#linguistics studies

[shaelikestostudy]

Linguistics Note: Common Misconceptions About Languages and Introduction to Linguistics

I just started studying linguistics maybe a few weeks ago, and I've found I really enjoy it. I decided it would be a highlight in my studies since it has to do a lot with language learning.

But first of all, what is linguistics? It's the study of language.

Most of the times when someone looks at language, they have a lot of misconceptions.

Many of these I figured out on my own through learning a language myself, but it was interesting to find out how many misconceptions there are.

There are two main types of linguistics: the study of use and the study of structure.

There are also sub-fields to linguistics:

Pragmatics: How language is used to communicate within context.

Which uses: Implicatures (the implied message as per the context) and Paul Grice's Four Maxims. The four Maxims are the Maxim of Quality (giving correct information), the Maxim of Quantity (giving the appropriate amount of information), the Maxim of Relation (keeping comments relative to the situation), and the Maxim of Manner (stating your comments as clearly as possible).

Phonetics: Speech studies regarding sound.

Phonology: Studies regarding sound systems.

Morphology: Studying the construction of words.

Syntax: Studying the construction of sentences.

Semantics: Studying the meaning behind speech.

Psycholinguistics: Interrelationship studies between language and cognition.

Neurolinguistics: Interrelationship studies between language and brain.

Sociolinguistics: Interrelationship studies between language and society.

Now back to misconceptions:

One very common misconception is languages with less words are more primitive, but they aren't.

Another one is those who speak in an educated manner don't think in an educated manner, but speech and education are two different things.

Furthermore, ancestry has little to do with your ability to pick up a language.

Another is that some languages are more complex and harder to learn than others, but the truth is any language can be hard or easy to learn depending on the speaker's background.

[hana-loves-bumblebees]

Every single person studying a language when they recognize the most basic word of the language in a text or a video

[frenchiepal]

23.08.24 i am currently enjoying my exam/term paper-free life by working too much, cleaning to de-stress and finally getting back into reading (bought piranesi by susanna clarke yesterday, very excited). my first master's semester is slowly approaching and the courses all look promising. also, looking forward to autumn!

🎧 - the wolf by siamés

[bookwyrminspiration]

if I asked very nicely would you all be willing to take a one minute anonymous survey for my linguistics class. if the answer is yes, please click here. thanks :)

(sharing for a better response size would also be very appreciated)

[nenelonomh]

languages study schedule

daily

write 1 or 2 sentences to sum up my day

learn 5 new words

listen to a song, watch a short video, conjugate a verb, read and attempt to say out loud a tongue twister, count from 1-100, sing the alphabet, read a page in a book, talk to my reflection, vocabulary flashcards (pick one)

weekly

watch a movie, episode, documentary or follow a cooking tutorial in the target language

grammar exercises

translate a short text

monthly

write an essay or report, on a chosen topic

[tragedykery]

I love you phonetics I love you descriptivism I love you minority languages I love you dialects I love you accents I love you suffixes and prefixes I love you fossil words I love you outdated letters and pronouns I love you etymology I love you preservation of endangered languages I love you visible remnants of the way a language used to be I love you linguistics

[anza-langblr]

接続詞（せつぞくし）

conjunctions - words that are used to link phrases together

情報を加える // Adding information：

しかも　besides そのうえ　moreover, on top of that さらに　moreover, on top of that そればかりか　not only that, but also... そればかりでなく　not only that, but also...

情報を対比する // Putting into contrast：

それに対して　in contrast 一方　whereas

他の可能性・選択肢を言う // Giving alternatives：

あるいは　or perhaps (presenting another possibility) それとも　or (presenting another option within a question)

結論を出す// Drawing a conclusion：

そのため　for that reason したがって　therefore そこで　for that reason (I went ahead and did...) すると　thereupon (having done that triggered sth. to happen) このように　with this (adjusting a conclusion to the arguments given beforehand) こうして　in this way

理由を言う // Giving a reason：

なぜなら...からだ　the reason is というのは...からだ　the reason is

逆説を表現する // Expressing a contradiction：

だが　however, yet, nevertheless (contradicting what one would have expected) ところが　even so (spilling a surprising truth) それなのに　despite this, still それでも　but still (despite a certain fact, nothing changes)

説明を補う // Amending one's explanation：

つまり　that is, in other words (saying the same thing using different words) いわば　so to speak (making a comparison) 要するに　to sum up, in short

説明を修正する // Revising one's explanation：

ただし　however (adding an exception to the information stated beforehand) ただ　only, however もっとも　however (obviating any expectations that might arise through the previous statement) なお　in addition, note that (adding supplementary information)

話題を変える // Changing the subject：

さて　well, now, then (common in business letters after the introductory sentence; is often ignored in tranlations) ところで　by the way

[amanufacturedheaven]

Rare Language Learning: Polari

If you have ever used the words:

- Naff

- Butch

- Camp

You have unknowingly been speaking the sociolect known as Polari, the language of queer people primarily used in the 30s to the 70s. Polari is now an endangered language, as labelled by the University of Cambridge

Something of note: Many resources out there imply (or state) that Polari was a language invented and used solely by white cis gay men, which is decidedly untrue. Many words of Polari come from drag culture, lesbians, and the Romani people and their language. The use of ‘the language of British gay men’ may be a more palatable title to the general public, but it is not to me. I did my best to curate a variety of resources, but unfortunately much of queer history has been lost many more decades than I’ve been alive, if you have any other resources for studying Polari I would love to read them, message me or leave a link in the replies.

Articles

Learn Polari, the Secret Language of the Gays ⚢ Out Magazine

Polari: The code language gay men used to survive ⚢ BBC

Polari and the Hidden History of Gay Seafarers ⚢ National Museums Liverpool

The Story of Polari, Britain’s Secret Gay Language ⚢ Fabulosa!

Polari People ⚢ Fabulosa!

Polari: a language born from prejudice ⚢ Englishpanish

The secretive gay language that gave LGBTQ people a voice ⚢ GAYTIMES

A brief history of Polari: the curious after-life of the dead language for gay men ⚢ The Conversation

Study Material

The Polari Bible ⚢ Internet Archive

Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang ⚢ Internet Archive

Sociolinguistics / Polari ⚢ StudySmarter

FlashCards ⚢ Quizlet

New Polari Translator ⚢ LingoJam

Polari: A sociohistorical study of the life and decline of a secret language. ⚢ Dissertation, University of Manchester

Polari: a language born from prejudice ⚢ Englishpanish

Simon Bowkett: a short blog in Polari for LGBT+ History Month ⚢ Civil Service LGBT+ Network

[typhlonectes]

[sysy-studyblr]

tuesday 23/07/2024

german! went over B2 grammar for recapping purposes since i never ended up writing notes! plus this is super helpful with reading comprehension

♫ sunburn - almost monday ♫

[lurkingteapot]

Every now and then I think about how subtitles (or dubs), and thus translation choices, shape our perception of the media we consume. It's so interesting. I'd wager anyone who speaks two (or more) languages knows the feeling of "yeah, that's what it literally translates to, but that's not what it means" or has answered a question like "how do you say _____ in (language)?" with "you don't, it's just … not a thing, we don't say that."

I've had my fair share of "[SHIP] are [married/soulmates/fated/FANCY TERM], it's text!" "[CHARACTER A] calls [CHARACTER B] [ENDEARMENT/NICKNAME], it's text!" and every time. Every time I'm just like. Do they though. Is it though. And a lot of the time, this means seeking out alternative translations, or translation meta from fluent or native speakers, or sometimes from language learners of the language the piece of media is originally in.

Why does it matter? Maybe it doesn't. To lots of people, it doesn't. People have different interests and priorities in fiction and the way they interact with it. It's great. It matters to me because back in the early 2000s, I had dial-up internet. Video or audio media that wasn't available through my local library very much wasn't available, but fanfiction was. So I started to read English language Gundam Wing fanfic before I ever had a chance to watch the show. When I did get around to watching Gundam Wing, it was the original Japanese dub. Some of the characters were almost unrecognisable to me, and first I doubted my Japanese language ability, then, after checking some bits with friends, I wondered why even my favourite writers, writers I knew to be consistent in other things, had made these characters seem so different … until I had the chance to watch the US-English dub a few years later. Going by that adaptation, the characterisation from all those stories suddenly made a lot more sense. And the thing is, that interpretation is also valid! They just took it a direction that was a larger leap for me to make.

Loose adaptations and very free translations have become less frequent since, or maybe my taste just hasn't led me their way, but the issue at the core is still a thing: Supernatural fandom got different nuances of endings for their show depending on the language they watched it in. CQL and MDZS fandom and the never-ending discussions about 知己 vs soulmate vs Other Options. A subset of VLD fans looking at a specific clip in all the different languages to see what was being said/implied in which dub, and how different translators interpreted the same English original line. The list is pretty much endless.

And that's … idk if it's fine, but it's what happens! A lot of the time, concepts -- expressed in language -- don't translate 1:1. The larger the cultural gap, the larger the gaps between the way concepts are expressed or understood also tend to be. Other times, there is a literal translation that works but isn't very idiomatic because there's a register mismatch or worse. And that's even before cultural assumptions come in. It's normal to have those. It's also important to remember that things like "thanks I hate it" as a sentiment of praise/affection, while the words translate literally quite easily, emphatically isn't easy to translate in the sense anglophone internet users the phrase.

Every translation is, at some level, a transformative work. Sometimes expressions or concepts or even single words simply don't have an exact equivalent in the target language and need to be interpreted at the translator's discretion, especially when going from a high-context/listener-responsible source language to a low-context/speaker-responsible target language (where high-context/listener responsible roughly means a large amount of contextual information can be omitted by the speaker because it's the listener's responsibility to infer it and ask for clarification if needed, and low-context/speaker-responsible roughly means a lot of information needs to be codified in speech, i.e. the speaker is responsible for providing sufficiently explicit context and will be blamed if it's lacking).

Is this a mouse or a rat? Guess based on context clues! High-context languages can and frequently do omit entire parts of speech that lower-context/speaker-responsible languages like English regard as essential, such as the grammatical subject of a sentence: the equivalent of "Go?" - "Go." does largely the same amount of heavy lifting as "is he/she/it/are you/they/we going?" - "yes, I am/he/she/it is/we/you/they are" in several listener-responsible languages, but tends to seem clumsy or incomplete in more speaker-responsible ones. This does NOT mean the listener-responsible language is clumsy. It's arguably more efficient! And reversely, saying "Are you going?" - "I am (going)" might seem unnecessarily convoluted and clumsy in a listener-responsible language. All depending on context.

This gets tricky both when the ambiguity of the missing subject of the sentence is clearly important (is speaker A asking "are you going" or "is she going"? wait until next chapter and find out!) AND when it's important that the translator assign an explicit subject in order for the sentence to make sense in the target language. For our example, depending on context, something like "are we all going?" - "yes" or "they going, too?" might work. Context!

As a consequence of this, sometimes, translation adds things – we gain things in translation, so to speak. Sometimes, it's because the target language needs the extra information (like the subject in the examples above), sometimes it's because the target language actually differentiates between mouse and rat even though the source language doesn't. However, because in most cases translators don't have access to the original authors, or even the original authors' agencies to ask for clarification (and in most cases wouldn't get paid for the time to put in this extra work even if they did), this kind of addition is almost always an interpretation. Sometimes made with a lot of certainty, sometimes it's more of a "fuck it, I've got to put something and hope it doesn't get proven wrong next episode/chapter/ten seasons down" (especially fun when you're working on a series that's in progress).

For the vast majority of cases, several translations are valid. Some may be more far-fetched than others, and there'll always be subjectivity to whether something was translated effectively, what "effectively" even means …

ANYWAY. I think my point is … how interesting, how cool is it that engaging with media in multiple languages will always yield multiple, often equally valid but just sliiiiightly different versions of that piece of media? And that I'd love more conversations about how, the second we (as folks who don't speak the material's original language) start picking the subtitle or dub wording apart for meta, we're basically working from a secondary source, and if we're doing due diligence, to which extent do we need to check there's nothing substantial being (literally) lost -- or added! -- in translation?

[frenchiepal]

study date at a friend's house 🪴

🎧 - watch what happens next by waterparks

[lazylittledragon]

You actually CAN use different words to muffle emotional effects! we've been making euphemisms for death for as long as we've had language, that's why we say things like "passed away". even the word "die" was an old Norse euphemism for the old English word "sweltan", which itself is a euphemism for the even older word "diegan". (I really agree with your post, the origin of using "unalive" is incredibly dystopian and censorship is awful, I just wanted to infodump about linguistics)

that's actually really cool!!!! thank you for sharing!!!

also anon i'm in a linguistics fixation right now so we shall have a summer wedding

[adhd-languages]

So if I’m speaking Spanish, and I need to say an English word — like a name, brand, website, etc — I say it like a Spanish speaker

However, I hear a lot of speakers drop into a very native English accent in the middle of a sentence to say “el Starbucks” and whatnot (I love hearing it. Just a random completely English-sounding word in a Spanish sentence)

So I’m wondering…

From my personal observations I think native bilinguals do this more, but I’m interested in more data. Feel free to reply or reblog for a more detailed answer!

(EDIT: sorry the poll is so confusing. “YES” means yes, you do the thing I described, changing your accent to a different one in the middle of a sentence)

[kiddokori]

his ass is NOT getting up for his 8am lecture

[oatsdiarie]

language, the building blocks of communication. how could i not want to learn it all?

ughhhh every script, every grammar structure, every word… i love it all so much.

the feeling of when you watch something you used to not understand? when you finally communicate your thoughts after struggling to get your words out? when you meet someone new? when you understand an untranslatable joke? when you learn one word then start seeing it everywhere? when your brain starts to hurt in the good way because its all so confusing? then months later down the line those things come to you like second nature… it’s incredible.

the human mind can do so so so much. why not learn it all? why not at least try?

even forgetting things, making mistakes, and getting embarrassed feels good at this point. it feels like it’s all part of the process.

:)