Minorities & Multilingualism | Frisian

This study investigates children's explicit and implicit language attitudes in a highly diverse primary education. Set in the bilingual province of Fryslân, the Netherlands, the current research was carried out in the scope of the 3M-project ('More opportunities with multilingualism': Duarte & Günther-van der Meij, 2018a. A holistic model for multilingualism in education.

En este trabajo argumentaremos por qué creemos erróneo afirmar que los príncipes de Inglaterra hablan Cockney.  Trataremos la homogeneización dialectal en las islas británicas (especialmente en Inglaterra), y presentaremos los principales  cambios que están teniendo lugar en el RP o Received  Pronunciation, también conocido como el inglés de la reina, el inglés de la BBC o el inglés de Oxford.

(Translation into English of the paper in Spanish: ¿Los príncipes de Inglaterra hablan Cockney? Cambios actuales en el RP)

In this project we defend why we deem it misleading to state that the Princes of England speak Cockney. We will tackle dialect levelling in the British Isles (especially in England), and we will introduce the main changes which are occurring in RP or Received Pronunciation, also known as the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English.

En este trabajo analizaremos la diversidad lingüística de Europa occidental y el estatus de las lenguas minorizadas que podemos encontrar. Comentaremos, también, el papel que creemos que debería desempeñar la Unión Europea para proteger esta diversidad.

España, mal les pese a algunos, es un país multilingüe donde se hablan nueve lenguas (sin contar, obviamente, todas las lenguas de los inmigrantes). En este trabajo presentaremos brevemente estas nueve lenguas y comentaremos su situación sociolingüística.

Dans ce travail, nous comparerons deux langues qui sont très proches l'une de l'autre (le catalan et le français). Malgré leurs similitudes évidentes, il y a beaucoup de divergences entre elles. Nous analyserons quelques aspects de leur phonologie, de leur grammaire, de leur syntaxe et de leur lexique.

En este artículo 1 , Susan Foster-Cohen nos propone reinterpretar los estudios sobre el papel de la pragmática en la adquisición del lenguaje, usando la Teoría de la Relevancia como nuevo marco. A su entender, la Teoría de la Relevancia puede ayudarnos a entender observaciones que antes nos habían parecido contradictorias, o que no habíamos sido capaces de explicar de manera satisfactoria.

En este artículo 1 , Pelegrí Sancho Cremades realza la importancia del lenguaje visual, cada vez más omnipresente en nuestra vida diaria. Las imágenes están presentes por doquier y son usadas constantemente más allá de lo estético, con un claro propósito comunicativo. Sin embargo, a pesar de la ubicuidad del lenguaje visual en nuestra sociedad, este no recibe la misma atención que el lenguaje verbal. La educación occidental prioriza casi exclusivamente el lenguaje verbalparticularmente, el lenguaje escrito. Se centran los esfuerzos en el desarrollo de la competencia lingüística, olvidándonos por completo de la competencia visual. En palabras del mismo autor, la

El color es la vida, pues un mundo sin color parece muerto. Los colores son las ideas originales, los hijos de la luz y de la sombra, ambas incoloras en el principio del mundo. Si la llama engendra la luz, la luz engendra los colores. Los colores provienen de la luz y la luz es la madre de los colores. La luz, fenómeno fundamental del mundo, nos revela a través de los colores el alma viva de este mundo.

All literature reflects existing discourse in a given community. Translation, as a process of rewriting texts, is a readily accessible tool which linguistic minorities can use to shift power dynamics in their society or, at least, suggest new paradigms and new discourses. Through translation, speakers of minority languages have access to a whole new array of texts and tools in their own language. All kinds of materials —novels, films, webpages, apps, social networks...— can be translated into any indigenous/minority language and used for teaching, learning or entertainment. At the same time, the language gets exposed to new expressions, new settings, new cultures and new usages which enrich the language. All this 'newness' often triggers discussions on standardization and language planning.
In this paper, the following issues will be dealt with: standardization —with special emphasis on the creation of new registers and neologisms—, choice of texts to translate, target audience of our translations, diglossia, actual bilingualism and translation among minority languages.


Location: First International Conference on Revitalization of Indigenous and Minority Languages - Barcelona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universitat de Vic and University of Indiana)

Conference dates: 19/04/2017-21/04/2017

Prezi used at the conference: https://prezi.com/mrdixqzwhpp0/the-role-of-translation-in-revitalization/

Translation into minority languages, amongst other advantages, helps us speakers break free from our serfdom towards the models imposed by the dominant language. It allows us to shape our own language and separate it from alien models which have often been, be it imposition or custom, the basis for our literature. It is true, however, that all translation juggles both the literary tradition of the target language and that of the source language (which is, by definition, alien to the target culture). Therefore, the result of translation is a confluence of the two cultures involved. This ambivalence enriches the literary tradition of all target languages by importing new models. We would like to quote Xabier Mendiguren, well-known Basque translator, praising the role of translation in the revitalization of the Basque language: «Translation is constantly widening the linguistic horizons of our own language, revitalizing it, by means of the creation of new words and exerting a constant influence on its grammatical and semantical structures, while serving as a vehicle for new stylistic models. In short, from being viewed as the Trojan horse of a suspicious —even deleterious— exocentrism, translation has come to be progressively valued as a tool for linguistic and conceptual enrichment. In our case, not only has translation been tightly linked to revitalization, but it has also become the symbol of its modernization, both inspiring numerous works of lexical re-structuration and developing totally new registers and discourses» (Mendiguren, 1993).

Location: CoLang 2016 (Institute for Collaborative Language Research), at University of Alaska Fairbanks

Dates: June 2016

Different research —in the case of Basque, Barambones 2012 is a clear example— confirms that translations are usually more loyal to the standard language, showing more formal vocabulary and much stricter syntactic structures. Calques and loan words are often avoided too. This often makes them come across as unauthentic, as unreal, and speakers feel alienated from this language. Originals, on the other hand, usually contain all kinds of linguistic interference —especially from the dominant language— and, even though this is more easily accepted by speakers —and originals are therefore better received than translations—, they contribute to spreading the influence of the dominant language.
Consequently, it would be ideal to establish an intermediate model, one which would avoid not only unnecessary foreign interference, but also fossilizing purism. Language planning must help preserve the language, but it should not intend to keep it from evolving. Rather, it should provide the language and the speakers with the necessary tools for genuine evolution. It is the job of both translators and writers to create a colloquial register for the language, far from blatant loan words, but also from puritan vocabulary, and spread it amongst the readers. It is clear to us that the indiscriminate use of loan words in original works cannot be accepted while they are strictly forbidden from translation.

Location: 4th International Conference Sustainable Multilingualism 2017 (Vytautas Magnus University, in Kaunas, Lithuania).

Conference dates: 26-27 May 2017

Bilingualism —multilingualism— presents an additional difficulty when it comes to translating from or into minority languages. Translation, as a process between two languages, does not have a bilingual result. A translation into, say, Catalan must be in Catalan, without Spanish interference. This, in turn, adds to the oddness of the result. This pure translation is viewed as alien by a big portion of potential readers. We are not claiming some languages do not have a colloquial register, on the contrary, but for minority languages this tends to be linked to rural areas, and it is somehow strange to make an urban character use it —thus contributing to the linguistic disorientation of the translation.

Location: 16th International Conference on Minority Languages in Jyväskylä and Närples: Revaluing minority languages (Finland)

Conference dates: 28-30 August 2017

In the European Union there are about 74 Minority Languages, only 15 of which have over 1million speakers and 11 of which have fewer than 1.000 speakers. In total, there are approximately 64.300.000 speakers of minority languages in the European Union —without taking into account
the languages of immigrants. Of these languages, only Irish and Maltese are official languages of the Union, and only Catalan has a reasonably strong presence on the Internet —with, for example, over 539,000 articles in Wikipedia and being the 19th most used language on Twitter (Mocanu, D. et al. 2013).

And yet, most language activists and most scholars would agree that presence on the Internet is key for the survival of any language. As Soria (2016) argues «a language's digital presence is of the utmost importance to be perceived as fitting the needs of the modern world». Digital presence is, therefore, essential for many varied reasons, among which:
– It helps raise awareness of linguistic diversity among the wider public
– It helps create a positive image of the Minority Language, by associating it with modern life
– It encourages people to use the language outside formal settings (i.e., classrooms)
– It narrows the digital language divide
– It helps speakers to feel proud of their language and their identity, which in turn helps boost confidence to use the language elsewhere.

This presentation aims to highlight the importance of making Minority Languages visible on the Internet through the experience of Europe Minority Languages. This started as a one-man blog (www.europeminoritylanguages.wordpress.com) which later expanded with a Twitter account and, recently, a Facebook profile. The blog contains information on many minority languages spoken throughout the continent of Europe —we have got some information on 84 languages—, and its goal is to make the information available on the net as readily accessible as possible. We are now expanding and trying to recruit volunteers from different backgrounds —especially native speakers of minority languages— to improve our content.

Location: Enganged Humanities: preserving and revitalizing endangered languages and cultural heritage.

Conference dates: 15-16 November 2017

All literature reflects existing discourse in a given community, and translation —as a process of rewriting texts— is a readily accessible tool which linguistic minorities can use to shift power dynamics in their society or, at least, suggest new paradigms and new discourses. In this paper we analyze the key role which translation plays in the cultural systems of minority languages and how translation helps revitalize these languages. The aim of the paper is to defend this key role of translation in the revitalization processes of all minority languages and, at the same time, to highlight the main obstacles one may come across and to try and establish some basic guidelines which may be applied throughout all these processes to maximize their results. Therefore, this paper deals with language standardization, language planning, choice of texts to translate, source languages of the translations, target audience of the translations, diglossia, actual bilingualism, language orientation in translations and the dichotomy between originals written in the language and translations. In order to do so, we will first picture the theoretical frame upon which this paper is based and we will go on to discuss translation into Basque. Finally, we will establish a set of guidelines for other minority languages.

Full article: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/sm.2017.10.issue-1/sm-2017-0002/sm-2017-0002.xml?format=INT

A brief review of the concepts of bilingualism, foreign language teaching, interlanguage and language transfer.

Extracted from the MA Thesis: Belmar, G. (2017). The Acquisition of English Phonology in EFL Students: The Case of Spanish-Catalan Bilinguals (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia)

Brief introduction to the main differences between the three existing orthographies for the Aragonese language and the identities they may portray.

Talk initially intended for CoLang 2016 (Institute for Collaborative Language Research), at University of Alaska Fairbanks Dates: June 2016; which due to a lack of time just became a topic discussion during part of a workshop.