Lesson 1: Language

What is language?
Language can be thought of as a symbol system, engaged in representing the world, capturing and communicating thought and experience. Language also can be seen as existing in itself, as something to be played with and transformed and shaped in its own right and something that can transform and shape thought and action. ToK Guide 2006
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Objectives this module Why is translation so difficult? How does language shape our world?
e.g. A focus on how language shapes our view towards society and other humans.

Do we really need language?

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Language as Metaphor A figure of speech It implies comparison between two unlike entities This comparison is achieved by equation. Play on words. Circle =

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Examples : The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas The Highwayman ~ Alfred Noyes

the moon = a ghostly galleon

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Examples :
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles . . . Hamlet ~ William Shakespeare
[Osbornes + physical/mind]

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Note: fortune in this context means fate or chance, (as opposed to immense wealth, for example). Only then does the negative association make sense. For those brought up in cultures which do not regard chance as fickle, malicious or negative, even the recognition that we are referring to chance will not lead to understanding of the metaphor. Someone from such a culture would merely regard the metaphor as nonsensical.
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Activity 2: Babel Fish

Babel Fish is a translator programme which can translate text from one language to another and back again.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/ Howdy Dude . English Chinese English

Where did the name come from ? (audio file)

http://bbc.net.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/babelfish.shtml

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It was a dark and stormy night, and three men sat in a cave. One said to the other tell us a story Jack, and this is the story he told. After Babel Fishing English-German-French-Portugese-English becomes: It was a dark night and orageuse and three men who summers had been seated in a cave had said them zu.anderen others "it declare that a Jack history" and this are the history that it declared.

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1. In order to discuss the problems with translation ideally we need to be speakers of more than one language (i.e. FRW has a problem!)

Cantonese speakers translate clumsy.

2. Jerome Bruner (1996) and translating text (circular)

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 BBC Ten most difficult words to translate http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3830521.stm Complete list: http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Words_hardest_to_translate A different point of view. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability

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Lesson 1: Language

Examples of bad translation: The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la meaning, "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from dead". In Chinese, the KFC slogan "finger licking good" came out as "eat your fingers off". Pinto, a Ford brand car, was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals".
From http://www.rowan.edu/business/FACULTY/dosoglu/intmkt4.html TOK Introduction 11

Some Quotations

For James Joyce [1882-1941] it is the epiphanies or transcendent moments of life that have a special richness. They can occur at any instant and it is the business of language to capture these , even "transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of evolving life".

For Virginia Woolf [1882-1941] this radiant force of the moment must be captured by language "it is or will become a revelation of some order; is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. F. David Peat (2006)
http://www.fdavidpeat.com/bibliography/essays/maths.htm
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Some Quotations

These thoughts did not come in any verbal formulation. I rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterward. The great [mathematical] ideas may not be created in a language but rather captured by a language for later use
Einstein (1879-1955)

Try to tap three times without counting.

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Some Quotations

Whorf-Sapir hypothesis thought is shaped by the language in which it is formulated and/or expressed.
Bruner, J. (1996) Culture, mind and education, in Moon, B. and

Murphy, P. (eds.) Curriculum in Context, London, Paul Chapman Publishing

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Some Quotations

Read The written Word Write your reflections of some of the issues in your journals .
Why is it difficult for people to translate?

Language as metaphor. What does this mean?

Compare Joyce, Woolf and Einstein. Worf-Sapir Hypothese?

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Why does Bruner suggest that computers find it impossible to translate text?

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Other factors

Activity 4 - Journals

Look at guidance on front cover of journals

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