The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/119185
NEWS & EDITORIAL The latest from the languages world [Behavioural economist Keith Chen] says, if you speak English you are likely to save less for your old age, smoke more and get less exercise than if you speak a language like Mandarin, Yoruba or Malay. Prof Chen divides the world's languages into two groups, depending on how they treat the concept of time… 'If your language separates the future and the present in its grammar, that seems to lead you to slightly disassociate the future from the present…' Not surprisingly, Prof Chen's findings have been criticised by both economists and linguists. Why Speaking English can Make You Poor When You Retire, 23/2/13 There's a saying that a language is 'best learned between the sheets'. Indeed, crosscultural romance is a common form of integrative motivation. Learners who study a language with the aim of better understanding a culture, language and society are integratively motivated… [yielding] faster and more effective language learning results. For many students, language learning is pursued only in school, as an academic requirement… The primary motivation in this case is an instrumental one: to gain academic credit and move forward in school. What motivates us to learn foreign languages?, 28/2/13 Summer school Sign language show for tots The third 'Use your Language, Use your English' summer school will be held at London's Birkbeck University in July, including courses on translation into English from a range of languages, including French, Polish, Chinese, German, Russian and Swedish. There will also be editing skills classes, a competition, meet-the-publishers and guest lectures. The deadline for bursaries is 26 April. For details see www2.bbk.ac.uk/european/. Imperial future still uncertain CBeebies, the BBC's channel for young children, has commissioned a new show featuring poetry translated into British Sign Language. In five-minute episodes, Magic Hands will introduce a range of poetry, including verses by Robert Louis Stephenson, Maya Angelou and Christina Rossetti. Made by Remark! Media, the programme aims to appeal to both deaf and hearing pre-school children, using a mixture of sign language, the spoken word, music and animation. • The BBC has released Friends and Heroes in Manx. It is the first time a children's series has been translated into the language. The Management Board of Imperial College London has delayed its decision on whether to disband the Translation Studies Unit until June. Staff and students now face an uncertain few months as they wait to hear whether the unit will be closed in October. No new research will begin, nor postgraduate students admitted, until the final decision has been made. A petition against the closure received more than 6,400 signatures. © BBC/REMARK What the papers say… Return of Global Shakespeare The ground-breaking 'Globe to Globe' festival, which saw 36 Shakespeare plays performed in 36 languages as part of the London 2012 cultural programme, will be revived this year. Three of the companies involved in the multilingual festival will return to The Globe, giving theatre-goers the chance to see Venus & Adonis in Isixhosa, As You Like It in Georgian (pictured) and King Lear in Belarusian. There will also be an Indian Tempest in Gujarati. For further details see www.shakespearesglobe.com. 6 The Linguist APRIL/MAY © JOHN HAYNES The French language has a treacherously neutral and non-gender specific term for genitalia – le sexe. All the English options are clinical and anatomical, graphic and rude, or coy and affectionate. It's only too easy to turn a coolly erotic Gallicism into a ploddingly Anglo-Saxon medical report, or utter filth. 'Translating Erotic Fiction: Va va voom or personal doom?', 28/2/2013 www.iol.org.uk