Telephone Arabe

A fellow blogger colleague recently wrote on uncommon words in English. My post here, on the other hand, is on commonly used English words that originated from Arabic:

•  Admiral: Amir Al-Bahr
•  Alchemy: Al-Kimia
•  Alcohol: Al-Kuhul 
•  Alcove: Al-Qubba
•  Algebra: Al-Jabr
•  Coffee: Qahwah
•  Cotton: Qutn
•  Gazelle: Ghazal
•  Ghoul: Ghoul
•  Giraffe: Zarafa
•  Sahara: Sahraa
•  Sugar: Sukkar 
•  Sultana: Sultana
•  Syrup: Sharab
•  Zero: Sifr

Most of these words reached the English language by indirect integration from other languages, mainly European, such as French, Spanish or Italian, often though not in every case, through Latin. Some words, such as coffee, reached Europe through Ottoman Turkish (kahve in this case). Along the way, as expected, and as in the game Chinese whispers (literally “telephone arabe” in French), the words were distorted or adapted to fit the integrating language, as in admiral (admiralis in Latin).

  

Beyond words, there are numbers from Arabic. The numeric system using numbers from zero (sifr) to nine originated in the Arab world, replacing the relatively awkward system of Roman numerals that were used before.

 

Stay tuned for more.

More on Word of the Year

Merriam Webster finally announced its Word of the Year 2016 as surreal, subsequent to rising lookups following various shocking world events. Defined as “"marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream”, the largest spike in lookups for it followed the US presidential election in November, as reported by Webster.

If I were to personally choose a word of the year for 2016, it would be sympathy. There have been many unfortunate events around the word this year, including serious human tragedies. The least one can do in such circumstances is sympathize – not in the sense of pity, but more in the form of empathy, putting oneself in the sufferers’ shoes as opposed to carrying on with one’s life as if nothing were wrong. Among the dictionary definitions of sympathy are the following:

• Webster: “the act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another/ the feeling or mental state brought about by such sensitivity”
• Cambridge: “understanding and care for someone else’s suffering”
• Oxford: “understanding between people; common feeling”

My colleague and fellow blogger Jessy Assy has already chosen her 2017 word of the year, as a sort of New Year’s resolution: balance (Jessy Assy’s Writing Diary). In a busy, frantic, multi-tasking world, one needs balance – one can definitely sympathize with that!

What is your word of the year? Why not share it with us?

Word of the Year 2016

Mashable recently reported that Merriam Webster had not yet announced its Word of the Year although, by the end of November, “fascism” had been the most frequently looked up word; unhappy about this, those in charge of the dictionary are encouraging users to look up other words in an apparent effort to change the results! On the other hand, dictionaries such as Collins, Oxford, Cambridge, and dictionary.com have already announced their words of the year.

 

The Collins Word of the Year is Brexit: “The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union”. The word showed a high increase in usage, unsurprisingly, as the UK referendum results shook the world.

The Oxford Word of the Year is Post-Truth: “an adjective relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. Apparently, interest in it spiked in relation to both the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States.

The Cambridge Dictionary saw a fourfold increase in searches for its Word of the Year, paranoid: “feeling extremely nervous and worried because you believe that other people do not like you or are trying to harm you”. While the editors say they cannot be certain why readers were looking up the word, they assume it must be the uncertain times we are living in, where people no longer have faith in the institutions they have traditionally trusted. Similar words have shown similar increases: anxiety, chaos, breaking down, prejudice, bigotry, bullying, and nostalgic. On a brighter note, adorable has seen a high increase in searches as well. The editors believe readers must be trying to comfort themselves by watching videos of cute animals!

Xenophobia is dictionary.com’s Word of the Year: “fear or hatred of foreigners, people from different cultures, or strangers”. Apparently, lookups spiked by 938% just after the Brexit referendum results, on June 24. In July, searches for hate crime multiplied as newspaper coverage of hate crimes rose post-Brexit.

A snapshot from the dictionaries – a snapshot of our world today.

Wishing my readers a happier new year!

 

Open Access Week

Academics worldwide will soon be celebrating International Open Access Week, from October 24 to 30. When I first blogged about Open Access in 2012, the movement had been likened to the Arab Spring, having been referred to as an “Academic Spring”. Since then, it has picked up momentum, as can be seen from the Web site of International Open Access Week.

Events are taking place globally in celebration of this movement opposing traditional, commercial publishing. Workshops, presentations, seminars, discussions and conferences are actively promoting Open Access, and a number of Arab countries have become involved over the years, including Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. Online groups have formed in celebration - from Egypt to Taiwan, and from Portugal to Tanzania. In Glasgow, Creative Commons UK will be launched as part of the celebratory week, another interesting development.

New terms are gradually being coined to refer to various aspects of the open access movement: gratis open access versus libre open access; gold open access; hybrid open access; delayed open access, etc. I will not bore you with the differences now as some readers may not care and others may find this unnecessarily complicated. For those interested, these concepts may be worth following up.

The Directory of Open Access Journals has a news section where you may read up on the various developments. Currently, for example, it shows an article on the open access strategy in Algeria: academic researchers are involved, and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is in favour. Interestingly, the Directory includes the Lebanese Science Journal, published by the National Council for Scientific Research, which was added in July 2016, including articles in English and French, and this journal is not the first. UNESCO notes that the DOAJ indexed a Lebanese journal in 2015, Journal of Numerical Mathematics and Stochastics published by Euclidean Press, and that a few other OA journals are published in Lebanon. Additionally, UNESCO states that the Lebanese Library Association supports the OA movement through a variety of activities that promote it among faculty, students and librarians (Global Open Access Portal). However, UNESCO identifies challenges for the Arab world, including lack of OA journals in Arabic, lack of staff qualified to manage OA databases, insufficient government regulation and donor mandates, and general lack of awareness.

 

 

The Challenge of Fairness in Student Assessment

It may seem easy for teachers to judge students; in fact, it is part of their job. How fair the teachers are in their assessment is another matter. This is where assessment of students needs assessment!

The reason why fairness in student assessment is important is obvious: every student should be given an equal opportunity to show what he or she has understood, knows, and can do. Both ethically and legally, tests (and other assessment instruments) should be culturally inclusive, unbiased, and accessible to students with special needs, such as second language learners and people with disabilities.

Culturally sensitive assessments are based on content and scenarios that cater to diverse populations. They attempt to give equal chances to students regardless of gender, place of origin, and socio-economic background. Biased tests, on the other hand, give unfair advantage to some. Unfair advantage privileges those with a certain background or experiences (rather than those with better aptitude or preparation for a test). The presence of bias invalidates scores because of irrelevant components that affect student performance across groups.

Accessibility of assessments is important based on an individual’s right to a quality education. This involves the use of tools, devices, and accommodations that allow students with special needs to take either the same tests as others or suitable equivalents. AUB is a good example of an institution that is showing greater sensitivity to students with special needs by providing special staff and accommodations to facilitate the academic experience of these students.

The type of assessment given is also important. For example, “performance assessment” in the form of projects may be considered fairer than traditional testing because it is more individualized; students may choose their own topics and may receive formative feedback as projects take time.

Of course, the teaching experience - before any evaluation – should also be fair. Fairness in assessment includes both what precedes assessment (such as resources and access) as well as the actual assessment design.

Grammar Police?

There seems to be a renaissance of language pedantry with the advance of technology and social networking. Not only does Google try to correct people's grammar by asking them what they mean, Facebook groups such as “I judge you when you use poor grammar”, are quite popular. English teachers, especially teachers of writing, are expected to behave as language police. If students make grammar errors in other courses or later, in their careers, their English teachers are often blamed. No one likes to be viewed as a scary police officer though, just as students resent being viewed as criminals for violating grammar rules. In fact, a recent study concluded that "People Obsessed With Grammar Aren't as Nice as Everybody Else". While language attitudes have been correlated with personality traits before, this study interestingly focused on attitudes towards typing errors and grammar variation through confused homonyms (words that sound the same but that should be spelled differently). Details of the study were published in the article “If You’re House Is Still Available, Send Me an Email: Personality Influences Reactions to Written Errors in Email Messages”.

Split verbs are known to be particularly irritating to language purists, yet Steven Pinker defends them as follows:

Any speaker who has not been brainwashed by the split-verb myth can sense that these corrections go against the rhythm and logic of English phrasing. The myth originated centuries ago in a thick-witted analogy to Latin, in which it is impossible to split an infinitive because it consists of a single word, like dicere, 'to say'. But in English, infinitives like 'to go' and future-tense forms like 'will go' are two words, not one, and there is not the slightest reason to interdict adverbs from the position between them.

Let us not be thick-witted and mean when it comes to grammar! Besides, effective communication is not merely about grammar: it is about content, logic, general clarity of expression, relevance, and overall fluency. If grammar is also “polished”, all the better; if not, it is not such a disaster – or is it?

Students or Consumers?

Many institutions of higher education all over the world now view students as customers. One only has to take a look at the terminology used on web sites and in student booklets to see this. Student handbooks have come to be called "student consumer handbooks". Last year the UK government issued a student guide on student consumer rights: Higher Education: Guide to Consumer Rights for Students. Prepared by the Competition and Markets Authority, it addresses students as customers of their institutions - customers with rights as follows:

Students have consumer rights. Universities and other higher education providers that don’t meet their obligations to undergraduate students may be in breach of consumer protection law.

This guide sets out what undergraduate students need to know about their rights when choosing or taking a higher education course, and what to do if things go wrong. It is also of use to those advising or assisting students.

While no one can deny the rights of students to a proper education, with adequate prior information on the courses they take, in terms of objectives, teaching methods and assessment, a new study has revealed that students who perceive themselves as consumers tend to earn lower grades than others: “The Student-as-Consumer Approach in Higher Education and its Effects on Academic Performance”. The study, noting that a “consumer identity appears to be increasingly recognised by students,” was based on a survey of hundreds of students from 35 English universities. The researchers found a negative correlation between the extent to which a student behaved like a consumer and the level of their academic performance. They noted that a lower learner identity correlated with a higher consumer orientation. As a teacher, one is not surprized by such findings. It only makes sense that those who view themselves as buying their degrees would learn less than those who are genuinely eager to learn, better themselves, and contribute to society.

Nate Kreuter, an English Professor in the US once rightly remarked in Inside Higher Ed that the growing “student as consumer” mentality was eroding key values in higher education. He explained that luring students with “slick advertising”, providing them with easy credit, turning universities into brands, promoting growth for the sake of growth, and “vocationalizing higher education” is not the way to run a university; the only advantage of viewing students as customers is reminding ourselves that our universities are accountable to our students (“Customer Mentality”).

When universities themselves encourage the consumer mentality amongst students, treating pupils more like customers than active learners, this could backfire. As Dr. Louise Bunce, one of the authors of the UK study, noted, “While it is positive that universities are expected to offer more value to students as a result of higher tuition fees, students also need to be aware that learning cannot be bought.”

Students beware.

Feeling Under the Weather?

Since the weather is occupying news headlines these days, it would be interesting to look at some weather idioms in English; the first that came to mind was “feeling under the weather”, meaning feeling unwell. Currently it is used mostly when someone is ill with a cold or flu. Its historical origin, however, appears to be nautical, not directly related to colds and such illnesses at all - it was used in sailing when some passengers were sent below deck, to protect them from the weather, for feeling seasick or generally unwell ("God Bless You! Idioms for Those With the Cold and Flu Idioms"). Sea sickness occurred mostly in bad weather, when waters were rough and ships rocked violently.

Another common weather metaphor is being “snowed under”, as in having too much work to do all at the same time. On the other hand, as I write, many parts of the world are literally getting “snowed under” in harsh winter climate. In the U.S., this could be one of the most terrible winters in history.

If you are a university student resting between semesters, this may be “the calm before the storm” for you. Hopefully, you will have no trouble “breaking the ice” with your new teachers and classmates, and if you are really lucky, and organize your time, your new courses will “be a breeze”. Besides, depending on how much effort you put into your course work, you might end up “on cloud nine”. Don’t go “chasing rainbows” (expecting too much) though if you do not invest time and effort in your work.

 To those who do work hard and do not succeed immediately, one can say , “ Every cloud has a silver lining”. Good luck!

Migrant, Refugee, or Dreamer?

In a highly popular blog post by its English online editor, Al Jazeera last month dropped the word “migrant”, preferring to use “refugee”; the former term has become mainly, and wrongly, associated with economic migrants when others fleeing war and oppression are involved:  “Migrant deaths are not worth as much to the media as the deaths of others - which means that their lives are not. Drowning disasters drop further and further down news bulletins. We rarely talk about the dead as individuals anymore. They are numbers” (“Why Al Jazeera Will Not Say Mediterranean 'Migrants'”). Later, Adam Taylor of the Washington Post asked whether the word “migrant”, amongst other questionable terms, should be avoided in future discussions of refugees, citing the concern over “words that convey an exaggerated sense of threat” as expressed by Alexander Betts, the Director of Oxford’s Refugees Studies Centre (“Is it Time to Ditch the Word ‘Migrant’”?) Taylor points out that the definition of a migrant varies from one organization to another, and that the definition of the Institute of Migration refers to a person who has travelled as a deliberate choice, to improve their prospects or those of their family, in contrast with a refugee, who has generally been forced to flee. Other  inappropriate words Taylor cited include “swarm”, “siege”, “invasion”, “horde”, “war zone”, and “marauding”.

In “The Battle Over the Words Used to Describe Migrants”, the BBC’s Camila Ruz discusses the naming of refugees, citing a study by Oxford’s Migration Observatory. Based on the analysis of 58,000 UK newspaper articles, the Observatory had concluded that “illegal” was the adjective most frequently associated with “immigrant”. Ruz refers to various criticisms of the term “illegal immigrant”, including one about the term’s connoting crime, and those of the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times, both of which modified their style guides in 2013 in such a way as to recommend against using it. Besides, some critics cynically point out that western immigrants are referred to as “expatriates” instead: “There has been some satirical commentary about the differences between the terms,” says Ruz. She adds that “alien”, which is out of currency in the UK, is still used in the US. On a positive note, however, she points out that the Obama administration has proposed the label “Dreamer” for “undocumented young people who met the conditions of the Dream act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors)”.

The well-known linguist and philosopher Steven Pinker indicates in his “euphemism treadmill” metaphor that changing minds is more important than changing words. As long as people’s views of others are negative, using different words to describe them will not help; the negative connotations might become associated with the new words, in an endless vicious circle.

 

 

"Mx" Replacing "Mr" etc.

When the title “Ms.” was invented, it was meant to replace “Mrs.” and “Miss”. This alternative was promoted by feminists and others who believed that a woman’s marital status should not be a matter of public concern. The logic was that if “Mr.” is enough for men, why shouldn’t “Ms.” be enough for women? The new title was ironically introduced as a third choice for women on forms etc., instead of replacing the other two terms altogether. Men did not have so many choices, yet they were not bothered. More recently, however, some men – and women – have become annoyed with all these old titles. For them, not only is marital status not to be revealed, but gender itself. “Mx” is the title now beginning to replace the conventional titles, including “Ms”.

Transgender people, and some who do not identify with either gender, are promoting the use of “Mx”, to the extent that it is now accepted by government departments in the UK, as well as banks and some universities, such as Birmingham, Cambridge, and Oxford; the Oxford English Dictionary is also on its way to incorporating it (“Mr, Mrs, Miss... and Mx: Transgender People Will be Able to Use New Title on Official Documents”).

Stan Carey says that the term “Mx”, which has been around since the 1970s, is a gender neutral alternative. The Macmillan Dictionary has already added the term, after it was submitted to its crowdsourced dictionary (“ ‘Mx’—A New Gender Neutral Title”). The web site “Nonbinary.org” , “arguing for equal access to employment, services and medical treatment for those who don't fit the gender binary”, encourages the use of various gender neutral titles, including “Mx”; among these are “Ind” (for individual), “M”, “Misc”, and “Msr”.

Apparently, the new title has been well received in Australia, according to ABC News, yet language expert Professor Roland Sussex believes it sounds awkward, and Lisa Sinclair of Genderqueer Australia rightly notes that changing a word will not necessarily change mentalities: “As an international idea it might work, but it's going to take a bit more than a gender-neutral pronoun to overcome the very gendered societies we have in the West and around the world. Having a gender-neutral pronoun is very nice, but there's much more to having acceptance of gender-neutral people than just a word" ("Mx Flagged as Possible Title for Transgender and Other Gender Neutral People, According to Oxford English Dictionary”). On the other hand, Merriam-Webster is still watching the new term, uncertain whether it will catch on in the US or whether it might take decades for it to be accepted, like “Ms” (“A Gender-Neutral Honorific”). Whatever the outcome, flirting with such new terms is merely another example of language evolution in line with perceived political correctness.

Politically Correct Language

When David Cameron was recently criticised for using the word “swarm” to describe illegal immigrants entering Britain, a fuss followed. For many, the use of the term is politically incorrect while for others it is neutral. Cameron had told ITV News that the immigration problem had worsened because “… you have got a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain because Britain has got jobs, it’s got a growing economy, it’s an incredible place to live”.

Human rights groups, including the Refugee Council, were the first to object, referring to the language used as “dehumanizing” and “extremely inflammatory”;  Labour leadership candidates described the usage as “disgraceful” and “not prime ministerial”; and Labour’s interim leader remarked that Cameron should remember “he is talking about people, not insects”. On the other hand, some people, such as Brian Maloney, citing the Merriam-Webster dictionary, found the term neutral, commenting that the incident was used to “fan the flames of anti-Conservative Party anger”. To back his claim, he cited examples of usage from the dictionary, which were not necessarily derogatory, such as “swarms of sightseers” and “a swarm of tourists” (“David Cameron Under Fire for Using ‘Swarm’ to Describe Illegal Immigrants’”).

Jeremy Butterfield, a lexicographer, has questioned the usage of “swarm” to describe immigrants, on both his personal blog and that of the Oxford Dictionaries. He notes that while many dictionaries do not indicate a pejorative sense for the word, the OED does (“A very large or dense body or collection; a crowd, throng, multitude. (Often contemptuous)”). Butterfield concludes that the connotations of the word are as follows:

 ■a large group;

 ■a compact group;

 ■a group in energetic motion;

 ■(perhaps optionally) confused motion; and

 ■ the group is undesirable.

 

Butterfield finds the critics’ reactions understandable though, to him, the possibility that Cameron did not mean the word in the pejorative, inflammatory sense is plausible. In any case, the example shows the importance of word choice in the public sphere, the language of politics, while illustrating the politics of language, especially in critics’ reactions.

Experience Is a Jewel

Shakespeare once said, through a character in The Merry Wives of Windsor, that experience is a jewel, and it had need be so, for it is often purchased at an infinite rate.

As teachers with experience to share, my blogger colleagues and I value each other’s teaching experience and share our reflections unreservedly. In April, we offered a workshop to share our vision and experience with regard to blogging. Entitled “Blog for Blog’s Sake”, the workshop was so well received that we are already planning another one for next year. Before that, in February, three of us had given a conference presentation entitled “Teacher Blogging as Social Constructivism”. Sharing our ideas and experience is so important to us that we aim at expanding our blogging community by encouraging others.

Students also need experience, of course, to get ahead: work experience, writing experience, and so forth. Everyone can learn from their own trials and errors, as well as those of others. Here are some more quotations on the importance of practical experience in life:

· Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience. Clarence Day

· Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced. John Keats

· Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience. Paulo Coelho

 Oscar Wilde once cynically claimed that experience is simply the name we give our mistakes – yet to Albert Einstein, “the only source of knowledge is experience”. One cannot help agreeing more with the latter.

Spreading the Word

As part of our effort to encourage other teachers to blog about their work, my blogger colleagues and I have organized a workshop at AUB for fellow teachers entitled “Blog for Blog’s Sake”. Why not join us? Part I is tomorrow, April 27, and Part II is on Wednesday 29. Here are some details:

Part I Thoughts on Teacher Blogging
Monday, April 27

1.            Objectives and points of reflection (May Mikati)

2.            What we do and why (Jessy Bissal)

3.            Blogaddiction (Amany Al Sayyed)

4.            Dipping your toes (Amin Kurani)

5.            A love hate relationship (Marwa Mehio)

6.            Teacher blogging versus blogging in other contexts (Dania Adra)

 

Part II Getting Started

Wednesday, April 29

This is the hands-on part of the workshop, for those who would like to start a blog now.

 

We hope you can join us!

 

Word of the Year 2014

Every year there are winners. Here are this year’s winning words from various sources:

• Chambers Dictionary – “Overshare”:
The Guardian reported that “‘Overshare’ is Chambers Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2014”. The word refers to excessive disclosure of personal information on social media.

• Collins Dictionary – “Photobomb”:
The Daily Mail reported that “After Receiving Royal Seal of Approval Photobomb Beats Twerk, Tinder, Bakeoff and Normcore to be Named Word of the Year”. The verb refers to the act of appearing in the background of a picture without the subjects’ knowledge. Though the word was first used in 2008, it did not spread till 2012 when a number of photographs that were photobombed went viral on the web. In 2014, the word was linked to many celebrity appearances, including royalty.

• Dictionary.com - “Exposure”:
The choice of this word was justified by linking it to impactful current events: the spread of Ebola, theft of personal information, and violence exposed on the news.

• Oxford Dictionaries – “Vape”:
Having originated as an abbreviation of “vapour” or “vaporize”, the verb refers to inhaling and exhaling the substance given off by an electronic cigarette. Apparently, the use of the word peaked in April when the first “vape café” opened in the UK and New Yorkers protested against a ban on indoor vaping.

• The American Dialect Society - #blacklivesmatter:
Though it does not fit the traditional definition of a word, this hashtag spread like wildfire after the controversial deaths in Missouri and New York recently.

• Global Language Monitor - The heart symbol ♥:
 This ideograph, yet another very unconventional “word”, topped the list as it is used daily by billions of people across the world, in different languages. The popularity of such symbols shows how communication technologies are affecting language, as explained by Paul Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor: “The English Language is now undergoing a remarkable transformation unlike any in its 1400 year history — its system of writing, the Alphabet, is gaining characters at amazing rate.  These characters are ideographs or pictographs that are called emoji and emoticons.   There are about a thousand emoji characters now officially recognized by Unicode Consortium, the official keepers of coding that forms the basis of the Internet.”

One can never overshare on such topics. What will the 2015 word of the year be?

·        

Disappearing Punctuation

Punctuation appears to be declining in importance. In the UK, the Cambridge City Council considered removing punctuation from street names recently, in an effort to follow national guidelines aimed at simplification; it had been observed that wrongly punctuated street names would cause confusion and that data services, including emergency services, did not care about punctuation (“Apostrophe Catastrophe as Cambridge City Council Bans Punctuation from New Street Names”). After protests, the Council reversed its decision to ban punctuation, however; in February, The Guardian reported that the Cambridge City Council leader had regretted following “bureaucratic guidelines” to remove punctuation from street signs (“Council Reverses its Ban on Apostrophes”). In the previous year, the Mid Devon council had faced similar opposition:

The move was branded “appalling, disgusting and pointless”, with one critic saying the absence of the marks made her “shudder”.

Some even suggested that it could represent a creeping threat that might even result in the endangerment of those grammatical stalwarts, the comma and the capital letter. (“Council Accused of 'Murdering' Punctuation Mark After Abolishing Apostrophes from Street Names“)

On the other side of the Atlantic, punctuation has also provoked controversy, but Slate magazine has reported that for Professor John McWhorter, the loss of the comma is inconsequential; commas may become obsolete because their removal causes “little loss of clarity” (besides the fact that they are used inconsistently – as in the Oxford comma):

We needn’t look any further than our beloved cellphones and computer screens. We’re dropping commas more than ever because so much of our daily writing now consists of quick text messages and hastily typed emails. We’re also engaging in frequent IM discussions and drafting lots of sub-140-character tweets. Commas don’t thrive in those environs. (“Will We Use Commas in the Future?”)

McWhorter adds, however, that formal writing, including academic writing, probably will not be affected as people will know what is appropriate for different contexts, especially older students and others; young students may struggle slightly, but they will eventually get the hang of it.

The debate continues on both sides of the Atlantic. Among the groups involved are The American Apostrophe Association, the Apostrophe Protection Society and the AAAA (Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant Apostrophe).

National Punctuation Day, started in the US in 2004 to celebrate the correct use of punctuation, reflects its continuing importance for some – so take care with your punctuation!

Empty Libraries

As part of their course reflection once, my students were meant to describe how they had used the library, and one of them wrote that they had met with other team members at the University Library to discuss their class project. Had the student deliberately bypassed my question I wondered? Does no one use library resources any more, not even for locating online material?

Whether the student had gone there physically was besides the point. In fact, some libraries are bookless, so it is unlikely for people to want to be there often. A recent Guardian article reported on Florida Polytechnic University's new digital library; the article “Bookless Library Opened by New US University” explains that the building harbours “not a single physical book”! All available material is digital, including books. The sad news, as Tara Barbazon notes in her book “The University of Google: Education in a (Post) Information Age” is that popular culture has overtaken proper academic culture. Students (and others) find the world wide web much more attractive than libraries though the quality of information accessed on the wider web is often doubtful in comparison. Libraries are not only physically empty in some cases: their resources are under-utilized – and the phenomenon appears global.

The Mexico News Daily recently described the situation in “Something Needs to be Done About Empty Libraries”; while Mexico has the largest public library system in Latin America, “they’re not very useful when empty” - compared with European libraries, their resources are wasted. Similarly, the Brunei Times claims that libraries across the country are “underutilized” (“Library Resources Underused”), prompting those in charge to find solutions, including better promotion of the resources.

In the UK, the Literacy Trust has reported that “many school libraries are underutilised resources that do not fulfil their potential to improve literacy levels and support pupil learning and attainment”, highlighting the need for schools, local authorities and Government to make sure school libraries are properly exploited (“School Libraries Are a Wasted Resource”). Likewise, in the University of Southern California’s Daily Trojan, Rebecca Gao describes the situation at USC: “Often, students only frequent the libraries for a quiet place to study, to use a computer or to print. USC appears to be well aware of the evolution toward online resources and has continually updated its subscriptions to educational databases or purchased additional e-resources to encourage student research. Whether students use these resources, however, is another case” (Digital Libraries Wasted”).

It is puzzling and unfortunate that so few students use the resources that university libraries make such an effort to secure and invest in.

Language Learning for a Globalized World

In my previous blog post on motivation in language learning, I indicated that I would be following up on the subject.

An opinion piece by Jocelyn Wyburd in Times Higher Education stresses the need for UK policies to encourage language learning at all levels of education. Entitled “Give Languages a Fair Shout”, the article reminds native speakers of English that the status of English as a lingua franca should not be an excuse for ignoring other languages. Being the Director of the Cambridge Language Centre, Wyburd’s opinion clearly carries weight.

Wyburd adds her voice to others decrying the decline of foreign languages in UK education, reminding readers that language learning not only enhances communication: “a gateway to understanding the world through the words, thoughts and cultures of others”; it has educational, cognitive and cultural value. To her, losing languages means losing “international insight”. She contrasts the situation with that of the rest of Europe, now including Scotland, where educational policy aims at equipping students with two foreign languages while in the rest of the UK only elite schools appear to mandate a foreign language. On a more positive note, Wyburd notes that employment pressures and research needs have motivated some students to pay attention to languages, yet she refers to this as “instrumental” as opposed to “the deeper, more specialist study of languages, cultures and societies, and the accompanying linguistic and intercultural competence.”

Finally, Wyburd supports the efforts of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Languages, with its recently released Manifesto for Languages. The manifesto starts with the following strong statement: “English is an important world language, but the latest cutting-edge research shows that, in the 21st century, speaking only English is as much of a disadvantage as speaking no English.”

So which other languages are important to learn? A BBC article on the “ ‘Alarming Shortage’ of Foreign Language Skills” cites the British Council’s Top 10 Languages, among which Arabic ranks second, after Spanish, followed by French, Mandarin Chinese, German, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Turkish and Japanese (Languages for the Future). Teachers of Arabic may definitely be happy with this news.

Motivation in Language Learning

The Guardian newspaper’s Education section on “The Case for Language Learning” shows a number of interesting recent entries.

Geoffrey Bowden regrets the declining interest in the UK in foreign language learning, asserting that “If There Aren't Enough Linguists, We'll Need Immigrants”; he sees the disappointingly low numbers of foreign language learners reported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England as a serious threat – “It is difficult to measure the financial cost of poor language skills to the UK economy.” Bowden suggests that government incentives should be provided. On the other hand, John Mackey, in “Wanting It Enough”, discusses the importance of motivation, “the secret to success”, in language learning. He emphasizes the role of learning in context, as in traveling to relevant countries and interacting with people. He says that most people who succeed at second language learning are highly motivated to learn, whether “intrinsically” or “extrinsically”, as language researchers put it. Intrinsic motivation stems from factors such as the need to make personal connections, while extrinsic stimuli could include wanting to pass a language test. Mackey warns, however, that motivation is not enough: research shows that, for success in language learning, aptitude and access to proper instruction must accompany motivation. He cites Steven Pinker on the neurophysiology of language in the brain, concluding that “The idea of people being hard wired for second language learning is fascinating and, perhaps, appealing in that it might be used to get some of us off the hook if our language learning journey is less than successful.”

The Guardian advertises that today, July 10, there is a live debate in London on whether medicinal drugs should be used to enhance language learning. Apparently, scientists have noticed that mood disorder drugs can improve language learning. The controversy revolves around various implications - ethical, practical, social and medical - and whether the advantages exceed the risks (“Are Drugs the Answer to Learning Languages?”). One is definitely motivated to read more on the subject, whether in the Guardian or elsewhere.

English or Globish?

Anthropological linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf emphasized the link between language and culture decades ago. They hypothesized that one’s language affects one’s view of the world. For example, they reckoned that if your language did not have a word for a certain colour, you would not distinguish that colour very easily.  

Recently, The Guardian’s Peter Scott, a university professor and administrator, wondered what universities would be like if English was no longer the world’s lingua franca (“Will UK Universities Cope if English No Longer Rules the World?”). He began his article with the thesis that “Being an English-speaking country is a blessing – and a curse”. While being a native speaker of the language of Shakespeare, science, popular culture, tourism and business may appear to be a privilege, Scott rightly argues that in fact it locks one into “an anglophone prison”: this situation is disadvantageous because the less concerned native English speakers are about other languages, the less they will comprehend other cultures. Their understanding of others will remain superficial. He regrets the fact that the number of Mandarin speakers of English is much higher than the number of English speakers of Mandarin, pointing out that this is an advantage for the Chinese and that “monolingualism inhibits multicultural sensitivity”.

Scott then insinuates that English is no longer English in this globalized world: rather, it should be referred to as “Globish” as there are many international versions of it. Additionally, he regrets the complacent monolingualism of anglophone students compared with the confident bilingualism of other students, who are also highly skilled in their fields. Further, the open source publishing movement, being freer, will promote other languages, Scott believes, bypassing the traditional “gatekeepers” of international science publishing. He sees a bias towards Anglophone universities in the global league tables, which may soon change in a more pluralist world, noting that Chinese dominance is not the only “alternative future”. The message is that one must be able to imagine other alternative futures: Anglophone universities must be prepared for a more inclusive world, not just encouraging other languages, but also appreciating other cultures.

Robert McCrum, a British novelist and editor, has drawn a convincing parallel between English as a lingua franca and Latin: “Globish may be … a global phenomenon, but, like Latin before it, is vulnerable to change and decay. It won't be global forever” (“Globish and Its Discontents”). We are living in a fast changing world. It would be interesting to see what the coming decades bring in terms of global language and culture.

More Banned Words

A couple of years ago, I blogged about “Banned Words” on the occasion of the official French ban of “Mademoiselle”, which was replaced with “Madame” for all. Among the reasons some words are being banned across the world are sensitivities regarding gender, race, and religion, as well as national pride. This month, it has been reported that Saudi Arabia has banned fifty names, so it is time for an update on this subject.

In an article entitled “Saudi Arabia Bans 50 Baby Names”, Gulf News indicated that “The names fit into at least three categories: those that offend perceived religious sensibilities, those that are affiliated to royalty and those that are of non-Arabic or non-Islamic origin.” On the other hand, it remains a mystery why some others have been blacklisted: “A number of other names appear that do not necessarily fit into any category and it is therefore unclear as to why they would have been banned”. In any case, one of the banned names, “Al Mamlaka”, means “the kingdom”, so one can imagine why it might have been banned.

It isn’t just the Saudis who are banning words. The feminists are still at it as well. In The Guardian’s Women in Leadership section, Harriet Minter reports on the “#banbossy campaign” (“Open Thread: If We're Banning Bossy, Which Other Words Need a Rebrand?”). Started by Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, and author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, the campaign aims at removing the word from our lexicons because it is offensive when used to refer to women leaders: “…there's a sting that comes with being called bossy. A feeling that whilst you might be running the group nobody likes you for it and that's not something I'd wish on any child.” Minter rightly wonders what other words should also go, reflecting on the following examples: Aggressive. Ruthless. Ambitious. Forward. Go-getting.

She asks the reader to decide whether they see these as positive or negative adjectives, guessing that readers are probably influenced by whether they think they are applied to a man or a woman.

The author ends her article with the important question as to whether it is the words themselves that should go or the way we think about them: “So what would you ban? Or instead of banning words should we be campaigning for their acceptance?”

It is usually easier to remove a word than a mentality. Is that always the best solution though? I’ll let my readers think about it.

Uncertainty About Uncertainty

I recently gave a conference presentation on “Risk Control in the Blended Learning Environment”. My research showed that online teaching and learning were generally viewed as risky in many ways, including the following: possible student cheating; absence of face-to-face cues; retention issues (MOOCs currently serve as extreme examples); technical hurdles; reliance on doubtful or contradictory web sources; and lack of recognition. The problem, however, is that these risks have not been quantified properly, if at all. There is uncertainty about uncertainty. I recommended blended learning as a compromise between the perceived risks of online learning and the assumed safety of the traditional teaching/ learning environment. Yet even when risks are objectively quantified, as in the health field, there are individual and cultural differences in risk perception and uncertainty avoidance. There are also complications concerning definitions; for example, definitions of cheating may vary, and what may be an irrelevant source in one sense may be highly relevant in another.    

By chance this week I came across a Macmillan blog post by Liz Potter on different ways of expressing uncertainty in English (“Life Skills Tip of the Week: Ways of Expressing Uncertainty”). What a coincidence, I thought. It was only logical to connect this to my idea of uncertainty. Here are some ways of indicating uncertainty in English, as expressed by Potter, each with a slightly different pragmatic application. If you are uncertain about the difference between them, check the above site.

• perhaps/ maybe
• possibly/ probably
• apparently
• as far as I know
• to the best of my knowledge/ recollection/ belief
• not to my knowledge 
• I imagine/ suppose  

I hope all this makes sense - or perhaps not!

Unglamorous Grammar?

Most of the students I come across do not seem to consider grammar to be an exciting part of their learning though they do appear to realize its importance in their academic work, everyday correspondence, and future career prospects. Every year a number of current and former students ask me to check their language on various documents before they apply for jobs or graduate work. A student recently wrote a computer application and asked me to check it for grammar before he shared it online; it was a text-based application, so correctness was paramount.

It is time to bring back the glamour into grammar. In fact, etymologically the two words are related. Believe it or not, “grammar” is the precursor of “glamour”. Here is what the Oxford Dictionaries say about the origin of the word “glamour”:

Origin

early 18th century (originally Scots in the sense 'enchantment, magic'): alteration of grammar. Although grammar itself was not used in this sense, the Latin word grammatica (from which it derives) was often used in the Middle Ages to mean 'scholarship, learning', including the occult practices popularly associated with learning.

The Scottish online newspaper Caledonian Mercury confirms the origin of the word: “Glamour was originally a modified form of the word grammar. Grammar originally meant learning in general, rather than its modern sense, and it also referred to a knowledge of the occult or magic. Thus, grammar and glamour were both caught up in witchcraft” (“Useful Scots Word: Glamour”).

It is interesting to note a connection between magic and learning. The association between learning and power has traditionally been more salient, as in Francis Bacon’s “Knowledge is power”. Yet students need to realize the magic of grammar. Since it can enchant or disenchant readers, it can transform people’s lives. In “information literacy”, grammar is one of the criteria used in judging the credibility of a source!

Mind you, it is not only students that need guidance in grammar. Faculty members and non-teaching staff can also benefit from polishing it up as indicated in The Huffington Post article “Why Grammar Is Important” by William Bradshaw, author of The Big Ten of Grammar: Identifying and Fixing the Ten Most Frequent Grammatical Errors. Bradshaw reminds us that effective grammar gives leaders an advantage and that correct grammar is the basis of clear, effective communication: “… the better the grammar, the clearer the message, the more likelihood of understanding the message's intent and meaning. That is what communication is all about.” The author interestingly notes that non-native learners of English often have better knowledge of grammar than native speakers: “For those of us who have had international students in our classrooms, although they usually speak with a noticeable accent, their knowledge of English grammar is frequently superior to that of our own students.” A British Council source has made a similar observation:

Isn't there any difference between “knowing grammar” and “knowing about grammar”? In fact, there is a difference as “knowing grammar” is a facility which developed when we were small children and “knowing about grammar” is a reflective process, i.e. to be able to describe what the rules are. It is not a secret that sometimes native speakers of English don’t know any grammar and foreigners speak more correctly than the natives. The native speakers often fail to describe their own grammar knowledge and it is either because they have not thought to do so or because of poor teaching methods. (“The Importance of Grammar”)

A couple of grammar sites that I have found particularly useful are Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl and the University of Northern Iowa’s Dr Grammar. On the other hand, research into the teaching of grammar and writing indicates that the former should preferably not be taught separately from the latter, out of context, but rather as part of the teaching of writing – and that the best way of improving students’ grammar is by relating it to their writing. After all, grammar without content can be pretty vacuous. Still, without grammar, where are real success and glamour?

The Selfish “Selfie”?

Different dictionaries have identified different choices as “Word of the Year” for 2013. Merriam Webster, America’s leading dictionary publisher, has announced its top ten words of the year based on the top look-ups in its online dictionary, Merriam-webster.com. The words are quite mundane: “science”, “cognitive”, “rapport”, “communication”, “niche”, etc. More interesting is the Collins Word of the Year - “geek”, not in the old sense of a boring unsociable nerd, but in the new sense of “a person who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic about a specific subject” (a little broader than the 2003 definition focusing on a preoccupation with computing). The evolution of this word shows just how fluid the language is – how fast it is evolving.

For Dictionary.com, the Word of the Year is an old word with growing importance: “privacy”! From airport body scanners to global spying and corporations accessing user data, privacy has become a huge concern globally, triggering an open letter by fifty prominent writers urging the United Nations to establish an international bill of digital rights.

Most interestingly, according to the Oxford Dictionaries Online Blog, “selfie” is the word of the year, reminding us that “A picture can paint a thousand words”. While the word is not very new, having been “on the radar” for quite a while, it became popular in 2013. Besides, as the blog notes, “It seems like everyone who is anyone has posted a selfie somewhere on the Internet. If it is good enough for the Obamas or The Pope, then it is good enough for Word of the Year.” The dictionary blog notes that while self-portraits are not new historically, technology has made them much easier; the word was first spotted on an Australian online forum in 2002, after which it gradually gained some currency on social networking forums such as Flickr and MySpace before becoming most prominent in the last year or two. The blog also points out a promising feature of the word – its linguistic productivity; take for instance “helfie” (a picture of one’s hair), “welfie” (a workout selfie) and drelfie (a drunken selfie).

I wish my readers a successful new year, with lots of selfies, welfies, etc. After all, selfies are not necessarily as selfish as they sound!