LAUD 2016: Learning to Translate Linguistic Landscape

transcript

Learning to TranslateLinguistic Landscape

David MalinowskiYale University

Center for Language Studydavid.malinowski@yale.edu

TW: @tildenskyThis talk: http://bit.ly/LAUD2016

LAUD SymposiumLandau, Germany April 6, 2016

“Wel

What German word belongs on the white sign?

(How) Would you express this in another language?

Working with a(nother) German-reading partner, discuss: 1. Have you seen this or similar stickers anywhere else? 2. What do you take this sticker, across from the

Parkhotel, to mean? Who posted it, and why? 3. Does the message translate to another language or

variety of German that you speak? Why or why not? 4. Think of a sticker or other way that you’d like to

respond to this sticker, and post it here: http://bit.ly/LAUD2016

Translationholds particular promise, both as an approach for language learning and teaching in the linguistic landscape

&more broadly, as a figure or heuristic through which linguistic landscape researchers-as-practitioners think about what it is we do, and why, and how

My argument today:

Translation?Why not translanguaging?Codemeshing?or metrolingual multitasking?

Taking the perspective of a language learner...

Dongdaemun, Seoul, 1994 – my ‘first sign’ as a Korean learner

trees/bushes obj. Let’s love

Language learning & teaching in the LL

ACTFL National Standards for Foreign Language Education

CommunicationCulturesConnectionsComparisonsCommunities

linguisticpragmaticinterculturalmultimodal, multiliteratesymbolic, critical, participatory

LL as opportunity to cultivate

many competences

• Burwell, C. & Lenters, K. 2015. Word on the street: Investigating linguistic landscapes with urban Canadian youth.

• Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2008). The linguistic landscape as an additional source of input in SLA.

• Chern, C. -l., & Dooley, K. (2014). Learning English by walking down the street.

• Chesnut, M., Lee, V. & Schulte, J. (2013). The language lessons around us: Undergraduate English pedagogy and linguistic landscape research

• Dagenais, D. et al. (2009). Linguistic landscape and language awareness. • Malinowski, D. (2015). Opening spaces of learning in the linguistic

landscape.• Rowland, L. (2012). The pedagogical benefits of a linguistic landscape

project in Japan. • Sayer, P. (2009). Using the Linguistic Landscape as a Pedagogical

Resource.

Language learning & teaching in the LL

Possible activities in and with the LL

• Walking, observation, note-taking • Photography, street recordings • Recorded interviews • Classroom & online discussions, activities • Neighborhood descriptions & drawings• Mapping • Writing, blogging • Classroom and/or community-based art projects,

exhibits, installations• Civic events, protests • Publication

is “…a living, moving activity, not a dead one to be pinned down in a museum. It is this dynamism which can make it so interesting and so stimulating, not only to linguists and translators, but to teachers and students too.”

(Guy Cook, 2010, p. xix)

Translationin Language Teaching

Returning to my argument today:

Today: Exploring “&points” for translationSuggestion Instigation Response

1. Translation as revealing / /faultlines

Miller (1992), “Translation as the double production of texts”

Reading faultlines in Nash (2016), “Is linguistic landscape necessary?”

2. Translation as responsibility and response

Robinson (1997), What is translation?

‘Translating’ LL methods to L2 pedagogy

3. Translation as public action and activation

Venuti (1995), The translator’s invisibility

“Translate New Haven” project introduction

1. Translation as revealing / / faultlines

Instigation from translation studies:

Joseph Hillis Miller (1992), “Translation as the double production of texts”. In Kramsch & McConnell-Ginet (eds.), Text and context: Cross-disciplinary perspectives. D.C. Heath.

“A different translation produces a different original, by emphasizing different faultlines in the original, that is, by traducing the original in one way rather than another. The original is led out into the open where the translator is obliged to see hitherto hidden features.”

H. Miller, 1992, p. 124

Response: Reading (‘target text’/LL) faultlines in a ‘translating’ text

Joshua Nash, 2016. “Is linguistic landscape necessary?” Landscape Research, 41(3)

1. What is the responsibility of linguistic landscape research to landscape (studies and other bordering fields)?

2. What is unique or valuable about the knowledge (theory, method, practice) that LL affords vis-a-vis its neighbors?

3. What are the affordances, limitations, and ideologies of the visual mode—and the medium of the digital image—for the representation and interpretation of data, phenomena of interest?

4. (Meta-level): What is to be gained from ‘translating’ the concerns, frameworks, methods, and practices of one field to another?

Questions for LL revealed by ‘translations’ like Nash’s

2. Translation as responsibility/response

Instigations from translation studies:

Douglas Robinson, 1997. What is translation?: Centrifugal theories, critical interventions. Kent State UP

Theo Hermans, 2009. “Translation, ethics, politics”. In Munday (ed.), The Routledge companion to translation studies.

“Source text” “Target text”Word-for-word?

Sense-for-sense?

g e T a r g e t l a n g u a g e

(s) Reader(s)

Translator(s)

"translation, enmeshed as it is in social and ideological structures, cannot be thought of as a transparent, neutral or innocent philological activity"

Hermans, 2009, p. 95

Response: ‘Translating’ LL methods to L2 pedagogy

Henri Lefebvre’s The production of space (1991) pushing innovation in LL methodologies

Trumper-Hecht (2010) analysis of Arab and Jewish walkers’ perceptions of Arabic & Hebrew in Upper Nazareth

1) Investigation of official policy2) Documentation of LL as visible to

the researcher, and reading 1) in light of 2)

3) Surveys and interviews with everyday residents, reading 1) and 2) in light of 3)

Henri Lefebvre’s The production of space (1991) pushing innovation in LL methodologies

Through juxtaposition of conceived, perceived, and lived spaces, “[add] a third dimension to linguistic landscape studies” (Trumper-Hecht, 2010, p. 236).

Lefebvre Trumper-Hecht L2 teachers’ workshops

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate… • contextualizing • historicizing• mapping• categorizing…and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate… • observation • listening• sensing• recording …and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate drawing, imagining, interviewing, designing, storytelling, creating, protesting, enacting, etc……and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate… • observation • listening• sensing• recording …and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Think of tools and techniques to facilitate… • contextualizing • historicizing• mapping• categorizing…and discussing, debating, representing, sharing these

Example: Reading boundaries in your city

Workshops and walking tours with Yale language instructors

NEXT WEEK (11 March 2016): Street Signs and Linguistic Landscapes

By Wednesday, March 9th at 5:59 pm (Paris 23h59), each student should post a photograph of a sign from your neighborhood that you find culturally interesting and that will provoke discussion. You should post this on http://padlet.com/wall/xxxxxxxxx. Padlet is very easy; no need to sign up. Just click on the screen and you can drag/import a picture. Put a caption on it, as well as your name. (Click on the question mark on the side for more info about how to do it.) If you have trouble with this, email your picture to me at xxxxxxxxx@yale.edu and I will post it for you.

Activity prompt to prep for 2-on-2 Skype conversation

C. Skorupa, Yale-Télécom Paris French/English telecollaboration

R. Llopis-García, ÑYC Twitter project (#1202spn)

3. Translation as public action/activation

Instigation from translation studies:

Lawrence Venuti, 1995. The translator’s invisibility: A history of translation. Routledge.

"A translated text should be the site where a different culture emerges, where a reader gets a glimpse of a cultural other”

Venuti, 1995, p. 306

Response: Translate the City

3. Translation as public action/activationfrom Translate New Haven project overviewTranslate New Haven is a new initiative in applied language studies at Yale and in the city of New Haven, aiming to imagine and visualize a more multilingual New Haven through translation, discussion, and collaborative “deep mapping” of language in public spaces. The project builds upon the idea of linguistic landscape where, everyday, people see with their own eyes “what languages are prominent and valued” by their society, and take in silent lessons about “the social positioning of people who identify with particular languages” (quotes from Dagenais et al., 2009)

Church Street, New Haven

Church Street, New Haven?

Are “no loitering” and “no se permite vagabundos” semantically equivalent? Pragmatically? Legally? What other ways could this message be expressed? (in either/both English or/and Spanish, or others?) How do ‘walkers’ near this bank read this notice, feel in the neighborhood?

What does “authorization” mean, and who counts as “authorized personnel” and “their guests” in terms of social relationships? How might these be expressed (or not) in other languages, other geo-cultural locales in translating this sign? (can you find parallel/contrasting examples in other places?

Sample activity prompt: Translate Your CityThe language(s) you see and hear around you in public places convey powerful messages about what histories, cultures, and identities are valued right where you are. Yet things didn’t and don’t necessarily have to look and sound the way they do now. What would your building, your neighborhood, or your city look, sound, and feel like if things were expressed differently, in the language you’re learning? (and are there any limits beyond which it’s hard to imagine?)

Pick a place, a theme, a kind of text, or some elements of the linguistic landscape that you might like to change or create anew, and:

• Tweet or Instagram your ideas for translating signs, marking spaces, or otherwise transforming a locale. Translations don’t have to be ‘correct’. And you can use your posts as spaces for commenting, remembering, imagining, exploring or thinking out loud—all this is part of the larger process of translation. When possible, use geo-referenced hashtags like #translateNHV (“translate”+city code) to make your posts findable, and add your location (see this page for Twitter).

• Design a larger translation project like a mural or other artistic reimagining of a place, a map or visitor’s guide in the language you’re learning, a blog or website to chronicle your explorations, or…

3. Translation as public action/activationTranslate New Haven project updates at:

http://davidmalinowski.info/translate-new-haven/

To be mirrored from http://cls.yale.edu

My argument today:

Thank you

LAUD SymposiumLandau, Germany April 6, 2016

David MalinowskiYale University

Center for Language Studydavid.malinowski@yale.edu

TW: @tildenskyThis talk: http://bit.ly/LAUD2016

And special thanks to: Candace Skorupa & students, Yale UniversityReyes Llopis-García & students, Columbia University