Т.В. Артеменко, Е.В. Кривощекова, Е.В. Кравченко, Н.Е. Николаева - Reader in Language and Culture (1098538), страница 7
Текст из файла (страница 7)
But have you ever1stopped a moment to wonder what people in other countries call it? In just thelast few years, use of it has spread quickly all around the globe, making itnecessary for people everywhere to find something to call it.Fortunately someone has put a lot of effort into asking speakers of a great2many languages what they call `@' and it is fascinating to see what colorfulinventiveness the naming of this symbol has called forth. When you read thefollowing discussion, remember that `@' has become a daily fact of life formany of us so quickly that most languages (not excepting English!) haven't hadtime yet to settle on one single name.
That's why some languages appear two orthree times.You'll hardly be surprised to hear that some languages simply use theEnglish word `at', usually with some modification in pronunciation. Forinstance Arabic, Chinese, Farsi (Iran), Finnish, Greek, Indonesian, Japanese,Hebrew, Norwegian.336We first get a real multi-cultural experience, though, when we see how4many languages use a name expressing something about how people see theSHAPE of the symbol. In some countries, it's seen as resembling an ear.Speakers of Swedish prefer to see an elephant's ear.
In Turkish they see the roseflower.But most people around the world see an ANIMAL in it, and here it's5amusing to note which animals are seen, and tempting to speculate as to why.Let's look at a few. Turkish is the only language in which people call it a horse,not because anybody thinks it looks like one but simply because of thecoincidence that the animal is called at in their language. In Russian it's oftencalled sobachka `little dog'.Cultures - especially neighbors of each other - have always borrowedartefacts back and forth, and usually either the name is borrowed along with it,some existing word is broadened, or a new one is invented. In the past this slowassimilation and `naturalization' of words often took centuries, but bycomparison the `@' symbol has been borrowed around the whole world atlightning speed.
So we have a front-row seat to watch name-giving while it isstill going on, with no time at all for the normal slow cultural diffusion.Comprehension questions:1. What do people in different countries call ‘@’?2. What does the shape of this symbol remind them of?Tasks for discussion:Can you think of other international symbols which are calleddifferently in different cultures?637IS ‘PIDGIN ENGLISH’ JUST A MAKESHIFT?Let's consider for a moment what a pidgin language is. For starters, the1name probably has nothing to do with the bird. It's most likely `business' aspronounced by speakers of languages who couldn't wrap their tongues aroundour word.
So we'll assume it's `Business English'. Many peoples around theworld regularly use a modified form of English to each other when they don'tspeak each other's language and need to get some basic trading done.Here's what a couple of simple sentences in Pidgin English look like.2We'll write the sample three ways: (1) as this particular language iscustomarily written, (2) as the words would look if spelled in standardEnglish, and (3) a translation of it.(1) Long moningtaim Dogare i kirap long slip na i baim bas i go long3taun bilong painim wok. Em i raun i stap na i kamap long opis bilongwanpela kampani masta.(2) Along morning-time Dogare he get-up along sleep and he buy'im4bus he go along town belong find'im work.
Him he round he stop and hecome-up along office belong one-fella company master.(3) In the morning Dogare woke up and caught the bus to town to5look for work. He walked around and arrived at the office of the manager ofa company.There are two reasons why the sentences in italics look so alien to us. Oneis simply that the pidgin is spelled phonetically, following the ways thespeakers of these unrelated languages pronounce the English words.
Forinstance, pain `find', pela `fella' and opis `office' show that the speakers haveno sound `f' in their own languages, so they hear a `p' as the closest thing toit. The other and more interesting reason is that our familiar Englishgrammatical patterns are only partially being followed. The English languageis here being extensively modified to feel more comfortable to the speakersof the languages using it for communication - not with us but among638themselves.The Pidgin English illustrated above is the one known as Tok Pisin (are7you ready to guess which two English words those are?).
It is widely spokenin Papua New Guinea, a country that is home to hundreds of mutuallyunintelligible languages, none of which dominates. It is a popular notionamong us that pidgins are corrupted and rudimentary English, hardly abovethe gesture-and-grunt level. But they’re not primitive or lazily usedlanguages. They are creative and have evolved a complex set of phonetic andgrammatical rules of their own.
Tok Pisin, for instance, has a highlydeveloped and standardized vocabulary and grammar, and allows its speakersthe full range of expression that any language does. Today it is extensivelyused in press and broadcast media.Did you know that there are dozens of English-based pidgins all around8the world? They are most common in three areas: Melanesia (centered on thelarge island of New Guinea in the South Pacific), the coastal region of WestAfrica, and the West Indies. English is by no means the only widely-spokenlanguage that has provided the basis for a pidgin. Spanish, Portuguese,French, Arabic, Swahili and Malay have all served this purpose.You might be about to ask “What's the difference between a pidgin and acreole language?” Occasionally it happens that a pidgin language proves soeffective that it gradually edges out the native languages of the speakers, anditself becomes their dominant and most fluent language - and eventually theironly one.
When a language has evolved in this way, we no longer call it a`pidgin' but instead a `creolized language' or simply a `creole'. Tok Pisin isalready beginning to become a creole, the native language of some of itsspeakers. But the best-known one is probably Creole French, the standardlanguage of Haiti. It is French as modified by people who were originallyspeakers of African languages. In fact, the entire Caribbean area was settledin relatively recent times by populations brought in from elsewhere, whosearrival overwhelmed the original Indian peoples.
It has been said that there is939hardly any Caribbean island that is not home to some pidgin or creolelanguage.All this shows once again the irresistible strength of our urge to10communicate with each other, across all language barriers. Since we have noway of knowing the scale of pidginization and creolization in the past, thismay even be one of the ways in which languages came into being.Comprehension questions:1.When and why do pidgin languages appear?2.What language is spoken in Papua New Guinea? Is it just acorrupted and rudimentary English?3.What is the difference between a pidgin and a creolelanguage?LITERACY LEVEL FALLINGAt the turn of the century, literacy levels were understandably low.1Extreme poverty and a lack of free educational facilities meant that only thoseborn into families who were sufficiently wealthy and sufficiently concerned,received any sort of an education.
Fortunately, there were those who believedthat the alleviation of illiterасу and ignorance was the only effective way tocombat poverty and various other associated social ills. They campaigned tochange attitudes, and consequently legislation, in the hope that eventually everyone, regardless of social and financial status, would have the right to aneducation, be it ever so rudimentary, even in times of national crisis like theSecond World War. Taking all this into consideration, how is it then that todaywhen education is compulsory until the age of sixteen, literacy levels are onceagain falling?2A fundamental factor is the lack of government spending on education.40The scholastic system has become like a vast and complex machine and, like apiece of machinery, needs to be regularly oiled and constantly maintained.However, lack of funding has made this task impossible.
Unable to afford theyearly salary expenditure, local authorities have forced schools to reduce theirquotas of teachers and, as a result, classes have grown in size and overcrowding is the norm. Textbooks are either antiquated or scarce, and students end upusing inadequate materials, sharing books or doing without. It may be arguedthat these factors are not sufficient in themselves to render students completelyilliterate but they very definitely play a part for example in discouraging lowability students and enabling individuals to leave school having received onlya very basic and sketchy education.Accompanying the problem of reduction in funding levels is the3problem of city growth. As the sizes of our cities grow, so does theconcentration of students attending existing schools.
In inner city areas,overworked teachers in increasingly overcrowded classrooms simply do nothave the facilities nor the time to devote to individual students. As a result,more and more "problem" students are being allowed to slip though the net.The term "problem" students are a broad one and one which may includeschool-refuses, ' those individuals from one-parent or "problem" families,those who have learning difficulties - the list is endless. The withdrawal or reduction of funding means that cutbacks must be made within schools and, as itis obvious that they cannot be made within the mainstream structure, they mustoccur in the "optional extras" departments, which are the domain of the specialneeds teachers.
The axing of these departments obviously has seriousconsequences for those children who simply cannot cope within the normalteaching structure. Their particular problems ignored, these children eitherlapse into apathy, become disruptive or simply stop attending - all of whichobviously retards their education and may result in low or negligible levels ofliteracy.A final factor contributing to the decline and fall of literacy, but one,441which may be worth considering, is the fact that we are living in thetechnological age. In terms of entertainment and communication, people arehaving to rely less and less on their own resources and efforts to maintain anormal social existence.
Video, multi-channel television systems andsophisticated computer games have invaded our homes and are rapidlybecoming part of the everyday fabric of life, taking away the necessity toindulge in activities requiring more imaginative effort. Why struggle with anovel when you can watch a film? Why write to a friend and wait for a replywhen an easily remembered sequence of numbers will magically enable you tospeak to them? Why indeed? Perhaps because, by not encouraging our childrento exercise basic skills, we are acquiescing in the decline of literacy.Comprehension questions:1. Why were literacy levels low at the turn of the previous century?Why are they once again falling now?2.
![](https://s.studizba.com/z.php?f=/templates/si/i/noavatar.png&w=100&h=100&t=1"){kind=avatar}
