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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="center">=====================================================<br>
<b>L O W L A N D S - L - 27 June 2010 - Volume 01<br>
</b><a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">lowlands.list@gmail.com</span></a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="FR">http://lowlands-l.net/</span></a><br>
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=====================================================</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><br>
From: <span class="gd"><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Obiter Dictum</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:obiterdictum@mail.ru">obiterdictum@mail.ru</a>></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L
"Language proficiency" 2010.06.26 (04) [EN]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Hallo
Leslie, <br>
<br>
Thank you so much for your beautiful new story and your permission to quote --
but I am really grateful to you for that first story you posted here four years
ago. It was your story that really made me think and question the value
of the prescriptive (rather than descriptive) manner of teaching translation/interpreting
techniques in Russia where they teach them well before the students have
acquired the adequate command of the other language(s) (or their native one,
for that matter). <br>
<br>
And here is another story I received last night from a Dutch linguist. <br>
<br>
“I was walking on a country road outside Lusaka,
Zambia when I
heard a girl's voice shout at me, “Pas op!” The meaning was clear to me, but I
caught myself wondering, "How come someone in Zambia speaks Dutch?".....and
a car from behind nearly drove over my foot ...” <br>
<br>
Looking forward to more stories :) </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Best regards,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Vlad Lee,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Tokyo, Japan/Moscow, Russia</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">----------</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: <span class="gd"><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Sandy Fleming</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:sandy@fleimin.demon.co.uk">sandy@fleimin.demon.co.uk</a>></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L
"Language proficiency" 2010.06.26 (02) [EN]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Yes, people can quote me.
I'm not sure how I could stop them!<br>
<br>
It seems to me that a theory we could put forward as an explanation for<br>
some of these experiences is that utterances are somehow stored in a<br>
non-linguistic form in the brain. After all, if you hear a story in<br>
English and a week later have to tell it in French, it doesn't seem like<br>
translating or interpreting, it just seems like talking in French about<br>
something you know.<br>
<br>
My feeling is that while you remember a story, the data from the<br>
language in which it was told is quickly forgotten, except where it's<br>
relevant to the story (such as when you have to explain a pun in French<br>
that "just works" in the English version).<br>
<br>
I don't think this needs to be any special linguistic mechanism in the<br>
brain: we tend to forget irrelevant stuff (so that we can retell a story<br>
in ten seconds that a crashing bore took ten minutes over) and the<br>
language encoding is mostly irrelevant to everyday stories, so we tend<br>
to forget it unless there was something about the way a thing was said<br>
that particularly interested us.<br>
<br>
Then when we retell or even just remember a story we may automatically<br>
add language structures back, but more perhaps more likely in the<br>
language our brain happens to be working in at the time than the<br>
original language.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br>
> From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
><br>
> Subject: Language proficiency<br>
><br>
> I wonder if there is are differences in switching and interpreting<br>
> between two languages with regard to their relatedness or lack<br>
> thereof.<br>
><br>
> It seems to me that in my case interference is strongest the more<br>
> closely related the two languages are, especially where there is a<br>
> fair or high degree of mutual intelligibility.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">It seems to me that when two
languages are similar, then there's a<br>
higher chance of the listener being able to understand the language not<br>
being used as well as the language being used, so the speaker tends to<br>
be lazier about the language choice in the course of the telling. For<br>
example, when I go home to Scotland
and I'm relating a story about life<br>
amongst the English, there's no reason I can't quote the speakers in the<br>
story in English, since the listeners will be able to understand it well<br>
enough, and to a lesser extent this is true when talking about Scottish<br>
people to the English. A switch is a switch, however, and since usually<br>
nothing is premeditated, sometimes I can't handle the sudden switch or,<br>
probably even worse, the switch back to the main language as quickly as<br>
is needed and then confusion takes hold.<br>
<br>
But when languages are completely different then the listener is less<br>
likely to be able to understand the alternative language and so the<br>
speaker is less likely to want to use it, and such things as the<br>
phonetic contrasts between the languages make it easier to exclude the<br>
other completely.<br>
<br>
This is kind of obviously true in switching between spoken and signed<br>
languages. I feel that the large grammatical differences between English<br>
and BSL (which has a very different word-ordering from English) force me<br>
to forget about English when retelling in a way that I wouldn't have to<br>
in retelling from English to Scots.<br>
<br>
Sometimes I also think that many potentially confusing situations are<br>
just avoided, because the culture between the two languages is so<br>
different. In BSL, for example, such things as puns and formalised jokes<br>
(such as "three examples then punchline" or "knock-knock")
don't seem to<br>
be appreciated much, while typical BSL humour and storytelling<br>
constructs (such as anthropomorphisation and anatomical incongruence)<br>
just cause English speakers' eyes to glaze over. So potentially<br>
problematic retellings are just not attempted.<br>
<span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"><br>
Sandy Fleming<br>
<a href="http://scotstext.org/" target="_blank">http://scotstext.org/</a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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