliance.eu/english/compliance/CLP/CLP-Notifications.html The ECHA link on REACH in a multilingual version: http://echa.europa.eu/reach_en.asp and the ECHA glossary in English on main terms can be found here: http://guidance.echa.europa.eu/public-2/glossary.htm?lang=en The eur-lex link for parallel corpora of the REACH directive (EC 1907/2006) in EU-27 national languages (Celex number: 32006L0102) is: http://tinyurl.com/68thcnh 3. Thy mother tongue shall be the language of science There is a universal style for writing science. It differs from the literary one, and we write in a universal scientific style whether we translate from English into another language or vice versa. In the book some consider as the bible for technical translation methods: “Vinay, J.P. et Darbelnet, J., Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais. Méthode de traduction” (Paris, Didier, 1958), the authors state that in technical translation the target text has to be almost identical to the source, quite contrary to the French literary translation tendency at the beginning of the 20th century, which advised translators to read the book, then to close it and write a new one. We can find our correct style somewhere between these two extremes. Nowadays, one of the basic requirements is consistency—that is, we have to use the same terms and verbs without synonyms in a consistent manner throughout the translation—even at the expense of literary style. We can nevertheless render our translations colorful and keep terminology consistent while being stylish using a few simple tricks. Here is a non-exhaustive list of hints, style guides and grammar links: 1. Use strong, active verbs—you can access a non-exhaustive list here:http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~cainproj/writingtips/preciseverbs.html 2. Unless an acronym is “fixed” and well-known (like AIDS, WHO) or a brand name, and unless space is drastically limited, you do not necessarily have to abbreviate all illnesses, pharmaceutical forms, names of health organizations, etc. Rules for translation of acronyms differ between languages, but remember in all cases that too many acronyms play against fluency and coherency. 3. You should not be afraid to use the Gerund in our translations: e.g. “The brain stem controls many of the body’s basic functions, including breathing, chewing, swallowing, and eye movements.” Just ensure that it is used in a consistent manner in the same sentence (source: http://www.iristrial.org/teleforms/documents/stroke.pdf) 4. Although polished, fluent and journalistic style requires employing the active voice more, in scientific translations we are often forced to use the passive voice. Simply bear in mind that the active and passive voices represent two different points of view when translated. Translators have to decide which grammatical subject is highlighted in the source text and translate accordingly. This is easy to follow in Latin and German-based languages. However, other languages like Hungarian use the active voice almost exclusively since the 19th century linguistic reform; nevertheless, the syntax of the language allows easy transposition of the passive voice of the source into an active one. Other useful links: 1. You can polish your style by following the Clinical Chemistry series:http://www.aacc.org/publications/clin_chem/ccgsw/Pages/default.aspx# 2. How to Write, Publish, & Present in the Health Sciences: A Guide for Clinicians & Laboratory Researchers, by Thomas A. Lang (American College of Physicians, 2010).http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scientific-Style-Format-Authors-Publishers/dp/0521471540/ 3. Writing Guides and Style Manuals in the Biological and Health Sciences from the University of Minnesota: http://hsl.lib.umn.edu/biomed/help/stylemanuals 4. The AP Stylebook http://www.apstylebook.com/, the American Psychological Association: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/ 5. http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html 6. The Associated Press vs. Chicago Manual of Style: http://www.apvschicago.com/ 7. The EASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators of Scientific Articles to be Published in English by the European Association of Science Editors:http://www.ease.org.uk/publications 8. The MLA Style Manual by the Medical Library Association:http://www.mlanet.org/publications/style 9. The Guidance on Scientific Writing EQUATOR Network: http://www.equator-network.org/resource-centre/library-of-health-research-reporting/guidance-on-scientific-writing/ 10. And the http://blog.amamanualofstyle.com/ 11. The Grammar Girl’s free newsletter: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com 12. http://www.grammarbook.com 13. http://grammarist.com Conclusion This short article is not exhaustive and should not be taken as an exclusive list of available resources. We apologize for the omissions of authors of other valuable sites. We only hope that this may serve as a little step in a path that other translators might want to follow. Published - March 2013 http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article2429.php This article was originally published at Translation Journal (http://translationjournal.net/journal/). . By Behnaz Sanaty Pour,
freelance translator and an English teacher in various English schools, M.A. student in Translation Studies in Islamic Azad University, Shahreza Branch Iran bsanatypour at yahoo com Become a member of TranslationDirectory.com at just 6 EUR/month (paid per year) Abstract: Translation has many challenges, one of which is the problem of translating proper nouns (PNs), a term used here interchangeably with the term 'proper names,' adequately from one language to another. The focus of this study lies within translation of personal names, which are a subclass of proper nouns. Notwithstanding the fact that a challenge that translators often encounter in their work comes from personal names, this paper presents some translation techniques proposed by various researchers in this regard. It should be mentioned that this paper does not intend to prescribe any special rules. Key words: Personal names, Proper nouns, translation strategies Introduction Generally speaking, nouns are divided into common and proper names. Proper names refer to a specific referent, that is, these names serve to distinguish a particular individual from others, for instance, Peter, Mike, Alice. Common names, on the other hand, refer to a class of individuals such as man, woman, and boy. It is noteworthy that distinction between these types of nouns gets blurred in some cases. Since it is outside the scope of this paper to present a full account of this issue, the present study tackles only personal names, which fall into the proper noun category. There is no doubt that translating personal names should not be assumed to be an easy issue inasmuch as it can turn out to be very troublesome in practice and needs very sensitive decision-making on the part of the translator within the translation process. A growing body of research shows that different translation procedures are applied in the process of translating personal names. Albert Peter Vermes (2003) asserts that: "The translation of proper names has often been considered as a simple automatic process of transference from one language into another, due to the view that proper names are mere labels used to identify a person or a thing. Contrary to popular views, the translation of proper names is a non-trivial issue, closely related to the problem of the meaning of the proper name." Translators do not always use the same strategy for translation of all personal names in all kinds of texts. Personal names in some cases can reveal some information by themselves. The translator's knowledge of such information can sometimes be very effective in the translation process. In this regard, The Columbia Encyclopedia states that "English surnames developed in the late Middle Ages and, apart from patronymics (Adams, Jefferson), have a variety of origins; they come from places (Lincoln, Garfield) from trades (Tyler, Taylor), from personal traits (Stout, Black), and from the calendar (Noel, May)." In this respect, Mike Campbell (n.d.) states that most surnames fall into four categories: a) they are derived from given names such as Johnson, and Williams; b) they refer to the person's occupation like Clark, and Wright; c) they are derived from the location where the bearer lives; d) surnames can de derived from nicknames such as White, Young. All languages have particular personal names, some of which are deeply rooted in the culture of the speakers of the specific language; consequently, they can pose unique difficulties in the comprehension of culture-specific texts. It is interesting to note that some personal names have specific connotations, and omitting this implied information results in unacceptable translation. For example, in the Persian culture, Hatam Taaei—the name of a very generous man in Iranian stories—is a symbol of generosity; accordingly, if a translator, who unaware of this fact, encounters this sentence "My father is Hatam Taaei" in a conversation of two friends talking about their fathers' characteristics, the translator may erroneously assume that the speaker introduces his or her father's name, not his personality. Bachman (1990) specifically points out that the knowledge of cultural references and of the figurative use of language should be considered as a focal element in the translation process. He holds that the readers and listeners need this type of knowledge to make sense of culture-specific names whenever such names occur. In the case of personal names, there is another point relevant to a peculiarity of some languages; translators must consider the fact that the order of first name and surname is not the same in all languages. In the Korean, Japanese, and Hungarian languages, for example, surname comes before first name, whereas this order is reversed in English, French, and most other Western languages. The rest of this paper is arranged in three sections: first, the definition of proper name, personal name, and various types of personal names; second, the explanation about some procedures of personal name translation; third, the conclusion. 2. Preliminary Considerations 2.1. Definition of Proper Noun According to Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia, a proper noun is "a word that serves the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about, but not of telling anything about it." Merriam Webster's Dictionary defines the proper noun as "a noun that designates a particular being or thing, does not take a limiting modifier, and is usually capitalized in English—called also proper name." The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary says that a proper noun (or proper name) is "a word that is the name of a person, a place, an institution, etc. and is written with a capital letter" (p.1016). A proper noun has these distinctive features in English: 1) It will be capitalized, no matter where it occurs in a sentence. 2) A proper name is a mono-referential name, i.e., it refers to a particular person, thing, or place. 3) It is not regularly preceded by a definite or indefinite article. 4) It is not used with limiting modifiers, like a lot of or any. 2.2. Personal NamesAnna Fornalczyk (2007) states that anthroponymy, the study of the names of human beings, encompasses personal names and group names. She also considers that anthroponymy, in literary works, involves names of personified animals and fictitious creatures, as well. Wikipedia categorizes personal names into human personal names and non-human personal names. Wikipedia defines human personal name in the following way:"A personal name is the proper name identifying individual person, and usually comprises a given name bestowed at birth or at a young age. It is nearly universal for a human to have a name; the rare exceptions occur in the cases of mentally disturbed parents, or feral children growing up in isolation." Based on Wikipedia, some humans give individual non-human animals and plants names, usually of endearment. For instance, the names of pets and sporting animals are often the same as human names. Nevertheless, this can be offensive and disrespectful to the person of the same name in some cultures such as the Chinese and the Iranian cultures. Moreover, Wikipedia mentions that an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims that humans are not the only living creatures that use personal names. Researchers from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, studying bottlenose dolphins in Sarasota Bay, Florida, found that the dolphins had personal names for one another. In this case, the interesting point is that a dolphin chooses its name as an infant. The World Book Encyclopedia talks about personal name in this way: "Practically everyone since the beginning of history has had a name (...) Almost all names have meanings. Early people bestowed a name with a definite consciousness of its meaning (...). But today, people give little thought to the meanings. Most people have a given name and family name. Many also have a middle name, and some have a nickname” (vol.14, p.5). Mike Campbell (n.d.) states that a personal name is a name that belongs to a person. He categorizes personal names in the following way:
With this section, the author attempts to approach the concept of different types of personal name in order to delimit the object of the study. It is important to stress that not all types of personal names exist in all languages. Moreover, the translator must take cognizance of these different categories, since familiarity with them helps in the translation process. In relation to the translation of personal names, translators should take this point into consideration whether or not it is possible or necessary to show that these classifications are different in the source and target languages. As mentioned previously, Campbell (n.d.) divides personal names into various categories. He defines them as follows: Number Type of Personal Name Definition 1Given name A given name is a name that is assumed by a person at or after birth. As opposed to a family name, it is generally not inherited. 2 First nameorChristian name In Europe and North America, where the given name precedes the family name, given names are called first names or forenames. 3Praenomen The praenomen (plural praenomina) was the ancient Roman given name. With a nomen and a cognomen it formed a complete Roman name. In Roman documents the praenomen was often abbreviated to one or two letters. 4 Middle name In the English-speaking world, the middle name is a secondary given name. When the full name is presented, it is placed between the first name and the surname. People can have more than one middle name, though it is unusual to have none. Many people include their middle name as an initial in their usual name, for example George W. Bush. Others prefer their middle name and use it instead of their first name. 5 Family name or last name or surname It is a name passed from one generation to the next. In many cultures a woman adopts her husband's family name when they are married. 6 Nomen The nomen (plural nomina) was the Roman gens's (that is clan's) name. In the typical Roman name it was preceded by thepraenomen and followed by the cognomen 7 Cognomen The cognomen (plural cognomina) was one of the three parts of the typical Roman name. It followed the praenomen and nomen. Originally cognomina were nicknames, but by the time of the Roman Empire they were inherited from father to son. Thus the cognomen in combination with the nomen functioned as a surname, breaking families into smaller groups than just the nomen alone. 8 Nickname A nickname is a substitute for a person's real name. It may be used because it is more familiar, more descriptive, or shorter than the real name. For example, Sue is the nickname of Susan. 9 Agnomen The agnomen (plural agnomina) formed an additional part of someRoman names, usually following the cognomen. Usually they werenicknames acquired at some point during the lifetime, but, rarely, some agnomnia were inherited. 10Pet name A pet name of a given name is a short and/or affectionate form. Often they are only used by friends and relatives. 11 Diminutive It is the same as a pet name. They can be formed through various methods in different languages. Two of most typical ways in English are presented here: a) are those that are short forms of the original name, very often from the first syllable or sound of the name. For example, Alex is from Alexander; b) they can also obtained by adding a suffix, to the original name or short form of a name. In English, the -y/-ie suffix make diminutives such as, Debbie, Charlie,Johnny, and Abby. 12 Byname A byname is a secondary name used to further identify a person. They were often nicknames (for example Erik the Red) or patronyms(for example John, son of William). Bynames can be consideredsurnames when they are inherited from one generation to the next. 13Generation name The generation name is used by some Chinese and Korean families. It is a name given to all newborns of the same generation of an extended family. 14 Patronym A patronym (or patronymic) is a name derived from the name of the father or another paternal ancestor. Some surnames are patronymic in origin, like Peterson = "Peter's son". Some cultures, such as Iceland, use uninherited patronyms instead of surnames. 15Matronym A matronym (also matronymic) is a name derived from the name of the mother or another maternal ancestor. 16Filiation A filiation attached to a name describes the bearer's paternal descent. The complete Roman name sometimes had a filiation. Table 1. Types of Personal Name (adopted fromhttp://www.behindthename.com/glossary/view/name) 3. How to Translate Personal Names? Personal names often constitute a major problem in translation. For translating proper nouns, different models are suggested. In this respect, seven models presented by Hervey and Higgins (1986), Newmark (1988), Theo Hermans (1988), Farzane Farahzad (1995), Anthony Pym (2004), Lincoln Fernandes (2006), and Heikki Sarkka (2007) will be defined here.
Generally, personal names represent a real challenge for both professional and novice translators; therefore, they merit attention from researchers and scholars in the field of translation studies. Newmark (1993) reports that proper names, which include personal names, represent a translation difficulty in different text types (p.15). Being familiar with the culture, translators sometimes can infer some implied information such as gender, nationality, race, class, or religion from personal names. It is clear that translators must be familiar with culture of both the source and target languages, since awareness of these culture-bound names can lead to the most appropriate translation. Based on the foregoing information, it is significant to stress that the influence of culture on translation of personal names is undeniable. Different translation procedures for translating personal names have been presented. In general, it should be noted that translators do not always use the same strategy for translation of all personal names in all kinds of texts. For example, Farahzad (1995) believes that translators should use transcription and transliteration techniques when translating personal names; however, translators of religious texts must use the most common existing equivalent of a personal name in the TL even if these equivalents do not follow the foregoing translation strategies. Having briefly discussed some of the translation procedures in this respect, the author strongly recommends that whatever strategies translators use, especially in scientific texts, they should mention the original name with the SL alphabets in the footnotes or endnotes in order to facilitate further research for readers in the target language. References Bachman, L. F. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing, Oxford. Oxford University Press. Campel, M. (n.d.). Personal name. Accessed 1 March, 2009 fromhttp://www.behindthename.com/glossary/view/name. Columbia editors (e.d) (2008). Entry word "Name" in Columbia Encyclopedia [on-line]. Available at www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-name.html. Farahzad, F. (1995). Tarjome pishrafteh (1) [Translating advanced English text (1)]. Tehran: University of Payame Nour. Fernandes, L. (2006). Translation of names in children s fantasy literature: Bringing young reader into play. [On-line]. Available athttp://www.iatis.org/newvoices/issues/2006/fernandes-paper-2006.pdf. Fornalczyk, A. (2007). Anthroponym translation in children's literature - early 20th and 21st centuries. Kalbotyra, 57, 93-101. Hermans, T. (1988). On translating proper names, with reference to De Witte and Max Havelaar. In M. J. Wintle (ed.) Modern Dutch Studies. Essays in Honour of Professor Peter King on the Occasion of his Retirement. London/Atlantic Highlands: The Athlone Press. Hervey, S. and Higgins, I. (1992). Thinking Translation. London and New York: Routledge. Hornby, A. S. (2004). Proper noun. Oxford advanced learner's dictionary of current English (6th ed., p.1016). China: Oxford University Press. Inc World Book editors, (1996). Name. The World Book Encyclopedia: In Eighteen Volumes (vol.14, p.5). The U.S.: World Book. Newmark, P. (1988a). Approaches to translation. London: Prentice Hall. Newmark, P. (1988b). A textbook of translation. London: Prentice Hall. Newmark, P. (1993). Paragraphs on translation. Adelaide/ Clevedon/Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Nord, C. (2003). Proper names in translations for children: Alice in wonderland as a case in point. Meta: Translators' Journal, 48, 182-196. Personal name. The world book encyclopedia (vol. 14, p.5). The United States: Field enterprises educational cooperation. Proper name. [on-line]. Available at: http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/ Proper name. Proper noun [on-line]. Available at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proper+noun. Pym, A. (2004). The moving text: localization, translation, and distribution. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Sarkka, H. (2007). Translation of proper names in non-fiction texts [on-line]. Available athttp://translationjournal.net/journal/39proper.htm. Vermes, A. P. (2003). Proper names in translation: an explanatory attempt. Across Languages and Cultures, 4 (1), 89-108. - - - Behnaz Sanaty Pour is a freelance translator and an English teacher in various English schools. She received her B.M. in Translation Studies from Payame Nour University, Mobarake Branch, Iran. Currently, she is an M.A. student in Translation Studies in Islamic Azad University, Shahreza Branch. Her areas of interest are translation studies, interpretation, translation theories, pragmatics, and discourse analysis.More important, she is really interested in cultural translation. She can be available at bsanatypour at yahoo com. By Penny Marinou,
Litterae, Athens, Greece info[at]litterae.gr www.litterae.gr Translating recipes and menus appears to be a simple task at first sight, but that is only one's first impression. A menu looks like a simple food-list, and cookery books might be considered as a list of recipes with sets of ingredients and simple instructions. How misleading! We have been translating cookery books and menus for many years and we still find this task a challenge. A dish on a menu has to inform the customer about its content and also sound appetizing. This is not always straightforward and is full of traps. For example, how does one translate certain Greek dishes into English? Octopus is very popular in Greece and many dishes are based on this ingredient. One appetiser prepared with octopus looks like meatballs, but obviously cannot be translated as "octopus balls"! So what does one call them? The choices are limited: fritters, puffs or croquettes. None of these however convey the Greek word “Chtapodokeftedes”. Greek cuisine also has many dishes prepared with aubergine and courgettes, and whereas these two words are perfectly suited for an English cook, they might be unfamiliar to an American, who would prefer eggplant and zucchini. Sometimes, it is preferable to transliterate the Greek word, as in the case of Moussaka or taramasalata, and add an explanatory note, e.g. Moussaka Layers of aubergine and minced meat topped with Béchamel sauce Finally, certain things have to be changed altogether. Once, we had to translate a recipe for a type of Greek bread whose literal translation is “Peasant Bread”. The equivalent Greek word has no negative connotations, but the English one does. So another way of conveying the countryside character of the bread had to be found in order to avoid jokes of the type “place two peasants in a mixing bowl…”! Translating food from French into English is no easier. How, for example, would you translate "nuage de pommes de terre"? It sounds perfectly good and appetising in French, but how tasty is a “cloud of potato”? Veal liver with “échalotes aux vieux balsamique” sounds wonderful but I'm not so sure about Veal liver and "shallots with old balsamic vinegar"…the word "old" is not particularly appetising; I would prefer “mature” for instance! And I certainly wouldn't like “thickly cut tuna tummy, pink cooked, covered with a sort of crumble…” (a translation of a mouthwatering French dish) for dinner! Another challenge for food translators is total ignorance of the object of translation. How many people know what a “homity pie”or “bulgar” [also called bulgur, burghul, bourgouri, pourgouri] is? What do they look like, what do they taste of…? And what does one do with “ayam dan tembu satay”. This problem can sometimes be solved by consulting specialised dictionaries and the Internet but I still haven't discovered what “tembu” is. However, not having actually seen and tasted an ingredient or dish is definitely a handicap. Last but not least, translators who are indifferent to food or dislike anything foreign should avoid food translations. Translating food is definitely a challenge but publishing English-language foreign recipe books, for instance, is not that much easier. Litterae recently published a book in English entitled “Aubergines”, with recipes from around the world. Before finalising the text for this book, serious decisions had to be made concerning measurements and language; two very important marketing issues. The requirements for the British market differ significantly from those of the US and Canadian markets. We actually contacted a distributor in the USA to enquire about possibilities of distributing the book in America and, not surprisingly, the distributor commented on the use of the word “aubergine” instead of “eggplant”. Utensil terminology is another thing one has to be careful about when publishing English language cookery books. The British use frying pans whereas the Americans use skillets. The British use the French expression “au bain-marie” for cooking an item in a container placed in a pan of water while the Americans prefer a “double boiler” [also called double saucepan]. Ingredients can also cause problems. Certain items in exotic recipes are not available in Western Europe and one has to find substitute ingredients either by consulting the author or using one's imagination. An exotic recipe from the Philippines in the “Aubergines” publication, for example, calls for the “heart of a banana flower” and although international trade has brought many an ingredient to Europe, chances of finding banana flowers are extremely limited…The solution is an alternative ingredient with a similar taste and consistency. In this case, palm hearts or apples do the trick. As for quantities, that is another story. The older generation in the UK is used to pounds, ounces, fluid ounces and teaspoons/ tablespoons, while the new generation has gone metric and talks about kilograms and litres. In the US, they prefer cups. Last but not least, make sure that you do not translate on an empty stomach as it can be real torture… What Are Dogs Saying When They Bark? [Excerpt]In this excerpt from a new book, two canine intelligence researchers explain how dogs use barks to communicate
Mystique is a dog who lives at Lola ya Bonobo, [the wildlife sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo] where Vanessa and I study bonobos. During the day, she is sweet and demure, but at night she becomes a different animal. She guards our house, barking ferociously every time someone comes within earshot. Usually in Congo, a little extra security is appreciated. The only problem is that our house is on the main trail where the night staff walk back and forth after dark. Mystique dutifully barks at all passersby whether she has known them for a day or all her life. Eventually, we just learned to sleep through it. But if there was really a cause for concern, like a strange man with a gun, I wonder if Mystique would bark in a way that would alert me that there was something dangerous and different about the person approaching the house. Dog vocalizations may not sound very sophisticated. Raymond Coppinger pointed out that most dog vocalizations consist of barking, and that barking seems to occur indiscriminately. Coppinger reported on a dog whose duty was to guard free- ranging livestock. The dog barked continuously for seven hours, even though no other dogs were within miles. If barking is communicative, dogs would not bark when no one could hear them. It seemed to Coppinger that the dog was simply relieving some inner state of arousal. The arousal model is that dogs do not have much control over their barking. They are not taking into account their audience, and their barks carry little information other than the emotional state of the barking dog. Perhaps barking is another by-product of domestication. Unlike dogs, wolves rarely bark. Barks make up as little as 3 percent of wolf vocalizations. Meanwhile, the experimental foxes in Russia [that have been bred to be docile] bark when they see people, while the control foxes do not. Frequent barking when aroused is probably another consequence of selecting against aggression. However, more recent research indicates that there might be more to barking than we first thought. Dogs have fairly plastic vocal cords, or a “modifiable vocal tract.” Dogs might be able to subtly alter their voices to produce a wide variety of different sounds that could have different meanings. Dogs might even be altering their voices in ways that are clear to other dogs but not to humans. When scientists have taken spectrograms, or pictures, of dog barks, it turns out that not all barks are the same—even from the same dog. Depending on the context, a dog’s barks can vary in timing, pitch, and amplitude. Perhaps they have different meanings. I know two Australian dogs, Chocolate and Cina, who love to play fetch on the beach. Each throw sends them plunging through the waves, racing for that magic orb of rubber. When Chocolate retrieves the ball, inevitably Cina wrestles the ball from Chocolate’s mouth, even while Chocolate growls loudly. The girls also eat together, but when Cina tries the same trick with Chocolate’s food, the result is very different. A quiet growl from Chocolate warns Cina away. It is difficult to see how Cina knows when it is okay to take something from Chocolate’s mouth, since both growls are made when Chocolate is aggravated and unwilling to share. If anything, Chocolate’s growl seems louder and scarier when she is playing than when she is eating. Experiments have now shown that dogs use different barks and growls to communicate different things. In one experiment, researchers recorded a “food growl” where a dog was growling over food, and a “stranger growl” where a dog was growling at the approach of a stranger. The researchers played these different growls to a dog who was approaching a juicy bone. The dogs were more hesitant to approach if they heard the food growl rather than the stranger growl. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-are-dogs-saying-when-they-bark An international study suggests languages shape how we think about the future, and how we plan for it
By Ozgun Atasoy Does the language we speak determine how healthy and rich we will be? New researchby Keith Chen of Yale Business School suggests so. The structure of languages affects our judgments and decisions about the future and this might have dramatic long-term consequences. There has been a lot of research into how we deal with the future. For example, the famous marshmallow studies of Walter Mischel and colleagues showed that being able to resist temptation is predictive of future success. Four-year-old kids were given a marshmallow and were told that if they do not eat that marshmallow and wait for the experimenter to come back, they will get two marshmallows instead of one. Follow-up studies showed that the kids who were able to wait for the bigger future reward became more successful young adults. Resisting our impulses for immediate pleasure is often the only way to attain the outcomes that are important to us. We want to keep a slim figure but we also want that last slice of pizza. We want a comfortable retirement, but we also want to drive that dazzling car, go on that dream vacation, or get those gorgeous shoes. Some people are better at delaying gratification than others. Those people have a better chance of accumulating wealth and keeping a healthy life style. They are less likely to be impulse buyers or smokers, or to engage in unsafe sex. Chen’s recent findings suggest that an unlikely factor, language, strongly affects our future-oriented behavior. Some languages strongly distinguish the present and the future. Other languages only weakly distinguish the present and the future. Chen’s recent research suggests that people who speak languages that weakly distinguish the present and the future are better prepared for the future. They accumulate more wealth and they are better able to maintain their health. The way these people conceptualize the future is similar to the way they conceptualize the present. As a result, the future does not feel very distant and it is easier for them to act in accordance with their future interests. Different languages have different ways of talking about the future. Some languages, such as English, Korean, and Russian, require their speakers to refer to the future explicitly. Every time English-speakers talk about the future, they have to use future markers such as “will” or “going to.” In other languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and German, future markers are not obligatory. The future is often talked about similar to the way present is talked about and the meaning is understood from the context. A Mandarin speaker who is going to go to a seminar might say “Wo qu ting jiangzuo,” which translates to “I go listen seminar.” Languages such as English constantly remind their speakers that future events are distant. For speakers of languages such as Mandarin future feels closer. As a consequence, resisting immediate impulses and investing for the future is easier for Mandarin speakers. Chen analyzed individual-level data from 76 developed and developing countries. This data includes people’s economic decisions, such as whether they saved any money last year, the languages they speak at home, demographics, and cultural factors such as “saving is an important cultural value for me.” He also analyzed individual-level data on people’s retirement assets, smoking and exercising habits, and general health in older age. Lastly, he analyzed national-level data that includes national savings rates, country GDP and GDP growth rates, country demographics, and proportions of people speaking different languages. People’s savings rates are affected by various factors such as their income, education level, age, religious affiliation, their countries’ legal systems, and their cultural values. After those factors were accounted for, the effect of language on people’s savings rates turned out to be big. Speaking a language that has obligatory future markers, such as English, makes people 30 percent less likely to save money for the future. This effect is as large as the effect of unemployment. Being unemployed decreases the likelihood of saving by about 30 percent as well. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-language-effects-your-wealth-health |
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