PICTURE-BASED

EXERCISES
AND REQUIRED READING TEXTS
[COMPLEMENTARY TO THE POWERS OF LANGUAGE AND THE
THREATS TO ITS INTEGRITY]

HOW DO ANIMALS COMMUNICATE?

By Jessika Toothman

© 2010 HOWSTUFFWORKS.COM

Animals might not be able to speak or master advanced language techniques, but they certainly have
other ways of communicating. Whale song, wolf howls, frog croaks, bird chips -- even the waggle dance
of the honeybee or the vigorous waving of a dog's tail -- are among the panoply of ways animals
transmit information to each other and to other denizens of the animal kingdom.
Species often rely on verbal and nonverbal forms of communication, such as calls; non-vocal auditory
outbursts, like the slap of a dolphin's tail on the water; bioluminescence; scent marking; chemical or
tactile cues; visual signals and postural gestures. Fire lies and peacocks are classic examples of brilliant
bioluminescence and impressive visual displays, respectively. Ants use chemical cues (in a process
called chemoreception) to help guide their foraging adventures, as well as for other activities like
telling friend from foe, connecting with new mates and marshalling the colony's defenses.

When it comes to acoustic communication, not every member of a species is just alike. Animals in
different regions have often been overhead sounding off in different dialects. For example, one study
found that blue whales produce different patterns of pulses, tones and pitches depending on where
they're from. Some bird species are the same way. And what about those birds that live on the border

 between territories of differing songsters? They often become bilingual, so to speak, and able to
communicate in the singing parlance favored by each of their groups of neighbors.
Communication between species can play important roles as well. One study suggested that the reason
Madagascan spiny-tailed iguanas have well-developed ears -- despite the fact that they don't
communicate vocally -- is so they can hear the warning calls of the Madagascan paradise lycatcher. The
two species have nothing in common except for the fact that they share a general habitat and raptors
like to snack on them. So when an iguana hears a bird raise the alarm among other birds, it likely knows
to be on alert for incoming predators, too.
However, as noise pollution interferes with animal communiqués all across the globe, many animals'
ability to communicate effectively comes under ire. Increased shipping traf ic over the last century has
dramatically affected the transfer of whale song around the ocean basin. Studies have found that
songbirds, too, suffer from noisy (albeit terrestrial) urban environs. Some species have had to modify
their singing styles, producing songs that are louder and shriller, in order to be heard above the clamor.
Pumped up volume usually leads to simpler and somewhat inferior styles of singing that female birds
seem to ind decidedly less sexy.

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/animals-communicate.htm

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUMAN AND OTHER ANIMAL COMMUNICATION

By Mano Singham

In his book The Language Instinct (1994) Steven Pinker pointed out two fundamental facts about
human language that were used by linguist Noam Chomsky to develop his theory about how we learn
language. The irst is that each one of us is capable of producing brand new sentences never before
uttered in the history of the universe. This means that:
[A] language cannot be a repertoire of responses; the brain must contain a recipe or program that can
build an unlimited set of sentences out of a inite list of words. That program may be called a mental
grammar (not to be confused with pedagogical or stylistic “grammars,” which are just guides to the
etiquette of written prose.)
The second fundamental fact is that children develop these complex grammars rapidly and without
formal instruction and grow up to give consistent interpretations to novel sentence constructions that
they have never before encountered. Therefore, [Chomsky] argued, children must be innately equipped
with a plan common to the grammars of all languages, a Universal Grammar, that tells them how to
distill the syntactic patters out of speech of their parents. (Pinker, p. 9)
Children have the ability to produce much greater language output than they receive as input but it is
not done idiosyncratically. The language they produce follows the same generalized grammatical rules
as others. This leads Chomsky to conclude that (quoted in Pinker, p. 10):
The language each person acquires is a rich and complex construction hopelessly underdetermined by
the fragmentary evidence available [to the child]. Nevertheless individuals in a speech community have
developed essentially the same language. This fact can be explained only on the assumption that these
individuals employ highly restrictive principles that guide the construction of grammar.
The more we understand how human language works, the more we begin to realize how different
human speech is from the communication systems of other animals.

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 Language is obviously as different from other animals’ communication systems as the elephant’s trunk
is different from other animals’ nostrils. Nonhuman communication systems are based on one of three
designs: a inite repertory of calls (one for warnings of predators, one for claims of territory, and so on),
a continuous analog signal that registers the magnitude of some state (the livelier the dance of the bee,
the richer the food source that it is telling its hivemates about), or a series of random variations on a
theme (a birdsong repeated with a new twist each time: Charlie Parker with feathers). As we have seen,
human language has a very different design. The discrete combinatorial system called “grammar”
makes human language in inite (there is no limit to the number of complex words or sentence in a
language), digital (this in inity is achieved by rearranging discrete elements in particular orders and
combinations, not by varying some signal along a continuum like the mercury in a thermometer), and
compositional (each of the inite combinations has a different meaning predictable from the meanings
of its parts and the rules and principles arranging them). (Pinker, p. 342)
This difference between human and nonhuman communication is also re lected in the role that
different parts of the brain plays in language as opposed to other forms of vocalization.
Even the seat of human language in the brain is special. The vocal calls of primates are controlled not by
their cerebral cortex but by phylogenetically older neural structures in the brain stem and limbic
systems, structures that are heavily involved in emotion. Human vocalizations other than language, like
sobbing, laughing, moaning, and shouting in pain, are also controlled subcortically. Subcortical
structures even control the swearing that follows the arrival of a hammer on a thumb, that emerges as
an involuntary tic in Tourette’s syndrome, and that can survive as Broca’s aphasic’s only speech.
Genuine language . . . is seated in the cerebral cortex, primarily in the left perisylvian region. (Pinker, p.
342)
Rather than view the different forms of communication found in animals as a hierarchy, it is better to
view them as adaptations that arose from the necessity to occupy certain evolutionary niches.
Chimpanzees did not develop the language ability because they did not need to. Their lifestyles did not
require the ability. Humans, on the other hand, even in the hunter-gatherer stage, would have bene ited
enormously from being able to share kind of detailed information about plants and animals and the
like, and thus there could have been an evolutionary pressure that drove the development of language.
Human language was related to the evolution of the physical apparatus that enabled complex sound
production along with the associated brain adaptations, though the causal links between them is not
fully understood. Did the brain increase in size to cope with rising language ability or did the increasing
use of language drive brain development? We really don’t know yet.
The argument against a linguistic hierarchy in animals can be seen in the fact that different aspects of
language can be found to be best developed in different animals.
The most receptive trainee for an arti icial language with a syntax and semantics has been a parrot; the
species with the best claim to recursive structure in its signaling has been the starling; the best vocal
imitators are birds and dolphins; and when it comes to reading human intentions, chimps are bested by
man’s best friend, Canis familiaris. (Pinker, PS20)
It seems clear that we are unlikely to ever fully communicate with other species the way we do with
each other. But the inability of other animals to speak the way we do is no more a sign of their
evolutionary backwardness than our nose’s lack of versatility compared to the elephant’s trunk, or our
inability to use our hands to ly the way bats can, are signs that we are evolutionarily inferior compared
to them
We just occupy different end points on the evolutionary bush.

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 http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2008/06/27/the-difference-between-human-and-other-animal-
communication/

PICTURE-BASED EXERCISES

DISCUSSION: Expressing an opinion about a current

trend and speculating on the reasons. In the last few years, there has been a sharp
growth in the number of exotics people keep as pets. More and more people are
choosing to buy and keep weird and unusual animals. Which of the following
would you consider (an) ideal pet(s)? What kind of communication do you think is
possible between an exotic pet like the ones featured below and its owner/master?
[Shown on the classroom screen; also find the exercise in the document
complementary to this unit]

TYPES OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

By Kendra Cherry

According to experts, a substantial portion of our communication is nonverbal. Every day, we respond
to thousands on nonverbal cues and behaviors including postures, facial expression, eye gaze, gestures
and tone of voice. From our handshakes to our hairstyles, nonverbal details reveal who we are and
impact how we relate to other people.

 Scienti ic research on nonverbal communication and behavior began with the 1872 publication of
Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
Since that time, abundant research on the types, effects, and expressions of unspoken communication
and behavior. While these signals are often so subtle that we are not consciously aware of them,
research has identi ied several different types of nonverbal communication.
In many cases, we communicate information in nonverbal ways using groups of behaviors. For example,
we might combine a frown with crossed arms and unblinking eye gaze to indicate disapproval.

1. Facial Expressions
Facial expressions are responsible for a huge proportion of nonverbal communication. Consider how
much information can be conveyed with a smile or a frown. The look on a person's face is often the irst
thing we see, even before we hear what they have to say.
While nonverbal communication and behavior can vary dramatically between cultures, the facial
expressions for happiness, sadness, anger, and fear are similar throughout the world.

2. Gestures
Deliberate movements and signals are an important way to communicate meaning without words.
Common gestures include waving, pointing, and using ingers to indicate numeric amounts. Other
gestures are arbitrary and related to culture.
In courtroom settings, lawyers have been known to utilize different nonverbal signals to attempt to
sway juror opinions.
An attorney might glance at his watch to suggest that the opposing lawyer's argument is tedious or
might even roll his eyes at the testimony offered by a witness in an attempt to undermine his or her
credibility. These nonverbal signals are seen as being so powerful and in luential that some judges even
place limits on what type of nonverbal behaviors are allowed in the courtroom.

3. Paralinguistics
Paralinguistics refers to vocal communication that is separate from actual language. This includes
factors such as tone of voice, loudness, in lection and pitch. Consider the powerful effect that tone of
voice can have on the meaning of a sentence. When said in a strong tone of voice, listeners might
interpret approval and enthusiasm. The same words said in a hesitant tone of voice might convey
disapproval and a lack of interest.
Consider all the different ways simply changing your tone of voice might change the meaning of a
sentence. A friend might ask you how you are doing, and you might respond with the standard "I'm
ine," but how you actually say those words might reveal a tremendous amount of how you are really
feeling.
A cold tone of voice might suggest that you are actually not ine, but you don't wish to discuss it. A
bright, happy tone of voice will reveal that you are actually doing quite well. A somber, downcast tone
would indicate that you are the opposite of ine and that perhaps your friend should inquire further.

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 4. Body Language and Posture

Posture and movement can also convey a great deal on information. Research on body language has
grown signi icantly since the 1970's, but popular media have focused on the over-interpretation of
defensive postures, arm-crossing, and leg-crossing, especially after publishing Julius Fast's book Body
Language. While these nonverbal behaviors can indicate feelings and attitudes, research suggests that
body language is far more subtle and less de initive that previously believed.

5. Proxemics
People often refer to their need for "personal space," which is also an important type of nonverbal
communication. The amount of distance we need and the amount of space we perceive as belonging to
us is in luenced by a number of factors including social norms, cultural expectations, situational factors,
personality characteristics, and level of familiarity. For example, the amount of personal space needed
when having a casual conversation with another person usually varies between 18 inches to four feet.
On the other hand, the personal distance needed when speaking to a crowd of people is around 10 to
12 feet.

6. Eye Gaze
The eyes play an important role in nonverbal communication and such things as looking, staring and
blinking are important nonverbal behaviors. When people encounter people or things that they like,
the rate of blinking increases and pupils dilate. Looking at another person can indicate a range of
emotions including hostility, interest, and attraction.
People also utilize eye gaze a means to determine if someone is being honest. Normal, steady eye
contact is often taken as a sign that a person is telling the truth and is trustworthy. Shifty eyes and an
inability to maintain eye contact, on the other hand, is frequently seen as an indicator that someone is
lying or being deceptive.

7. Haptics
Communicating through touch is another important nonverbal behavior. There has been a substantial
amount of research on the importance of touch in infancy andearly childhood. Harry Harlow's classic
monkey study demonstrated how deprived touch and contact impedes development. Baby monkeys
raised by wire mothers experienced permanent de icits in behavior and social interaction. Touch can be
used to communicate affection, familiarity, sympathy, and other emotions.
In her book Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters, author Julia Wood writes that touch is
also often used as a way to communicate both status and power. Researchers have found that high-
status individuals tend to invade other people's personal space with greater frequency and intensity
than lower-status individuals. Sex differences also play a role in how people utilize touch to
communicate meaning. Women tend to use touch to convey care, concern, and nurturance. Men, on the
other hand, are more likely to use touch to assert power or control over others.

8. Appearance
Our choice of color, clothing, hairstyles, and other factors affecting appearance are also considered a
means of nonverbal communication. Research on color psychologyhas demonstrated that different
colors can evoke different moods. Appearance can also alter physiological reactions, judgments, and

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 interpretations. Just think of all the subtle judgments you quickly make about someone based on his or
her appearance. These irst impressions are important, which is why experts suggest that job seekers
dress appropriately for interviews with potential employers.
Researchers have found that appearance can play a role in how people are perceived and even how
much they earn. One 1996 study found that attorneys who were rated as more attractive than their
peers earned nearly 15 percent more than those ranked as less attractive. Culture is an important
in luence on how appearances are judged. While thinness tends to be valued in Western cultures, some
African cultures relate full- igured bodies to better health, wealth, and social status.

9. Artifacts
Objects and images are also tools that can be used to communicate nonverbally. On an online forum, for
example, you might select an avatar to represent your identity online and to communicate information
about who you are and the things you like. People often spend a great deal of time developing a
particular image and surrounding themselves with objects designed to convey information about the
things that are important to them. Uniforms, for example, can be used to transmit a tremendous
amount of information about a person. A soldier will don fatigues, a police offers will wear a uniform,
and a doctor will wear a white lab coat. At a mere glance, these out its tell people what a person does
for a living.

Final Thoughts
Nonverbal communication plays an important role in how we convey meaning and information to
others, as well as how we interpret the actions of those around us. The important thing to remember
when looking at such nonverbal behaviors is to consider the actions in groups. What a person actually
says along with his or her expressions, appearance, and tone of voice might tell you a great deal about
what that person is really trying to say.
References

Darwin, C. (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, 3rd edition. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wood, J. (2010). Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters. Boston, MA: Wadsworth-Cengage Learning.

https://www.verywell.com/top-nonverbal-communication-tips-2795400

PICTURE-BASED EXERCISES

POST-READING VOCABULARY RESEARCH WORK: Find out

about English words that might be used to describe the following gestures. Once you
have learned the words, number the images and classify them using the table included

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below the images, which is based on the article you have just read [On the classroom
screeen; also find the activity in the set complementary to this unit]:

 Now create your own using the visual prompts that follow:

 10

CURIOUS FACTS: Learning about curious facts of nature and getting

acquainted with technical language. Try to answer the following questions and then test
your assumptions by listening to Suzanne Simard’s TED talk “How trees talk to each
other”, available from:

https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other/
transcript?language=en

What kind of relationship between

trees does this image represent?

Do you know the names of

these trees in Spanish?

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 Do you think the role of

mushrooms is more important
above the ground or below the
ground?

MOTHER TONGUE

By Amy Tan

I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions
on the English language and its variations in this country or others.
I am a writer. And by that de inition, I am someone who has always loved language. I am
fascinated by language in daily life. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of
language -- the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language
is the tool of my trade. And I use them all -- all the Englishes I grew up with.
Recently, I was made keenly aware of the different Englishes I do use. I was giving a talk to a
large group of people, the same talk I had already given to half a dozen other groups. The nature of the
talk was about my writing, my life, and my book, The Joy Luck Club. The talk was going along well
enough, until I remembered one major difference that made the whole talk sound wrong. My mother
was in the room. And it was perhaps the irst time she had heard me give a lengthy speech, using the
kind of English I have never used with her. I was saying things like, "The intersection of memory upon
imagination" and "There is an aspect of my iction that relates to thus-and-thus'--a speech illed with
carefully wrought grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with nominalized forms,
past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, all the forms of standard English that I had learned in school
and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother.
Just last week, I was walking down the street with my mother, and I again found myself
conscious of the English I was using, the English I do use with her. We were talking about the price of
new and used furniture and I heard myself saying this: "Not waste money that way." My husband was
with us as well, and he didn't notice any switch in my English. And then I realized why. It's because over
the twenty years we've been together I've often used that same kind of English with him, and

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 sometimes he even uses it with me. It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English
that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with.
So you'll have some idea of what this family talk I heard sounds like, I'11 quote what my mother
said during a recent conversation which I videotaped and then transcribed. During this conversation,
my mother was talking about a political gangster in Shanghai who had the same last name as her
family's, Du, and how the gangster in his early years wanted to be adopted by her family, which was rich
by comparison. Later, the gangster became more powerful, far richer than my mother's family, and one
day showed up at my mother's wedding to pay his respects. Here's what she said in part: "Du Yusong
having business like fruit stand. Like off the street kind. He is Du like Du Zong -- but not Tsung-ming
Island people. The local people call putong, the river east side, he belong to that side local people. That
man want to ask Du Zong father take him in like become own family. Du Zong father wasn't look down
on him, but didn't take seriously, until that man big like become a ma ia. Now important person, very
hard to inviting him. Chinese way, came only to show respect, don't stay for dinner. Respect for making
big celebration, he shows up. Mean gives lots of respect. Chinese custom. Chinese social life that way. If
too important won't have to stay too long. He come to my wedding. I didn't see, I heard it. I gone to
boy's side, they have YMCA dinner. Chinese age I was nineteen."
You should know that my mother's expressive command of English belies how much she
actually understands. She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her
stockbroker, reads all of Shirley MacLaine's books with ease--all kinds of things I can't begin to
understand. Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some
say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking
pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue.
Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that
helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world.
Lately, I've been giving more thought to the kind of English my mother speaks. Like others, I
have described it to people as 'broken" or "fractured" English. But I wince when I say that. It has always
bothered me that I can think of no way to describe it other than "broken," as if it were damaged and
needed to be ixed, as if it lacked a certain wholeness and soundness. I've heard other terms used,
"limited English," for example. But they seem just as bad, as if everything is limited, including people's
perceptions of the limited English speaker.
I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother's "limited" English limited my
perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English re lected the quality of what
she had to say That is, because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect. And I had
plenty of empirical evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at
restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her,
or even acted as if they did not hear her.
My mother has long realized the limitations of her English as well. When I was ifteen, she used
to have me call people on the phone to pretend I was she. In this guise, I was forced to ask for
information or even to complain and yell at people who had been rude to her. One time it was a call to
her stockbroker in New York. She had cashed out her small portfolio and it just so happened we were
going to go to New York the next week, our very irst trip outside California. I had to get on the phone
and say in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing, "This is Mrs. Tan."
And my mother was standing in the back whispering loudly, "Why he don't send me check,
already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money.
And then I said in perfect English, "Yes, I'm getting rather concerned. You had agreed to send the
check two weeks ago, but it hasn't arrived."
Then she began to talk more loudly. "What he want, I come to New York tell him front of his
boss, you cheating me?" And I was trying to calm her down, make her be quiet, while telling the
stockbroker, "I can't tolerate any more excuses. If I don't receive the check immediately, I am going to
have to speak to your manager when I'm in New York next week." And sure enough, the following week
there we were in front of this astonished stockbroker, and I was sitting there red-faced and quiet, and
my mother, the real Mrs. Tan, was shouting at his boss in her impeccable broken English.
We used a similar routine just ive days ago, for a situation that was far less humorous. My
mother had gone to the hospital for an appointment, to ind out about a benign brain tumor a CAT scan

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 had revealed a month ago. She said she had spoken very good English, her best English, no mistakes.
Still, she said, the hospital did not apologize when they said they had lost the CAT scan and she had
come for nothing. She said they did not seem to have any sympathy when she told them she was
anxious to know the exact diagnosis, since her husband and son had both died of brain tumors. She said
they would not give her any more information until the next time and she would have to make another
appointment for that. So she said she would not leave until the doctor called her daughter. She wouldn't
budge. And when the doctor inally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect English -- lo and
behold -- we had assurances the CAT scan would be found, promises that a conference call on Monday
would be held, and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable
mistake.
I think my mother's English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well.
Sociologists and linguists probably will tell you that a person's developing language skills are more
in luenced by peers. But I do think that the language spoken in the family, especially in immigrant
families which are more insular, plays a large role in shaping the language of the child. And I believe
that it affected my results on achievement tests, I.Q. tests, and the SAT. While my English skills were
never judged as poor, compared to math, English could not be considered my strong suit. In grade
school I did moderately well, getting perhaps B's, sometimes B-pluses, in English and scoring perhaps
in the sixtieth or seventieth percentile on achievement tests. But those scores were not good enough to
override the opinion that my true abilities lay in math and science, because in those areas I achieved A's
and scored in the ninetieth percentile or higher.
This was understandable. Math is precise; there is only one correct answer. Whereas, for me at
least, the answers on English tests were always a judgment call, a matter of opinion and personal
experience. Those tests were constructed around items like ill-in-the-blank sentence completion, such
as, "Even though Tom was, Mary thought he was --." And the correct answer always seemed to be the
most bland combinations of thoughts, for example, "Even though Tom was shy, Mary thought he was
charming:' with the grammatical structure "even though" limiting the correct answer to some sort of
semantic opposites, so you wouldn't get answers like, "Even though Tom was foolish, Mary thought he
was ridiculous:' Well, according to my mother, there were very few limitations as to what Tom could
have been and what Mary might have thought of him. So I never did well on tests like that.
The same was true with word analogies, pairs of words in which you were supposed to ind
some sort of logical, semantic relationship -- for example, "Sunset is to nightfall as is to ." And here you
would be presented with a list of four possible pairs, one of which showed the same kind of
relationship: red is to stoplight, bus is to arrival, chills is to fever, yawn is to boring: Well, I could never
think that way. I knew what the tests were asking, but I could not block out of my mind the images
already created by the irst pair, "sunset is to nightfall"--and I would see a burst of colors against a
darkening sky, the moon rising, the lowering of a curtain of stars. And all the other pairs of words --red,
bus, stoplight, boring--just threw up a mass of confusing images, making it impossible for me to sort
out something as logical as saying: "A sunset precedes nightfall" is the same as "a chill precedes a fever."
The only way I would have gotten that answer right would have been to imagine an associative
situation, for example, my being disobedient and staying out past sunset, catching a chill at night, which
turns into feverish pneumonia as punishment, which indeed did happen to me.
I have been thinking about all this lately, about my mother's English, about achievement tests.
Because lately I've been asked, as a writer, why there are not more Asian Americans represented in
American literature. Why are there few Asian Americans enrolled in creative writing programs? Why do
so many Chinese students go into engineering! Well, these are broad sociological questions I can't begin
to answer. But I have noticed in surveys -- in fact, just last week -- that Asian students, as a whole,
always do signi icantly better on math achievement tests than in English. And this makes me think that
there are other Asian-American students whose English spoken in the home might also be described as
"broken" or "limited." And perhaps they also have teachers who are steering them away from writing
and into math and science, which is what happened to me.
Fortunately, I happen to be rebellious in nature and enjoy the challenge of disproving
assumptions made about me. I became an English major my irst year in college, after being enrolled as
pre-med. I started writing non iction as a freelancer the week after I was told by my former boss that
writing was my worst skill and I should hone my talents toward account management.

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 But it wasn't until 1985 that I inally began to write iction. And at irst I wrote using what I
thought to be wittily crafted sentences, sentences that would inally prove I had mastery over the
English language. Here's an example from the irst draft of a story that later made its way into The Joy
Luck Club, but without this line: "That was my mental quandary in its nascent state." A terrible line,
which I can barely pronounce.
Fortunately, for reasons I won't get into today, I later decided I should envision a reader for the
stories I would write. And the reader I decided upon was my mother, because these were stories about
mothers. So with this reader in mind -- and in fact she did read my early drafts--I began to write stories
using all the Englishes I grew up with: the English I spoke to my mother, which for lack of a better term
might be described as "simple"; the English she used with me, which for lack of a better term might be
described as "broken"; my translation of her Chinese, which could certainly be described as "watered
down"; and what I imagined to be her translation of her Chinese if she could speak in perfect English,
her internal language, and for that I sought to preserve the essence, but neither an English nor a
Chinese structure. I wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her intent, her
passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.
Apart from what any critic had to say about my writing, I knew I had succeeded where it counted when
my mother inished reading my book and gave me her verdict: "So easy to read."

https://sixth.ucsd.edu/_ iles/cat_2013/TanMotherTongue.pdf

IF BLACK ENGLISH ISN’T A LANGUAGE, THEN TELL ME. WHAT IS?

By James Baldwin

St. Paul de Vence, France--The argument concerning the use, or the status, or the reality, of black
English is rooted in American history and has absolutely nothing to do with the question the argument
supposes itself to be posing. The argument has nothing to do with language itself but with the role of
language. Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker. Language, also, far more dubiously, is meant to
de ine the other--and, in this case, the other is refusing to be de ined by a language that has never been
able to recognize him.
People evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances, or in order not to be
submerged by a reality that they cannot articulate. (And, if they cannot articulate it,
they are submerged.) A Frenchman living in Paris speaks a subtly and crucially different language from
that of the man living in Marseilles; neither sounds very much like a man living in Quebec; and they
would all have great dif iculty in apprehending what the man from Guadeloupe, or Martinique, is
saying, to say nothing of the man from Senegal--although the "common" language of all these areas is
French. But each has paid, and is paying, a different price for this "common" language, in which, as it
turns out, they are not saying, and cannot be saying, the same things: They each have very different
realities to articulate, or control.
What joins all languages, and all men, is the necessity to confront life, in order, not inconceivably, to
outwit death: The price for this is the acceptance, and achievement, of one's temporal identity. So that,
for example, thought it is not taught in the schools (and this has the potential of becoming a political
issue) the south of France still clings to its ancient and musical ProvenÁal, which resists being
described as a "dialect." And much of the tension in the Basque countries, and in Wales, is due to the
Basque and Welsh determination not to allow their languages to be destroyed. This determination also
feeds the lames in Ireland for many indignities the Irish have been forced to undergo at English hands
is the English contempt for their language.
It goes without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument, means, and proof of power. It is
the most vivid and crucial key to identify: It reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or
divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity. There have been, and are, times, and places,
when to speak a certain language could be dangerous, even fatal. Or, one may speak the same language,

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but in such a way that one's antecedents are revealed, or (one hopes) hidden. This is true in France, and
is absolutely true in England: The range (and reign) of accents on that damp little island make England
coherent for the English and totally incomprehensible for everyone else. To open your mouth in
England is (if I may use black English) to "put your business in the street": You have confessed your
parents, your youth, your school, your salary, your self-esteem, and, alas, your future.
Now, I do not know what white Americans would sound like if there had never been any black people in
the United States, but they would not sound the way they sound. Jazz, for example, is a very speci ic
sexual term, as in jazz me, baby, but white people puri ied it into the Jazz Age. Sock it to me, which
means, roughly, the same thing, has been adopted by Nathaniel Hawthorne's descendants with no
qualms or hesitations at all, along with let it all hang out and right on! Beat to his socks which was once
the black's most total and despairing image of poverty, was transformed into a thing called the Beat
Generation, which phenomenon was, largely, composed of uptight, middle- class white people, imitating
poverty, trying to get down, to get with it, doing their thing, doing their despairing best to be funky,
which we, the blacks, never dreamed of doing--we were funky, baby, like funk was going out of style.
Now, no one can eat his cake, and have it, too, and it is late in the day to attempt to penalize black
people for having created a language that permits the nation its only glimpse of reality, a language
without which the nation would be even more whipped than it is.
I say that the present skirmish is rooted in American history, and it is. Black English is the creation of
the black diaspora. Blacks came to the United States chained to each other, but from different tribes:
Neither could speak the other's language. If two black people, at that bitter hour of the world's history,
had been able to speak to each other, the institution of chattel slavery could never have lasted as long as
it did. Subsequently, the slave was given, under the eye, and the gun, of his master, Congo Square, and
the Bible--or in other words, and under these conditions, the slave began the formation of the black
church, and it is within this unprecedented tabernacle that black English began to be formed. This was
not, merely, as in the European example, the adoption of a foreign tongue, but an alchemy that
transformed ancient elements into a new language: A language comes into existence by means of brutal
necessity, and the rules of the language are dictated by what the language must convey.
There was a moment, in time, and in this place, when my brother, or my mother, or my father, or my
sister, had to convey to me, for example, the danger in which I was standing from the white man
standing just behind me, and to convey this with a speed, and in a language, that the white man could
not possibly understand, and that, indeed, he cannot understand, until today. He cannot afford to
understand it. This understanding would reveal to him too much about himself, and smash that mirror
before which he has been frozen for so long.
Now, if this passion, this skill, this (to quote Toni Morrison) "sheer intelligence," this incredible music,
the mighty achievement of having brought a people utterly unknown to, or despised by "history"--to
have brought this people to their present, troubled, troubling, and unassailable and unanswerable
place--if this absolutely unprecedented journey does not indicate that black English is a language, I am
curious to know what de inition of language is to be trusted.
A people at the center of the Western world, and in the midst of so hostile a population, has not
endured and transcended by means of what is patronizingly called a "dialect." We, the blacks, are in
trouble, certainly, but we are not doomed, and we are not inarticulate because we are not compelled to
defend a morality that we know to be a lie.
The brutal truth is that the bulk of white people in American never had any interest in educating black
people, except as this could serve white purposes. It is not the black child's language that is in question,
it is not his language that is despised: It is his experience. A child cannot be taught by anyone who
despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled. A child cannot be taught by anyone whose demand,
essentially, is that the child repudiate his experience, and all that gives him sustenance, and enter a
limbo in which he will no longer be black, and in which he knows that he can never become white.
Black people have lost too many black children that way.

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 And, after all, inally, in a country with standards so untrustworthy, a country that makes heroes of so
many criminal mediocrities, a country unable to face why so many of the nonwhite are in prison, or on
the needle, or standing, futureless, in the streets--it may very well be that both the child, and his elder,
have concluded that they have nothing whatever to learn from the people of a country that has
managed to learn so little.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-english.html

CRITICAL THINKING: There is a strong connection between political

leadership and speech power. How would you explain that connection? Can you recognize
the world leaders illustrated below? [Shown on the classroom screen; also find the
activity in the complementary set]. Have you heard or read any of their speeches? What
are the strengths of their use of the language?

BINDING TIES, SONG OF SELF: THE PURPOSE AND POWER OF LANGUAGE

If you are luent in a language, you probably don't give much thought to your ability to interact with
others, to understand and be understood in your world. But what would happen if you lost your voice?
Or if suddenly the language skills you have, that is your ability to read, write, and speak, were no longer
suf icient to allow you to understand television and newspapers or to tell a waitress what you wanted
to eat or a doctor what was wrong with you? What if your language actually caused others to
discriminate against you? I suspect your perception of the importance of language would undergo a
pronounced change. Recently, I had an experience with language deprivation when I had laryngitis. The

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 three days I was without my voice were frustrating, interminable, and evidence of the power and
purpose of language. Early in her essay, "Mother Tongue," Amy Tan discusses this power of language.
She writes, "it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth" (26). Though at
times, I could whisper, people had dif iculty hearing and understanding me, and I couldn't write my
thoughts down quickly enough to meaningfully converse with others. In short, my lack of voice
impaired my ability to express myself and to communicate and indeed participate in my world.
Moreover, language, the combination of speci ic words in a particular order, not only empowers
individuals to participate as members of a designated community, it is also a fundamental key in
enabling individuals to establish and de ine the dimensions of their identity.

https://es.scribd.com/document/245831474/The-Existence-of-Mankind-is-Essentially-Dependant-on-the-
Written-and-Spoken-Word

TEENS AREN’T RUINING LANGUAGE TISOPUL

People of all ages in luence linguistic change, and it's always been that way.
The 1995 ilm 'Clueless' had its own lexicon, including slang like "as if!" Paramount Pictures

“Do't grill, dude,” was a thing the boys I knew in high school would say to each other a lot. It meant,
essentially, stop hassling me. There was also “budge,” short for “budget,” which presumably was a way of
saying that something was cheap, in a bad way. “Blatantly” was frequently used for emphasis. A
conversation might go like this:
“I can’t go out tonight.”
“That’s budge.”
“Don’t grill, dude.”
“Blatantly budge.”
I have not heard these terms, except ironically among old friends, since maybe 1999. I’m pretty sure
that’s because no one outside of a cluster of schools in my Philadelphia-area hometown uttered them in
the irst place. More broadly, this was an era when agreeable circumstances were “phat,” high-
maintenance friends were “spazzes,” and you might taunt someone by saying, “psyche!” (Or was it
“sike”?) And then, the 1990s ended, and all that slang did what it does best: It faded.
Fad words often have a different trajectory in today’s social-network-connected, meme-i ied world.
Platforms like Vine and Twitter have helped spread and standardize terms that might otherwise have
stayed regional. And certainly the Internet has shortened the lifespan of some
slang, especially when co-opted by brands trying to speak in teen parlance. (See also: On leek, bae,
basic, et al.)
As language evolves and new terms enter the mainstream, teenagers are often blamed for debasing
linguistic standards. In some cases, their preferred forms of communication—like text messaging—are
attacked. But, teens don’t actually in luence language as much as is often claimed. That’s one of the key
indings in the latest linguistic research by Mary Kohn, an assistant professor of English at Kansas State
University. How much a person’s vernacular changes over time may have as much to do with
personality and social standing as it has to do with age. The extent to which teenagers are credited with
(or blamed for) driving lasting change to language is, she says, “grossly overstated.” The same factors
that prompt teens to experiment with new language are applicable to people at many stages of life.
“There may be strong social motivations to craft an identity towards a speci ic social group, and
changes in social structures can prompt linguistic changes as a result,” Kohn told me. “We also have
fairly linguistically-stable individuals—people who just don't show much change over the lifespan. This
may be expected for individuals who speak a prestige dialect or are in positions of power.”

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 That’s likely because people in positions of privilege don’t face the same social pressure to adapt their
language, Kohn said. But there’s more to it than that. “It seems that linguistic lexibility is partially a
factor of age, exposure to various inputs, social factors, but also personal factors,” Kohn said. And these
personal factors are “hard to pinpoint.”
In her latest research, Kohn used an audio database that features interviews with dozens of children
from infancy up to when they’re in their twenties. (The database features audio of family members,
friends, and teachers, too.) She studied the kids at the same four stages of life (fourth grade, eighth
grade, tenth grade, and early twenties) and tracked—by analyzing sound waves—how their
pronunciation changed over time. While she focused on pronunciation, which offers a narrower view
than slang terms, what she found is revealing for the way people think about teenagers and language
trends. What stood out to her about the teenage years was the fact that, well, nothing consistently stood
out. Just because you’re a teenager, it doesn’t mean your language will change in a way that’s more
pronounced than during other key phases in life, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you’ll in luence
broader linguistic trends.
Because language patterns are so wrapped up in larger expressions of identity, Kohn believes that
people’s word choices evolve in concert with other life changes—you might adopt new words when you
start attending a new school, or take a new job, or have a baby, for example. The endurance of some
slang terms over time, she says, has to do with how people navigate individual life changes against an
also-changing social backdrop.
“Why some words skyrocket to popularity, only to crash and burn—for example, the unfortunate ‘ leek,’
or my generation's ‘joshin’ and ‘betty’—while others have a longer lifespan is a mystery,” Kohn told me.
“‘Dude’ in its current meaning has been present for at least a century. If a word spreads too quickly
from a subgroup to the mouths of moms or television actors, it will likely no longer serve the purpose
of creating in-group identity, dooming it to failure.”
My colleague James Hamblin made a similar argument in a eulogy for the word “bae” in 2014. "The
commercial appropriation of a word signals the end of its hipness in any case,” he wrote, “but as Kwame
Opam at The Verge called it, ‘appropriation of urban youth culture’ can banish a term to a particularly
bleached sphere of irrelevance.” (However, now that “bae” has been rejected by the mainstream, Robin
Boylorn wrote for The Guardian last year, black people can reclaim it.)
All this underscores how language can be as much a way to communicate who you aren’t, as it can be
used to signal who you are. Culturally, people often draw those lines generationally. Linguistically, it’s
another story.
One infamous example of a failed attempt by outsiders to in iltrate a linguistic subculture was a
1992 New York Times story about grunge slang. The newspaper reported a list of terms based on a
single interview with a 25-year-old who worked at a Seattle record label. It was later revealed that she
had made up the terms she de ined for the Times—including “wack slacks,” “lamestain,” and “swingin'
on the lippity- lop,” to name a memorable few. The paper ended up printing the phrases as real
examples of popular slang.
More often, though, words and expressions shift in and out of popular use gradually, without much
notice. Sort of the way “yeah” and “yes” have made way for “yessssss” and “yaaaaas” and “yiss,” a
phenomenon my colleague Megan Garber explored last year. Kohn offered an example of a once-
scandalous neologism that is today utterly mundane: “While Oscar Wilde’s peers may have lamented
the death of English when youth waited for the bus, instead of the omnibus, modern audiences would
ind the longer word stilted and strange.”
And the thing about linguistic changes is they can’t exactly be stopped in any sort of deliberate way.
(“Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen,” only works if fetch was never going to happen in the irst place.)
Even old-school grammar geeks are warming up to “they” as an acceptable gender-neutral pronoun,
understanding that culture doesn’t just trump language rules, it creates them—then destroys them,
then creates new ones again.

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 Oft-spoken terms either peter out or they stick around. “As if!” becomes “I can’t even.” And the tendency
for older adults to criticize younger generations for how language changes is its own form of
establishing identity or staking a space in a social group. Which is, let’s face it, pretty budge. Blatantly.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/blatantly-budge-and-other-dead-slang/431433/

YES, TEEN-SPEAK DRIVES ME MAD, BUT ADULT JARGON IS FAR WORSE – INNIT!

By John Humphrys

Ineffable appeal: Emma Thompson has declared war on sloppy speech

That Emma Thompson, yeh? Skills innit! I’m like she’s well porn innit. Know what I’m saying?
I very much doubt that you do. So let me try again.
Miss Emma Thompson, highly acclaimed star of the silver screen, has added further to her ineffable
appeal with some well-chosen words demonstrating her acute concern for th English language and in
so doing has made a signi icant contribution to the debate surrounding the way the younger generation
is failing to communicate in an ef icacious manner.
You probably got it that time, but how horribly stilted it sounded. After all, no one speaks like that any
longer, do they?
My irst paragraph was an attempt to sound like a teenager — or at least the sort of teenager of whom
Miss Thompson disapproves. The second might have appeared in the Daily Mail of the Twenties.
What she actually said was that teenagers make themselves sound stupid by speaking the way they do.
‘I went to give a talk at my old school and the girls were all doing their “likes” and “innit” and “it ain’ts”,
which drives me insane,’ she said. ‘I told them: “Just don’t do it, because it makes you sound stupid and
you’re not stupid.” ’
Miss Thompson is, I think, horribly right and horribly wrong. Of course it drives her insane. It drives me
insane, too. That’s the whole point. It’s meant to because we are adults. That’s why they do it. Teenagers
want their own language and they want to exclude us from it.
Let’s go back to that irst paragraph. What on earth is the word “skills” doing there? Well, I can tell you
because I came across it at my youngest child’s school. One of the boys was describing his new
PlayStation and the other boy — hugely envious — said: ‘Skills!’
It denoted the highest form of approval. All the other children knew that, but I’ll bet you didn’t. It may
reach a school near you next week, transmitted across the highly effective teen network, or it may die
the death.
‘Porn’ is another term of approval — even more bizarre than ‘skills’ — and I suspect it’s already had its
day. By the time distinguished academics and publishers have caught up with the latest teen-speak, the
teenagers themselves have usually moved on. That’s why I think Miss Thompson is wrong.

Innit: Iconic 'teenagers' Kevin and Perry, played by Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke, in a scene from
the 2000 film Kevin And Perry Go Large

Language must evolve. Change is happening all the time. I struggled desperately a few days ago to
understand an obviously important story about a worm attacking certain computer programmes in
China.

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 Actually, I’m not absolutely certain that it was a worm and not a virus. If I’m to be entirely honest, I’ll
admit that I’m not sure I know the difference, but I got the general gist of it.
My father would not have understood a word of the story. Rather, he’d have understood all the words —
worm, virus, programme — but they’d have held an entirely different meaning for him.
A language that does not adapt and evolve is a dead language. How quaint the vocabulary of my second
paragraph looks today.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1316062/Yes-teen-speak-drives-mad-adult-jargon-FAR-worse--
innit.html#ixzz2a6ygKR3B

ALL THE WORLD SPEAKS GLOBISH INNITLATISOPUL

By Robert McCrum

The alumni of the vast people’s University of China are typical of the post–Mao Zedong generation.
Every Friday evening several hundred gather informally under the pine trees of a little square in
Beijing’s Haidian district, in the so-called English Corner, to hold “English conversation.” Chatting
together in groups, they discuss football, movies, and celebrities like Victoria Beckham and Paris Hilton
in awkward but enthusiastic English. They also like to recite simple slogans such as Barack Obama’s
2008 campaign catchphrases—“Yes, we can” and “Change we can believe in.”
This scene, repeated on campuses across China, demonstrates the dominant aspiration of many
contemporary, educated Chinese teenagers: to participate in the global community of English-speaking
nations. Indeed, China offers the most dramatic example of a near-global hunger for English that has
brought the language to a point of no return as a lingua franca. More vivid and universal than ever,
English is now used, in some form, by approximately 4 billion people on earth—perhaps two thirds of
the planet—including 400 million native English speakers. As a mother tongue, only Chinese is more
prevalent, with 1.8 billion native speakers—350 million of whom also speak some kind of English.
Contagious, adaptable, populist, and subversive, the English language has become as much a part of the
global consciousness as the combustion engine. And as English gains momentum as a second language
all around the world, it is morphing into a new and simpli ied version of itself—one that responds to
the 24/7 demands of a global economy and culture with a stripped-down vocabulary of words like
“airplane,” “chat room,” “taxi,” and “cell phone.” Having neatly made the transition from the Queen’s
English to the more democratic American version, it is now becoming a worldwide power, a populist
tool increasingly known as Globish.
The rise of Globish irst became obvious in 2005, when an obscure Danish newspaper called The
Jutland Post published a sequence of satirical cartoons poking fun at the Prophet Muhammad. The
Muslim world exploded, with riots across Afghanistan, Nigeria, Libya, and Pakistan; in all, 139 people
died. But perhaps the most bizarre response was a protest by fundamentalist Muslims outside the
Danish Embassy in London. Chanting in English, the protesters carried placards with English slogans
like BUTCHER THOSE WHO MOCK ISLAM; FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION GO TO HELL; and (my favorite)
DOWN WITH FREE SPEECH.
This collision of the Islamic jihad with the Oxford English Dictionary, or perhaps of the Quran
with Monty Python, made clear (at least to me) the dramatic shift in global self-expression asserting
itself across a world united by the Internet. What more surreal—and telling—commentary on the
Anglicization of modern society than a demonstration of devout Muslims, in London, exploiting an old

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 English freedom expressed in the English language, to demand the curbing of the libertarian tradition
that actually legitimized their protest?
I wasn’t alone in noticing this change. In 2007 I came across an article in theInternational Herald
Tribune about a French-speaking retired IBM executive, Jean-Paul Nerrière, who described English and
its international deployment as “the worldwide dialect of the third millennium.” Nerrière, posted to
Japan with IBM in the 1990s, had noticed that non-native English speakers in the Far East
communicated in English far more successfully with their Korean and Japanese clients than British or
American executives. Standard English was all very well for Anglophones, but in the developing world,
this non-native “decaffeinated English”—full of simpli ications like “the son of my brother” for
“nephew,” or “words of honor” for “oath”—was becoming the new global phenomenon. In a moment of
inspiration, Nerrière christened it “Globish.”
The term quickly caught on within the international community. The (London) Timesjournalist Ben
Macintyre described a conversation he had overheard while waiting for a light from Delhi between a
Spanish U.N. peacekeeper and an Indian soldier. “The Indian spoke no Spanish; the Spaniard spoke no
Punjabi,” he says. “Yet they understood one another easily. The language they spoke was a highly
simpli ied form of English, without grammar or structure, but perfectly comprehensible, to them and to
me. Only now do I realize that they were speaking ‘Globish,’ the newest and most widely spoken
language in the world.”
For Nerrière, Globish was a kind of linguistic tool, a version of basic or so-called Easy English with a
vocabulary of just 1,500 words. As I saw it, however, “Globish” was the newly globalized lingua franca,
essential English merged with the terminology of the digital age and the international news media. I
knew from my work in the mid-1980s on a PBS series called The Story of English that British English
had enjoyed global supremacy throughout the 19th-century age of empire, after centuries of slow
growth from Chaucer and Shakespeare, through the King James Bible to the establishment of the Raj in
India and the great Imperial Jubilee of 1897. The map of the world dominated by the Union Jack
answered to the Queen’s English; Queen Victoria, in her turn, was the irst British monarch to address
her subjects worldwide through the new technology of recorded sound, with a scratchy, high-pitched
“Good evening!” In this irst phase, there was an unbreakable link between imperialism and language
that inhibited further development.
In the second phase, the power and in luence of English passed to the United States, largely through the
agency of the two world wars. Then, throughout the Cold War, Anglo-American culture became part of
global consciousness through the mass media—movies, newspapers, and magazines. Crucially, in this
second phase, the scope of English was limited by its troubled association with British imperialism and
the Pax Americana. But the end of the Cold War and the long economic boom of the 1990s distanced the
Anglo-American hegemony from its past, setting the language free in the minds of millions. Now you
could still hate George W. Bush and burn the American lag while simultaneously idolizing American
pop stars or splashing out on Apple computers.
With the turn of the millennium, it appeared that English language and culture were becoming rapidly
decoupled from their contentious past. English began to gain a supranational momentum that made it
independent of its Anglo-American origins. And as English became liberated from its roots, it began to
spread deeper into the developing world. In 2003 both Chile and Mongolia declared their intention to
become bilingual in English. In 2006 English was added to the Mexican primary-school curriculum as a
compulsory second language. And the formerly Francophone state of Rwanda adopted English as its
of icial language in 2009.
In China, some 50 million people are enrolled in a language program, known colloquially as “Crazy
English,” conducted by “the Elvis of English,” Li Yang, who often teaches groups of 10,000 or more,
under the slogan “Conquer English to make China strong.” Li Yang is part preacher, part drill sergeant,
part pedagogue. He gathers his students in football stadiums, raucously repeating everyday phrases.
“How are you?” he yells through a bullhorn. “How are you?” repeats the crowd. “I’m in the pink!” he
responds. “I’m in the pink!” they reply—ironically, using an arcane bit of Edwardian slang for “feeling
good.” Li Yang has even published a memoir called I Am Crazy, I Succeed.?

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 The viral nature of Globish means that it’s bottom-up, not top-down. The poet Walt Whitman once
wrote that English was not “an abstract construction of dictionary makers” but a language that “has its
basis broad and low, close to the ground.” Ever since English was driven underground by the Norman
Conquest in 1066, it has been the language of Everyman and the common people. That’s truer than ever
today.
The fact is that English no longer depends on the U.S. or U.K. It’s now being shaped by a world whose
second language is English, and whose cultural reference points are expressed in English but without
reference to its British or American origins. Films like the 2009 Oscar-winning Slumdog
Millionaire hasten the spread of Globish—a multilingual, multicultural cast and production team
creating a ilm about the collision of languages and cultures, launched with an eye toward Hollywood.
The dialogue may mix English, Hindi, and Arabic, but it always falls back on Globish. When the
inspector confronts Amir on suspicion of cheating, he asks in succinct Globish: “So. Were you wired up?
A mobile or a pager, correct? Some little hidden gadget? No? A coughing accomplice in the audience?
Microchip under the skin, huh?”
Globish is already shaping world events on many fronts. During last year’s Iranian elections, the
opposition used Globish to transmit its grievances to a worldwide audience. Cell-phone images of crude
slogans like GET AWAY ENGLAND and FREE, FAIR VOTING NOW, and innumerable tweets from
Westernized Iranians communicated the strength of the emergency to the West.
In the short term, Globish is set to only grow. Some 70 to 80 percent of the world’s Internet home pages
are in English, compared with 4.5 percent in German and 3.1 percent in Japanese. According to the
British Council, by 2030 “nearly one third of the world’s population will be trying to learn English at the
same time.” That means ever more voices adapting the English language to suit their needs, inding in
Globish a common linguistic denominator.
The distinguished British educator Sir Eric Anderson tells a story that illustrates the growing life-and-
death importance of Globish. On the morning of the 7/7 bombings in London, an Arab exchange student
tried to take the Underground from southwest London to his daily class in the City. When he found his
station inexplicably closed, he boarded a bus. During his journey his mobile phone rang. It was a Greek
friend in Athens who was watching the news of the bombings on CNN. Communicating urgently in the
Globish jargon of international TV, he described the “breaking news” and warned that London’s buses
had become terror targets. As a result of this conversation, the student disembarked from the bus. A
minute later it was destroyed by a suicide bomber, with the loss of many lives.
This is not the end of Babel. The world, “ latter” and smaller than ever before, is still a patchwork of
some 5,000 languages. Native speakers still cling iercely to their mother tongues, as they should. But
when an Indian and a Cuban want to commission medical research from a lab in Uruguay, with
additional input from Israeli technicians—as the Midwestern U.S. startup EndoStim recently did—the
language they will turn to will be Globish.
http://www.newsweek.com/all-world-speaks-globish-72941

ENGLISH LINGUA FRANCA

By Benjamin Studebaker
The belief that everyone in the world should learn English is generally associated with xenophobic
elements in Anglophone societies. As a result, it’s frequently dismissed out of hand as a serious idea–it
sounds too much like something out of UKIP or Arizona. It makes it all the more interesting that a
political theorist–a Belgian political theorist, from the heart of the multilingual EU–has taken the view

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 that English should be the new global lingua franca. His name is Philippe Van Parijs. He’s most famous
for his advocacy for a universal basic income (UBI), a kind of permanent income everyone receives
purely for being a person. His argument for English lingua franca (which also possesses a convenient
acronym, ELF) is compelling, in no small part because its focus is not on the convenience of native
English speakers, but on the potential bene its available to non-native speakers in countries outside the
Anglosphere.
Van Parijs outlined some of his thinking on the subject in a recent interview. There are two core
arguments here:
• A lingua franca is of substantial bene it to all who possess it.
• English is the best candidate language for lingua franca status.

The irst claim is fairly uncontroversial. If we all know one common language, we can overcome
language barriers in our communication. We can more easily disseminate ideas and break down
cultural, ethnic, religious, and racial boundaries that separate people from one another. It makes
militant nationalism less dangerous, it augments the pace of scienti ic and social progress, in sum it is a
great boon to the ef iciency of humanity’s growth and development. Van Parijs gives the example of the
use of English by Belgians when attempting to discuss the separation within that country of the Dutch-
speaking Flemish and the French-speaking Walloons. Instead of holding the conversation in Dutch or
French and thereby privileging some Belgians over others, by choosing to hold the conversation in
English Belgians can show mutual respect for one another. Van Parijs also points to the principle of
maxi-min–the belief that we should make the worst off as well off as possible, i.e. maximise the
minimum. With a lingua franca, instead of having to choose a language that some of the participants in
the conversation understand but not others, one can choose a language that leaves no one completely
left out.

The last real lingua franca was Latin in the 18th century, but Latin was reserved only for the elites who
went to special schools. This restricted the shared communication and its bene its to the wealthy elites;
the common people were denied its bene its. In contrast, the way in which English is being taught in
many countries is total and population-wide, and this brings us to the reasons why Van Parijs believes
English is suitable as a lingua franca:

• English education is already widespread in comparison with most other languages.

• The high level of penetration of English as a second language among young people today is
unprecedented in human history–never before have such a large percentage of the population
had this level of understanding of a non-native language.

• There exists a large body of English language media (movies, the internet, and so on) available
to create an immersive experience for learners on their own computers. You can be immersed in
English without having to go to an English speaking country.

Often those who wish to avoid showing a preference for Anglophone societies or Anglo-Saxon cultures
will recognise that a lingua franca would be useful but instead propose a new language designed for
that purpose, like Esperanto. Despite the simplicity of a language like Esperanto, it is not a practical
alternative to English–Esperanto education is not already widespread, there is no large base of
comprehension within the younger generation to build off of, and there is no widespread Esperanto
media or culture into which one can be immersed. The latter is particularly signi icant when attempting
to hold the interest of young people.

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 It is important to note that Van Parijs does not support ELF for the reasons that say, an Arizona
legislator might advocate that everyone learn English. Van Parijs does not think that there is anything
special about Anglo-Saxon culture that non-Anglophone peoples need to grasp or be exposed to. There
is no belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority, no racism, ethnocentrism, or any of the other traditionally
unattractive features of the pro-English argument in Van Parijs’ thinking.

Van Parijs even sees ELF as eventually a bad deal for native English speakers:

In the long term therefore the outcome of this process will be that we all in Europe — where this process is
well advanced in the younger 85 generations — and increasingly in other parts of the world shall be
bilingual or more, with English as one of our languages. With one exception: native English speakers, who
will be condemned, whatever their goodwill, to speak English and only English, precisely because all the
others will know English so well that there will be very few opportunities for Anglophones to use
languages other than English. The result is that tomorrow the Anglophones will be the only monolinguals,
and therefore those who suffer from a linguistic handicap.

While multilingual Europeans will be able to choose to converse with their fellows either in the lingua
franca or in a native language, Anglophones will be restricted to communicating in the lingua franca
and the lingua franca exclusively. In addition, Anglophones will likely speak English colloquially, with
idioms and local dialects that will make them less comprehensible to other speakers of the lingua
franca. Van Parijs provides this example:

Paradoxically — and I am sure you have witnessed it in the European Commission — to speak English as a
second language rather than a irst language can be a real advantage, if the audience you have to talk to
is international. When you have a meeting and interpreting is provided, some non-native English speakers
now often use English rather than relying on interpretation in order to communicate directly and most
people don’t use earphones and listen to them directly. Then a British person starts speaking and
immediately part of the audience reaches for their earphones because Brits — unless well adjusted to
international environments — tend to speak without making allowance for the fact that they are not
talking to other Brits: they make jokes that are only funny for their own folk or use idiomatic expressions
that are not understandable for people who don’t belong to the same culture.

As a native English speaker myself, I am sure I inadvertently occasionally use colloquialisms that make
my writing less accessible to non-native English speaking readers; in this respect, a non-native English
speaker has an advantage over me (and if you are one of those readers who has fallen victim to my
Americanisms, I apologise). I don’t have much to add to what Van Parijs is saying here today–I ind
myself essentially in agreement, the spread of English as a lingua franca is globally advantageous
regardless of whether or not one is a native speaker, and it is arguably of greater bene it to non-native
speakers than it is to native ones, at least so long as other languages still remain popular locally as
native tongues. It is the formulation of Van Parijs’ argument–and the fact that it comes from a Belgian
rather than a native English speaker–that I ind fascinating, and I thought it well-worth sharing.

https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2013/05/20/english-lingua-franca/

THE COGNITIVE BENEFITS OF BEING BILINGUAL

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 By Marian Viorica and Anthony Shook

Today, more of the world’s population is bilingual or multilingual than monolingual. In addition to
facilitating cross-cultural communication, this trend also positively affects cognitive abilities. Researchers
have shown that the bilingual brain can have better attention and task-switching capacities than the
monolingual brain, thanks to its developed ability to inhibit one language while using another. In addition,
bilingualism has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum: Bilingual children as young as seven
months can better adjust to environmental changes, while bilingual seniors can experience less cognitive
decline.
Today, more of the world’s population is bilingual or multilingual than monolingual. In addition to
facilitating cross-cultural communication, this trend also positively affects cognitive abilities. Researchers
have shown that the bilingual brain can have better attention and task-switching capacities than the
monolingual brain, thanks to its developed ability to inhibit one language while using another. In addition,
bilingualism has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum: Bilingual children as young as seven
months can better adjust to environmental changes, while bilingual seniors can experience less cognitive
decline.

We are surrounded by language during nearly every waking moment of our lives. We use language to
communicate our thoughts and feelings, to connect with others and identify with our culture, and to
understand the world around us. And for many people, this rich linguistic environment involves not
just one language but two or more. In fact, the majority of the world’s population is bilingual or
multilingual. In a survey conducted by the European Commission in 2006, 56 percent of respondents
reported being able to speak in a language other than their mother tongue. In many countries that
percentage is even higher—for instance, 99 percent of Luxembourgers and 95 percent of Latvians
speak more than one language.1 Even in the United States, which is widely considered to be
monolingual, one- ifth of those over the age of ive reported speaking a language other than English at
home in 2007, an increase of 140 percent since 1980.2Millions of Americans use a language other than
English in their everyday lives outside of the home, when they are at work or in the classroom. Europe
and the United States are not alone, either. The Associated Press reports that up to 66 percent of the
world’s children are raised bilingual.3 Over the past few decades, technological advances have allowed
researchers to peer deeper into the brain to investigate how bilingualism interacts with and changes
the cognitive and neurological systems.

Cognitive Consequences of Bilingualism

Research has overwhelmingly shown that when a bilingual person uses one language, the other is
active at the same time. When a person hears a word, he or she doesn’t hear the entire word all at once:
the sounds arrive in sequential order. Long before the word is inished, the brain’s language system
begins to guess what that word might be by activating lots of words that match the signal. If you hear
“can,” you will likely activate words like “candy” and “candle” as well, at least during the earlier stages
of word recognition. For bilingual people, this activation is not limited to a single language; auditory
input activates corresponding words regardless of the language to which they belong.4
Some of the most compelling evidence for language co-activation comes from studying eye movements.
We tend to look at things that we are thinking, talking, or hearing about.5 A Russian-English bilingual
person asked to “pick up a marker” from a set of objects would look more at a stamp than someone
who doesn’t know Russian, because the Russian word for “stamp,” “marka,” sounds like the English
word he or she heard, “marker.”4 In cases like this, language co-activation occurs because what the
listener hears could map onto words in either language. Furthermore, language co-activation is so
automatic that people consider words in both languages even without overt similarity. For example,
when Chinese-English bilingual people judge how alike two English words are in meaning, their brain
responses are affected by whether or not the Chinese translations of those words are written

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 similarly.6 Even though the task does not require the bilingual people to engage their Chinese, they do
so anyway.
Having to deal with this persistent linguistic competition can result in language dif iculties. For
instance, knowing more than one language can cause speakers to name pictures more slowly7 and can
increase tip-of-the-tongue states (where you’re unable to fully conjure a word, but can remember
speci ic details about it, like what letter it starts with).8 As a result, the constant juggling of two
languages creates a need to control how much a person accesses a language at any given time. From a
communicative standpoint, this is an important skill— understanding a message in one language can
be dif icult if your other language always interferes. Likewise, if a bilingual person frequently switches
between languages when speaking, it can confuse the listener, especially if that listener knows only one
of the speaker’s languages.
To maintain the relative balance between two languages, the bilingual brain relies on executive
functions, a regulatory system of general cognitive abilities that includes processes such as attention
and inhibition. Because both of a bilingual person’s language systems are always active and competing,
that person uses these control mechanisms every time she or he speaks or listens. This constant
practice strengthens the control mechanisms and changes the associated brain regions.9-12
Bilingual people often perform better on tasks that require con lict management. In the classic Stroop
task, people see a word and are asked to name the color of the word’s font. When the color and the
word match (i.e., the word “red” printed in red), people correctly name the color more quickly than
when the color and the word don’t match (i.e., the word “red” printed in blue). This occurs because the
word itself (“red”) and its font color (blue) con lict. The cognitive system must employ additional
resources to ignore the irrelevant word and focus on the relevant color. The ability to ignore competing
perceptual information and focus on the relevant aspects of the input is called inhibitory control.
Bilingual people often perform better than monolingual people at tasks that tap into inhibitory control
ability. Bilingual people are also better than monolingual people at switching between two tasks; for
example, when bilinguals have to switch from categorizing objects by color (red or green) to
categorizing them by shape (circle or triangle), they do so more rapidly than monolingual
people,13 re lecting better cognitive control when changing strategies on the ly.
Changes in Neurological Processing and Structure
Studies suggest that bilingual advantages in executive function are not limited to the brain’s language
networks.9 Researchers have used brain imaging techniques like functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) to investigate which brain regions are active when bilingual people perform tasks in
which they are forced to alternate between their two languages. For instance, when bilingual people
have to switch between naming pictures in Spanish and naming them in English, they show increased
activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain region associated with cognitive skills
like attention and inhibition.14 Along with the DLPFC, language switching has been found to involve
such structures as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), bilateral supermarginal gyri, and left inferior
frontal gyrus (left-IFG), regions that are also involved in cognitive control.9 The left-IFG in particular,
often considered the language production center of the brain, appears to be involved in both
linguistic15 and non-linguistic cognitive control.16
The neurological roots of the bilingual advantage extend to subcortical brain areas more traditionally
associated with sensory processing. When monolingual and bilingual adolescents listen to simple
speech sounds (e.g., the syllable “da”) without any intervening background noise, they show highly
similar brain stem responses to the auditory information. When researchers play the same sound to
both groups in the presence of background noise, the bilingual listeners’ neural response is
considerably larger, re lecting better encoding of the sound’s fundamental frequency,17 a feature of
sound closely related to pitch perception. To put it another way, in bilingual people, blood low (a
marker for neuronal activity) is greater in the brain stem in response to the sound. Intriguingly, this
boost in sound encoding appears to be related to advantages in auditory attention. The cognitive
control required to manage multiple languages appears to have broad effects on neurological function,
ine-tuning both cognitive control mechanisms and sensory processes.
Beyond differences in neuronal activation, bilingualism seems to affect the brain’s structure as well.
Higher pro iciency in a second language, as well as earlier acquisition of that language, correlates with
higher gray matter volume in the left inferior parietal cortex.18 Researchers have associated damage to

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 this area with uncontrolled language switching,19 suggesting that it may play an important role in
managing the balance between two languages. Likewise, researchers have found white matter volume
changes in bilingual children20 and older adults.21 It appears that bilingual experience not only changes
the way neurological structures process information, but also may alter the neurological structures
themselves.

Improvements in Learning
Being bilingual can have tangible practical bene its. The improvements in cognitive and sensory
processing driven by bilingual experience may help a bilingual person to better process information in
the environment, leading to a clearer signal for learning. This kind of improved attention to detail may
help explain why bilingual adults learn a third language better than monolingual adults learn a second
language.22 The bilingual language-learning advantage may be rooted in the ability to focus on
information about the new language while reducing interference from the languages they already
know.23 This ability would allow bilingual people to more easily access newly learned words, leading to
larger gains in vocabulary than those experienced by monolingual people who aren’t as skilled at
inhibiting competing information.
Furthermore, the bene its associated with bilingual experience seem to start quite early—researchers
have shown bilingualism to positively in luence attention and con lict management in infants as young
as seven months. In one study, researchers taught babies growing up in monolingual or bilingual homes
that when they heard a tinkling sound, a puppet appeared on one side of a screen. Halfway through the
study, the puppet began appearing on the opposite side of the screen. In order to get a reward, the
infants had to adjust the rule they’d learned; only the bilingual babies were able to successfully learn
the new rule.24 This suggests that even for very young children, navigating a multilingual environment
imparts advantages that transfer beyond language.
Protecting Against Age-Related Decline
The cognitive and neurological bene its of bilingualism also extend into older adulthood. Bilingualism
appears to provide a means of fending off a natural decline of cognitive function and maintaining what
is called “cognitive reserve.”9, 25 Cognitive reserve refers to the ef icient utilization of brain networks to
enhance brain function during aging. Bilingual experience may contribute to this reserve by keeping the
cognitive mechanisms sharp and helping to recruit alternate brain networks to compensate for those

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 that become damaged during aging. Older bilingual people enjoy improved memory26 and executive
control9relative to older monolingual people, which can lead to real-world health bene its.
In addition to staving off the decline that often comes with aging, bilingualism can also protect against
illnesses that hasten this decline, like Alzheimer’s disease. In a study of more than 200 bilingual and
monolingual patients with Alzheimer’s disease, bilingual patients reported showing initial symptoms of
the disease at about 77.7 years of age—5.1 years later than the monolingual average of 72.6. Likewise,
bilingual patients were diagnosed 4.3 years later than the monolingual patients (80.8 years of age and
76.5 years of age, respectively).25 In a follow-up study, researchers compared the brains of bilingual and
monolingual patients matched on the severity of Alzheimer’s symptoms. Surprisingly, the brains of
bilingual people showed a signi icantly higher degree of physical atrophy in regions commonly
associated with Alzheimer’s disease.27 In other words, the bilingual people had more physical signs of
disease than their monolingual counterparts, yet performed on par behaviorally, even though their
degree of brain atrophy suggested that their symptoms should be much worse. If the brain is an engine,
bilingualism may help to improve its mileage, allowing it to go farther on the same amount of fuel.

Conclusion
The cognitive and neurological bene its of bilingualism extend from early childhood to old age as the
brain more ef iciently processes information and staves off cognitive decline. What’s more, the
attention and aging bene its discussed above aren’t exclusive to people who were raised bilingual; they
are also seen in people who learn a second language later in life.25, 28 The enriched cognitive control
that comes along with bilingual experience represents just one of the advantages that bilingual people
enjoy. Despite certain linguistic limitations that have been observed in bilinguals (e.g., increased
naming dif iculty7), bilingualism has been associated with improved metalinguistic awareness (the
ability to recognize language as a system that can be manipulated and explored), as well as with better
memory, visual-spatial skills, and even creativity.29 Furthermore, beyond these cognitive and
neurological advantages, there are also valuable social bene its that come from being bilingual, among
them the ability to explore a culture through its native tongue or talk to someone with whom you might
otherwise never be able to communicate. The cognitive, neural, and social advantages observed in
bilingual people highlight the need to consider how bilingualism shapes the activity and the
architecture of the brain, and ultimately how language is represented in the human mind, especially
since the majority of speakers in the world experience life through more than one language.

http://dana.org/Cerebrum/2012/The_Cognitive_Bene its_of_Being_Bilingual/

PICTURE-BASED EXERCISES
♦ WORD DOMAINS: Take a look at the following pictures, which illustrate different words included in
the WALK domain. Find the words in the soup of letters below (you can read in all directions,
including diagonally and backwards). Then choose three of the words, and based on the pictures,
make up sentences of your own.

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 SOUP OF LETTERS

A D H E F I E I X P N A D

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 O J L A G M R D A E G I R
I S A S U P N M I A O C Z
G T P L I O V F P O R K A
A U E L B M A R U A E T G
T M S O M E I M W E N O S
W B A R U H A L M P F R D
K L A T S O Q S A U H O V
Y E R S F D R E T I 0 L M

Sentence 1:

.......................................................................................................................................................

Sentence 2:

.......................................................................................................................................................

Sentence 3:

.......................................................................................................................................................

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