Quote: "Most Chinese know we have an East Coast and a West Coast and that Chicago is somewhere in the middle," said Galal Walker, who teaches Chinese at Ohio State University and directs the Chinese Flagship Center at the school. "It's time we taught them about Columbus and Ohio, which has a lot to offer the rest of the world."
Yep, it sure is. Actually, it's not quite as funny as it would have been before the 2004 election, but still...at least they're optimistic about getting their name out to the Chinese. How they're going about it is the interesting thing, it's by starting foreign language education even earlier.
http://www.ohio.com/news/ap?articleID=164111&c=y
Based on much of what we've learned in class, this would seem to be a good idea. Since preschoolers should have more of a language learning aptitude than at any subsequent age, why not start them earlier if inevitably they will take some language to fulfill high school requirements, etc? However, and this goes hand in hand with my last post, would this actually work (and if so, how?)?
See, in the last post I discussed how real-life interaction is far better for cognition and language development than is watching Baby Einstein. By analogy, wouldn't it follow that at a younger age, structured language learning is less effective than spontaneous, organic learning through unstructured interaction? In later education, I agree that structure is necessary to teach efficiently, because we already have basic rational thinking skills to dissect the fundamentals of a language. Oh, I've stumbled upon an important point (sorry, I'm thinking aloud) - only after we're grasped basic cognition do we have the rational tools to learn a language from an analytical perspective. Before that point (remember this is all speculation) we have to involuntarily pick it up without some kind of ordered scheme of instruction.
The implication, therefore, is that language learning and rational thinking are correlated. But I can't get too excited because they aren't necessarily causal - like the brain could be developing rational thought in "mentalese" at the same time it's absorbing language, so there's only a temporal correlation. Still, it seems plausible that through learning language and being able to communicate logic to others, we can then analytically break down the structure and rules of either that language or another.
Back to my point - any class for preschoolers would have to be structured...without structure. Like it would have to be an immersion class, because you couldn't very well discuss parts of speech in pre-k. So it would be a challenge to create that environment with the limited number of foreign language speakers (b/c you couldn't just have teacher to stand up there and talk chinese, the kids would get bored). So Ohio has its work cut out for them.
One more point, to answer Steve and Autumn (no, Summer!) from my last post - again we see the importance placed on language in society. To get Ohio on the map (from China's pov...is it just me or is this really funny?), we need to multilingual little kids. Alright see you guys in like 5 minutes
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
baby einstein...will you fail math class too?
Disney's Baby Einstein is detrimental to language and cognition skills in infants, according to a study by a UWash team of researchers. They contended that out of 1000 families (which is a significant sample size), on average infants that watched baby einstein knew 8-9 fewer words out of 90 than infants who either didn't watch tv, or watched other shows like sesame street (or even Oprah).
After the discussion in class about experimental data, I'm going to treat this entry as an analysis of experimental methods and conclusions. The sample size on the surface is clearly adequate, but a couple error sources still exist; for example, the number of hours that babies watched this baby einstein is not standardized, so the kids that watched like 4 hours a day might be inordinately skewing the results. Second, the observational data was based on parental reports, which certainly leave some accuracy to be desired.
But overall the conclusions do make sense. Basically the point is not that watching baby einstein is bad for you, but that watching it instead of playing with mom or otherwise interacting in ways that better aid language development is bad. It's funny how the Disney officials change tack and argue that the videos are supposed to create interactive "mom-kid" moments even though the entire advertising campaign implicitly touts the videos as educational and good to just watch. Plus, their biggest counterargument is that the study didn't test kids above 16 months...that's just stupid, because the study's argument was that between 8-16 months is a crucial socializing period that's lost when you watch this series.
It's almost interesting (I'm groping for a point here...) to note that society finds early language development so important. In fact, the dominant benchmark in determining precociousness seems to be language - but of course this is kind of obvious since it's the means by which we do everything in society. The only question is whether, by gaining these language skills, we are actually becoming smarter (which would be true if we think more spohisticatedly via language). aha, now that's an interesting question.
vhttp://www.theage.com.au/news/tv--radio/baby-genius-dvds-delay-language-skills/2007/10/17/1192300839626.html
After the discussion in class about experimental data, I'm going to treat this entry as an analysis of experimental methods and conclusions. The sample size on the surface is clearly adequate, but a couple error sources still exist; for example, the number of hours that babies watched this baby einstein is not standardized, so the kids that watched like 4 hours a day might be inordinately skewing the results. Second, the observational data was based on parental reports, which certainly leave some accuracy to be desired.
But overall the conclusions do make sense. Basically the point is not that watching baby einstein is bad for you, but that watching it instead of playing with mom or otherwise interacting in ways that better aid language development is bad. It's funny how the Disney officials change tack and argue that the videos are supposed to create interactive "mom-kid" moments even though the entire advertising campaign implicitly touts the videos as educational and good to just watch. Plus, their biggest counterargument is that the study didn't test kids above 16 months...that's just stupid, because the study's argument was that between 8-16 months is a crucial socializing period that's lost when you watch this series.
It's almost interesting (I'm groping for a point here...) to note that society finds early language development so important. In fact, the dominant benchmark in determining precociousness seems to be language - but of course this is kind of obvious since it's the means by which we do everything in society. The only question is whether, by gaining these language skills, we are actually becoming smarter (which would be true if we think more spohisticatedly via language). aha, now that's an interesting question.
vhttp://www.theage.com.au/news/tv--radio/baby-genius-dvds-delay-language-skills/2007/10/17/1192300839626.html
Monday, October 15, 2007
f***?
This article should make a lot of sense to most people. We don't talk about it (oh the irony), but there definitely is an underlying, paradoxical absurdity to the social taboos that govern profanity. Quick personal aside - up until I got to college, I didn't swear at all (hehe, that's probably the case for many people), and I automatically considered myself a very refined, classy person. But come to think of it, there's really nothing admirable about this restraint...why in the world do we assign stigmas to profane words when taken out of context?
I must seem obsessed with this Steven pinker fellow, but here's an excellent article he wrote on the issue:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20071008&s=pinker100807&c=2
it's interesting when he notes that profane words are used in novel grammatical ways, not perfectly fulfilling any one part of speech (heh, "Drown the f***ing cat is certainly not interchangeable with Drown the cat which is f***ing."). So maybe it's the syntactical incongruity that makes them stick out...but I doubt that - the mere mention of any of these words in isolation triggers sharp reactions. Pinker explains this through the Stroop effect and something else about the limbic system, which apparently lights up in strong emotional response to profane words. We store connotations of these words in our brains, and try as we might to rationally ignore them or discount them, they trigger strong, involuntary emotions.
Still, it's absolutely true that these words really aren't going to corrupt society. Kids know them, and normally they don't even refer to taboo things (like sex) because they're out of context. What real power can words wield? Well, as Pinker points out, it's probable that "sexually libertine" language of the 60's increased illegitimacy, teen pregnancy,e tc. (wait, i don't know if this is actually true, but ok - the point it that by conjuring up connotations, these apparently meaningless profanities actually refer to whole webs of distasteful ideas).
oh it's also really cool that f*** you came from "damn you", and related phrases similiarly descended from religious blasphemy...finally, just read this: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/10/fucking-and-the.html
abso-f***ing-lutely brilliant
I must seem obsessed with this Steven pinker fellow, but here's an excellent article he wrote on the issue:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20071008&s=pinker100807&c=2
it's interesting when he notes that profane words are used in novel grammatical ways, not perfectly fulfilling any one part of speech (heh, "Drown the f***ing cat is certainly not interchangeable with Drown the cat which is f***ing."). So maybe it's the syntactical incongruity that makes them stick out...but I doubt that - the mere mention of any of these words in isolation triggers sharp reactions. Pinker explains this through the Stroop effect and something else about the limbic system, which apparently lights up in strong emotional response to profane words. We store connotations of these words in our brains, and try as we might to rationally ignore them or discount them, they trigger strong, involuntary emotions.
Still, it's absolutely true that these words really aren't going to corrupt society. Kids know them, and normally they don't even refer to taboo things (like sex) because they're out of context. What real power can words wield? Well, as Pinker points out, it's probable that "sexually libertine" language of the 60's increased illegitimacy, teen pregnancy,e tc. (wait, i don't know if this is actually true, but ok - the point it that by conjuring up connotations, these apparently meaningless profanities actually refer to whole webs of distasteful ideas).
oh it's also really cool that f*** you came from "damn you", and related phrases similiarly descended from religious blasphemy...finally, just read this: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/10/fucking-and-the.html
abso-f***ing-lutely brilliant
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Irregular verbs in English
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-sci-verbs11oct11,1,2553948.story?coll=la-news-a_section
The article claims that over time, verbs in English have become "regularized", meaning that their past tenses are restructured to follow the standard "-ed" format. A studywas apparently conducted examining the time between Beowulf (like 1000 years ago) and modern literature to determine exactly when single verbs were regularized. The really cool conclusion they've apparently come to is that there is a mathematical relationship (and I'm assuming this is statistically significant) between the frequency of verb use and the time it takes to "regularize" it.
Here's the relationship - "the half-life of an irregular verb is proportional to the square root of its frequency." ~http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1649
(I really thought that url was cosmo magazine.com, and i was wondering why in the world cosmo was writing about math and language...). I think the usage of "half-life" isn't remarkably accurate, unless they actually mean that half of the language users switch over to the regular form in the specified interval. Maybe that makes sense, but nobody has really used "holp" in a while (archaic past tense of "help"), and its frequency was probably pretty high (=high half life), which suggests that this regularization process is binary...actually i changed my mind, it probably does make sense
Of course there still are holdouts, like the 10 most common verbs which happen to be irregular. This would be in keeping with the square root relationship at first glance, except for the fact that the square root function has negative inflection, so really high frequencies shouldn't impact the half life much more than merely high frequencies. What I'm trying to say is that maybe past a certain frequency of use, it's just impossible to naturally regularize a verb since we're so used to the irregular.
So why does this matter? I think it's cool because unlike Spanish and French, English has no formal governing body of standards, and therefore, one would expect a natural increase in entropy (like natural irregularization of the verbs). However, obviously, the oppposite is true - we have a natural tendency as a society (heck, the invisible hand) to seek out simpler means of expressing language. Society strives toward formulaic language, and just like it tries to control its constituents through conventional laws, so too does it subconsciously (?) constrain language through naturally evolving laws.
The article claims that over time, verbs in English have become "regularized", meaning that their past tenses are restructured to follow the standard "-ed" format. A studywas apparently conducted examining the time between Beowulf (like 1000 years ago) and modern literature to determine exactly when single verbs were regularized. The really cool conclusion they've apparently come to is that there is a mathematical relationship (and I'm assuming this is statistically significant) between the frequency of verb use and the time it takes to "regularize" it.
Here's the relationship - "the half-life of an irregular verb is proportional to the square root of its frequency." ~http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1649
(I really thought that url was cosmo magazine.com, and i was wondering why in the world cosmo was writing about math and language...). I think the usage of "half-life" isn't remarkably accurate, unless they actually mean that half of the language users switch over to the regular form in the specified interval. Maybe that makes sense, but nobody has really used "holp" in a while (archaic past tense of "help"), and its frequency was probably pretty high (=high half life), which suggests that this regularization process is binary...actually i changed my mind, it probably does make sense
Of course there still are holdouts, like the 10 most common verbs which happen to be irregular. This would be in keeping with the square root relationship at first glance, except for the fact that the square root function has negative inflection, so really high frequencies shouldn't impact the half life much more than merely high frequencies. What I'm trying to say is that maybe past a certain frequency of use, it's just impossible to naturally regularize a verb since we're so used to the irregular.
So why does this matter? I think it's cool because unlike Spanish and French, English has no formal governing body of standards, and therefore, one would expect a natural increase in entropy (like natural irregularization of the verbs). However, obviously, the oppposite is true - we have a natural tendency as a society (heck, the invisible hand) to seek out simpler means of expressing language. Society strives toward formulaic language, and just like it tries to control its constituents through conventional laws, so too does it subconsciously (?) constrain language through naturally evolving laws.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Pinker Book
I've always hated those folks who casually read the Times book reviews and then claim to have read every book on the face of the earth. So I feel kind of stupid referencing a book review for this blog entry, but the author of the review was actually a university prof, and she broadened the review from just a discussion of the book to its larger linguistic and societal context.
Basically, Steven Pinker explains in "The Stuff Of Thought" that language doesn't directly shape thought; it's not the basic medium through which we use logic (I guess this is what Chomsky said). Language is more of a passive tool that is user-defined, not the other way around. He also says that language is a "window into human nature." Apparently, we can examine the subtleties of our conceptual thought by analyzing closely related variants of saying the same thought...
In contrast to one of the theories we discussed in class, certain conceptual things are common across cultural lines, such as spatial, temporal, causation metaphors. Therefore, in our genetic coding or whatever, there is some element of basic universality. By studying how we frame concepts in language (like whehter we "pour water into a glass" or "fill a glass with water" - one emphasizes the liquid, the other the receptacle) we can understand how the underlying system of thought and its preconceptions work.
Pinker then qualifies his statement that language is completely passive. Certain fundamental concepts are "pre-language", but others, Pinker asserts, are created through language. For example, he asserts that quantum mechanics, something counter-intuitive and therefore not naturally programmed or inherently obvious to our pre-language mentality is framed by sophisticated language - therefore, that thought is undrestood and encapsulated in language - that's a big deal. It's like this new theory is a compromise between the competing theories. Certain natural, foundational ideas are understood innately, and language metaphorically expresses them (like time expressed as space), but human innovation must be expressed through language alone (in an abstract sense - I'm guessing there's no metaphorical crutch) especially if it's counterintuitive.
He finishes off by saying that the goal of education ought to be to teach kids how to overcome the shortcoming of instinctive conceptualization. Like, I would imagine the concept of zero was not intuitive (especially in a manipulated form), and by recognizing that this is a very basic thing in society that is not natural to our comprehension, we might better be able to educate through taking advantage of metaphors to help this instinctive understanding, and by better framing the concepts through language.
I want to read this book.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,2184659,00.html
Basically, Steven Pinker explains in "The Stuff Of Thought" that language doesn't directly shape thought; it's not the basic medium through which we use logic (I guess this is what Chomsky said). Language is more of a passive tool that is user-defined, not the other way around. He also says that language is a "window into human nature." Apparently, we can examine the subtleties of our conceptual thought by analyzing closely related variants of saying the same thought...
In contrast to one of the theories we discussed in class, certain conceptual things are common across cultural lines, such as spatial, temporal, causation metaphors. Therefore, in our genetic coding or whatever, there is some element of basic universality. By studying how we frame concepts in language (like whehter we "pour water into a glass" or "fill a glass with water" - one emphasizes the liquid, the other the receptacle) we can understand how the underlying system of thought and its preconceptions work.
Pinker then qualifies his statement that language is completely passive. Certain fundamental concepts are "pre-language", but others, Pinker asserts, are created through language. For example, he asserts that quantum mechanics, something counter-intuitive and therefore not naturally programmed or inherently obvious to our pre-language mentality is framed by sophisticated language - therefore, that thought is undrestood and encapsulated in language - that's a big deal. It's like this new theory is a compromise between the competing theories. Certain natural, foundational ideas are understood innately, and language metaphorically expresses them (like time expressed as space), but human innovation must be expressed through language alone (in an abstract sense - I'm guessing there's no metaphorical crutch) especially if it's counterintuitive.
He finishes off by saying that the goal of education ought to be to teach kids how to overcome the shortcoming of instinctive conceptualization. Like, I would imagine the concept of zero was not intuitive (especially in a manipulated form), and by recognizing that this is a very basic thing in society that is not natural to our comprehension, we might better be able to educate through taking advantage of metaphors to help this instinctive understanding, and by better framing the concepts through language.
I want to read this book.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,2184659,00.html
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
english and nigeria
A couple of related articles (links below) examine the pitfalls of using the English language in Nigerian government. It’s interesting to me that English is the political language of a country where a minority of the population speaks it, and invariably (since less domestic scrutiny would obviously exist) the language is misused and the effects are either just funny or more serious.
The article on malapropisms cracked me up (“I have an empty mind as far as this issue is concerned.” ) – it’s kind of funny to observe an official body trying to act as official as possible (by using the most credible language in the world) and then making these silly mistakes.
The second article, though, had some more serious implications. Here, it seems like the tendency to misuse English is taken advantage of by the government in order to cover up some money laundering scandal. The Speaker’s party ambiguously employs the word “indictment” so as not to investigate a high ranking official. Basically, everyone in the country believes that the official has been found guilty, but the party is using some weaker (it’s not in any dictionary…)definition of indictment that just means informal investigation. So the government is playing on the fact that most people don’t actually know the language well enough to call them out.
I do want to try making this blog entry topical…so with regard to how this deals with language shaping thought: I think the Nigerians are hoping that this relationship actually exists. The article refers to their 47 years of poor economic performance and overall disorder, so by using English, the government hopes to “civilize” the country and bring about order. The theory, I would think, goes that thinking in English creates greater formality and therefore more productive and efficient government. Of course this isn’t really the case, if we are to believe these articles…
One last comment about English and foreign countries. I remember my Dad telling me about Southern India and how the British renamed cities using Western names and pronunciations, so that locals very often couldn’t even pronounce the city in which they lived. This generally led to exclusionary and stratified societies…basically the theme tends to be that English adoption abroad, voluntarily or not, has negative repercussions.
http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/opinion/2007/oct/03/opinionl-03-10-2007-001.htm
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Post 1
Basically, a British university is using Hindi films dubbed in Farsi to teach the language to Afghani students (who speak Arabic or Pashtu probably). http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/009200709301445.htm
There are a few interesting things here - apparently the students are first shown the Hindi version of the films, and then only do they see the Farsi version. So, these students must already know Hindi, even though absolutely nobody speaks it in Afghanistan except the actors in films.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1679115.stm
-The BBC reports that 'With a majority of Afghans finding it difficult to understand Hindi, musicals and action films were more popular."
-I'm assuming the Lucknow prof's have done some analysis of how this program should be effective, so it seems as though a language which is not well understood is the template for learning a whole new language.
-I'd like to know more about how exactly the human brain does this - a fair number of Afghans understand Hindi from just watching these hindi movies - I'm guessing they're watching them after that maturation period where as a kid you pick up languages really fast, and movies can't possibly be watched so often that they substitute effectively for immersion, so...
-See, I've watched Hindi movies my entire life. And I can't understand a word of what they're saying...it may be because I normally watch with subtitles, but shouldn't that be even more effective since I'm hearing a word and reading a meaning for three hours straight?
Basically it's just incredible to me that these students, who should be shaky in their Hindi, are learning a new language in a mode of instruction not in their native language, but in hindi.
Perhaps there are other contextual clues inherent in a movie that make it easier to learn Farsi - like "I love you" is probably understandable without knowing what the words mean, so the fact that they know Hindi is only part of the equation. Moreover, perhaps intense focus enhances the language learning process, so the fact that Afghan students love Hindi movies (watch the movie Kabul Express - every single Afghani apparently knows all the major Bollywood stars) is very conducive to efficient learning of the language. In any event, I'd be interested to see whether this class succeeds.
There are a few interesting things here - apparently the students are first shown the Hindi version of the films, and then only do they see the Farsi version. So, these students must already know Hindi, even though absolutely nobody speaks it in Afghanistan except the actors in films.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1679115.stm
-The BBC reports that 'With a majority of Afghans finding it difficult to understand Hindi, musicals and action films were more popular."
-I'm assuming the Lucknow prof's have done some analysis of how this program should be effective, so it seems as though a language which is not well understood is the template for learning a whole new language.
-I'd like to know more about how exactly the human brain does this - a fair number of Afghans understand Hindi from just watching these hindi movies - I'm guessing they're watching them after that maturation period where as a kid you pick up languages really fast, and movies can't possibly be watched so often that they substitute effectively for immersion, so...
-See, I've watched Hindi movies my entire life. And I can't understand a word of what they're saying...it may be because I normally watch with subtitles, but shouldn't that be even more effective since I'm hearing a word and reading a meaning for three hours straight?
Basically it's just incredible to me that these students, who should be shaky in their Hindi, are learning a new language in a mode of instruction not in their native language, but in hindi.
Perhaps there are other contextual clues inherent in a movie that make it easier to learn Farsi - like "I love you" is probably understandable without knowing what the words mean, so the fact that they know Hindi is only part of the equation. Moreover, perhaps intense focus enhances the language learning process, so the fact that Afghan students love Hindi movies (watch the movie Kabul Express - every single Afghani apparently knows all the major Bollywood stars) is very conducive to efficient learning of the language. In any event, I'd be interested to see whether this class succeeds.
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