"Occupy" Wall Street

Occupying Word Street

October 14, 2011

By Ben Zimmer

The public protest over economic inequalities known as "Occupy Wall Street" has been going on nearly a month now, with the original demonstration in Manhattan's Financial District spreading to cities around the world. Thanks to the success of the movement, the lingo of the protesters has spread quickly, with the verb occupy in particular becoming a kind of rallying cry.

Occupy and occupation first became part of the language of protest in September 1920, when factory workers in Italy held strikes against working conditions. About 600,000 workers took control of the factories, and the movement was known in Italian as l'occupazione delle fabbriche, or "the occupation of the factories." The earliest evidence in the Oxford English Dictionary for the relevant senses of occupy ("to gain access to and remain in...without authority, as a form of protest") and occupation ("the action of occupying a work place, public building, etc., as a form of protest") come from reports of the 1920 Italy protests. Another term for protest-style occupation, the sit-in, has been in use since 1937, though it really took off in the '60s, along with such spin-offs as the teach-in and the be-in.

Occupy Wall Street has its origins in a call for action on July 13 by Adbusters Media Foundation, an anti-consumerist group of "culture jammers" based in Vancouver. "On September 17," the announcement read, "we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months." Adbusters made an explicit analogy to the protests of the Arab Spring, asking, "Are you ready for a Tahrir moment?" That's a reference to Cairo's Tahrir Square, the focal point of Egypt's anti-Mubarak protests. Another group involved with the planning of the September 17 protest dubbed it the U.S. Day of Rage.


As with many other grassroots movements these days, Occupy Wall Street got the word out via social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Meetup. On Twitter, the hashtag #occupywallstreet circulated in the leadup to September 17, often shortened to #ows. Protesters dug in for the long haul by taking over Zuccotti Park, a privately owned park not too far from Wall Street. (Zuccotti Park was originally known as Liberty Plaza Park, and the OWS crowd has tended to call it "Liberty Park.") As news spread of OWS, similar protests sprang up in other cities around the country, going by the labels Occupy Boston, Occupy Philly, and so forth. The website Occupy Together became a hub for coordinating the demonstrations in the U.S., while activists in cities around the world followed suit. Of course, there have also been parodies, like Occupy Sesame Street.

The demonstrators usually call themselves occupiers, though they've also been called occupants or even occupationistas. And with the growth of the movement, the verb occupy no longer requires "Wall Street" or any other object to follow it. About a week after the OWS demonstration began, in late September, people were already talking about "the Occupy protests" and "the Occupy movement." In a newspaper created for OWS, the Occupy Wall Street Journal, a list of "5 Things You Can Do Now" begins with #1: "Occupy! Bring instruments, food, blankets, bedding, rain gear, and your friends." To occupy can now be used as an intransitive verb meaning to take part in the Occupy protests. (Naturally, the hashtag #occupy has taken off on Twitter in recent weeks.)

Beyond the talismanic power of occupy, other words and phrases have become firmly linked to the movement. One popular slogan, "We are the 99%," began as a Tumblr feed with the message, "We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything." The "99 percenters" have been met by the "53 percenters," conservatives who instead focus on the 53 percent of households that pay federal income tax.

At the center of the action, in Zuccotti Park, the leaderless (and some would say message-less) protesters have developed their own terminology and practices for their experiment in "participatory democracy." At the OWS "general assembly," participants have overcome the ban on amplified sound by using what has been dubbed "the human microphone" or "the people's mic": after a speaker says a few words, those nearby repeat what was said in unison. Then those a bit further away repeat what the first group said, amplifying the message across the entire crowd. To register approval for a point under discussion, the occupiers use a hand-signal system that has been called "jazz hands" or "twinkling": those in agreement wave their hands with fingers pointed upward in silent applause. This hand-signal system has been used in the past by grassroots groups in Europe, such as Seeds for Change and Climate Camp.

As the protests continue to spread around the world (Occupy protests are scheduled to take place in 25 countries on October 15), the political impact becomes more profound, as does the linguistic impact. If the movement does have lasting consequences, we could be looking at occupy as a strong contender for the 2011 Word of the Year.

Update: You can hear more of my thoughts about the word occupy on the National Public Radio show "On the Media."

Source: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3001/?utm_source=rss

Analysis of 'lol'

David Mitchell talks about the modern use of the word 'lol'.

"I understand 'lol' to be, 'I acknowledge that you have made a joke and I wish to express my enjoyment of it'. and it's an excellent and compact way of saying it'.

American Slang and Language Change

That's So Mysto

What makes slang stick?

By Juliet LapidosPosted Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011, at 7:37 AM ET

Feeling nostalgic for a journalistic era I never experienced, I recently read Tom Wolfe's 1968 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I'd been warned that the New Journalists slathered their prose with slang, so I wasn't shocked to find nonstandard English on nearly every line: dig, trippy, groovy, grok, heads, hip, mysto and, of course, cool. This psychedelic time capsule led me to wonder about the relative stickiness of all these words—the omnipresence of cool versus the datedness of groovy and the dweeb cachet of grok, a Robert Heinlein coinage from Stranger in a Strange Land literally signifying to drink but implying profound understanding. Mysto, an abbreviation for mystical, seems to have fallen into disuse. It doesn't even have an Urban Dictionary entry.

There's no grand unified theory for why some slang terms live and others die. In fact, it's even worse than that: The very definition of slang is tenuous and clunky. Writing for the journal American Speech, Bethany Dumas and Jonathan Lighter argued in 1978 that slang must meet at least two of the following criteria: It lowers "the dignity of formal or serious speech or writing," it implies that the user is savvy (he knows what the word means, and knows people who know what it means), it sounds taboo in ordinary discourse (as in with adults or your superiors), and it replaces a conventional synonym. This characterization seems to open the door to words that most would not recognize as slang, including like in the quotative sense: "I was like … and he was like." It replaces a conventional synonym (said), and certainly lowers seriousness, but is probably better categorized as a tic.

At least it's widely agreed that young people, seeking to make a mark, are especially prone to generating such dignity-reducing terms. (The editor of The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Tom Dalzell, told me that "every generation comes up with a new word for a marijuana cigarette.") Oppressed people, criminals, and sports fans make significant contributions, too. There's also a consensus that most slang, like mysto, is ephemeral. Connie Eble, a linguist at the University of North Carolina, has been collecting slang from her students since the early 1970s. (She asks them to write down terms heard around campus.) In 1996, when she reviewed all the submissions she'd received, she found that more than half were only turned in once. While many words made it from one year to the next, only a tiny minority lasted a decade.

When asked for an example of an expression that fizzled out quickly, Eble cited "a dangling modifier," meaning a single earring. (As in, "you know that dude with the skateboard, the one with the dangling modifier?") Eble guesses that "dangling modifier" didn't survive because it was too clever. She also recalled that, in the 1970s and 1980s, she encountered a slew of drunkenness-related phrases that were similarly too complex, such as a pair of terms for vomiting into a toilet, "drive the porcelain bus" and "talk to Ralph on the big white phone." (I've heard that last one, actually, but from a friend who's fond of sounding odd.)

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In that same 1996 review, Eble found that the 40 most frequently submitted slang words could often be classified as judgments of acceptance or rejection. There were several synonyms for excellent, including sweet, killer, bad, cool, and awesome. Conversely, she noted a few expressions meaning a "socially inept person:" dweeb, geek, turkey. Another positive indicator is brevity. Eble said short words fare well (cool, bad, sweet, geek), and that oohs and other back-of-the-mouth noises tend to crop up (cool, tool, groove, booze).

For a slang term to really succeed, it also helps to have influential proponents. Michael Adams, the editor of American Speech, reminded me of a recurring joke in Mean Girls: Gretchen wants to introduce fetch as slang (to mean, pretty much, awesome), but clique leader Regina won't have it. "Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen," she says, "It's not going to happen".

And it doesn't happen, because Gretchen's not the kind of girl who inspires imitation. If, however, someone with real social pull starts using a word, or if it's thrown around approvingly in a film, it's given a boost: Clueless helped disseminate whatever.

Even if it has a famous supporter, though, a slang word's long-term survival is more the exception than the rule. Mysto, for one, died out swiftly despite being a short, easily understood word that was evidently tossed around by the Merry Pranksters before getting recorded by Tom Wolfe.

Once a word gets to the level of general understanding, it's still subject to caprice. Groovy, which dates back to the 1930s, became fashionable in the 1940s, then unfashionable, then fashionable again in the 1960s. Now everyone knows what it means, but if you use it you either have long, gray hair and wear tie-dye or you're mocking the sort of people who have long, gray hair and wear tie-dye. Groovy got stuck, and though it's possible that it'll make a comeback, for now it feels coupled to a particular time. Yet cool in the excellent sense—popularized by jazz musicians in the 1940s—isn't tainted in this way. No one says cool with the expectation that Charlie Parker will come to mind.

Perhaps cool has been more durable than groovy because it's an ordinary word in addition to a slang word. It's unobtrusive, which Adams also mentioned as a positive indicator of slang tenacity. Maybe the gr and vee sounds in groovy, which are rather harsh, are what keep it from seeming natural, and association-less, in conversation.

The only way to test that these theories are more than post-facto justifications is to apply them to newish slang words. Scrolling through newly added Urban Dictionary entries, I came across: La Slosha ("A woman whose awesomeness and attractiveness is only surpassed by her ability to consume copious quantities of vodka coke," added Aug, 8); Txtnesia ("When you forget what you texted someone last," added July 31); and Boones ("One or more hipsters that are idiotic and talk in hipster slang," added Aug, 2). It seems to me that Boones has the best chance to survive: It's short, contains an ooh, expresses a social judgment, and isn't too complicated. It also strikes me as rather useful. Let's see what happens.

Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2301803/

Small talk - AmE vs. BrE

Accidental drifting – small talk in the UK

Posted by Lynne Murphy on July 27, 2011

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We look back on a great month exploring small talk in English. Our final guest post, from fellow blogger and University of Sussex linguist Lynne Murphy, explores the key to making successful small talk in the UK (or more precisely, England).

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Earlier in the month Vicki Hollett advised Britons on engaging in small talk with Americans in the US. I’m here to offer the reverse. (Though I’ll stick to small talk in England, which I know better than the rest of Britain.)

Americans abroad have to fight the stereotype of ‘the Ugly American’, so when visiting England, you’re well advised to remember the following:

1. Getting to know the other person is not the initial purpose of small talk in the UK. The purpose is to pass the time without being socially awkward. This is reflected in what Kate Fox (in her excellent Watching the English) calls the ‘No-Name Rule’. She writes:

The ‘Brash American’ approach: ‘Hi, I’m Bill from Iowa’ […] makes the English wince and cringe. The American tourists and visitors I spoke to during my research had been both baffled and hurt by this reaction. ‘I just don’t get it,’ said one woman. ‘You say your name and they sort of wrinkle their noses, like you’ve told them something a bit too personal and embarrassing.’

And it is too personal for the beginning of a conversation in this culture. In making first social contact with an Englishperson, keep the focus away from yourself and your conversational partner. This is why talking about the weather is so common. If you’re daring, you can try other starters like Is this pub always so busy? or What a lovely spread (of food)! Do you know if Linda did it all herself?

2. In talking about the weather, the Englishperson will complain. If it’s rainy, then it’s too wet. If it’s sunny, then it’s too hot. If it’s overcast, it’s miserable. Do not take this as an invitation to complain about it more or contradict them with You call this hot? It’s 90°F where I’m from. Either mildly agree (Yes, it has been a bit much, hasn’t it?) or mildly disagree (I don’t know … I quite like it. It’s good for the plants.) While they may have started the complaint, they don’t really want to hear someone else complaining about the state of their home(land). (And that goes for anything else in England that you as a visitor might want to gripe about. Or anything else in any other country you’re visiting.)

3. Kate Fox emphasizes that the English goal is to “drift” into conversation, “as though by accident”. The usual American ploy of quizzing the other person on what they do for a living, whether they have kids, and so on, goes against this goal. This is why discussion of the immediate environment is so safe. But if the conversation warms up and you feel a connection is growing with the other person, you can move on to more personal topics, if they’re approached casually. One of the standard moving-on-to-the-personal topics is your conversation-partner’s holiday (vacation) plans.

Having broken at least two of these rules this week, I wish you luck and happy drifting!

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/accidental-drifting-small-talk-in-uk

Small talk - UK vs. US

Is small talk different in the US and UK? Yes!

Posted by Vicki Hollett on July 20, 2011

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Small talk month continues with a guest post by English teacher, coursebook author and fellow blogger Vicki Hollett from Learning to speak ’merican on tips for small talk in the US.

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Here are some quick tips for Brits who are crossing the pond.

First, starting conversations:

Follow normal practice and comment on the weather. It’s hard to go wrong. One thing to watch out for though – don’t complain too much. We can establish solidarity by having a grumble together in the UK.

‘Terrible day, isn’t it?’
‘And they say tomorrow will be worse.’ etc.

The same thing can happen here too, but Americans don’t engage in ritual moans quite as much with strangers. So try to think positive, or just pick nice days to talk about the weather.


Next, responding:
This gets tricky. Americans often use compliments to start conversations with complete strangers. So they might tell you how much they like your earrings, tie, accent or whatever, which can be uncomfortable. What right have they got to pass judgment on you? Aren’t they being fake? And how should you respond?
The key to handling this is to understand it’s a just a ritual. Think of it as equivalent to ‘It’s a nice day today, isn’t it?’ It simply means ‘I’m happy to talk if you are’, so the answer you give is pretty irrelevant as long as it’s agreeable. Any hint of contradiction will throw the American into disarray so instead tell them where you got the earrings or tie. Or repay the compliment and say you love their accent too. Modesty is important in the US, but in this circumstance, it takes a back seat to signaling agreement.


Finally, saying farewell:
You’re going to find this so easy. Do nothing. The Americans will do it all for you and they are so much better at it.

You know how we have the expression ‘saying our goodbyes’ in British English? Americans don’t have it. They just ‘say goodbye’ because they only need to do it once. So you can forget all our, ‘Is that the time?’, ‘I really should be going …’, ‘Well, anyway …’ nonsense. And you know that situation where we start getting out the door and someone says something which means we have to go back to the beginning of the conversation and start all over again? It doesn’t happen here.

So let the Americans handle the farewell. They will do it with aplomb with phrases like ‘Take care’ and ‘It’s been nice talking to you’ and ‘Catch you later’ – things our mothers should have taught us. Just keep quiet, listen and learn.

Source:

Politness and British

That’s not exactly what I meant, actually

Posted by Michael Rundell on July 11, 2011

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During our Romantic English month, Dan Clayton reported on some research which suggested that couples whose speech styles matched one another closely were likely to get on well. Dan agreed, but then went on to say ‘This isn’t exactly news to linguists’. He could have said: ‘Linguists know this already’ but it’s a well-known characteristic of British English that we often use politeness, understatement, and irony to express disagreement or criticism. The expression ‘not exactly’ is a favourite device in small talk. Instead of saying someone is stupid or old, we might say they are ‘not exactly the sharpest knife in the box’ or ‘not exactly in the first flush of youth’. In reality, Dan’s comment was quite critical: it’s a more indirect (and typically British) way of saying ‘now tell me something I don’t know!’.

This is something non-Brits need to be aware of, in order to avoid any cross-cultural misunderstanding. Our corpus is full of sentences like these:

It’s not exactly the fastest way to travel (=it’s very slow)
Radstock’s not exactly the most lively of places (=it’s really boring)
That wasn’t exactly the most helpful of responses (=it was totally unhelpful)
I’m not exactly what you’d call a spreadsheet power-user (=I’m completely useless with spreadsheets)

And notice that the last sentence is even more convoluted: the formula has extended to ‘not exactly what you’d call …’ .  Linguists who specialize in what is known as ‘politeness theory‘ explain that, the bigger your request, the more complex the formulation: so we might say, very simply, ‘can I borrow your pen’, but, much more indirectly, ‘I don’t suppose there’s any possibility that you might lend me your car?’ Politeness theory is a subfield within the discipline of pragmatics, and a lot of the strategies we use in small talk have been analysed by experts in this area.

How far can dictionaries take account of this aspect of language? In printed dictionaries, it’s difficult to describe the phonological changes that often convey different meanings. If you say to a friend ‘I’ve had an awful day at work’, and she replies ‘Tell me about it‘, she could just be asking you to tell her all about your miserable day. But it’s more likely she is implying that she has had a horrible day too – the difference is in the way you say it. Online dictionaries open up the possibility of using multimedia to provide information of this type, and we’re likely to see more of this in the future. And access to conversational corpus data means we can give much better explanations of what people really mean when they use common expessions like actually or you know – each of these dictionary entries explains four distinct ways in which these useful (but deceptively difficult) devices are used in conversation.

Continuing with the indirectness theme, it can be confusing to learn that apparently apologetic expressions like I’m sorry or I’m afraid can be used in quite confrontational ways, to signal strong disagreement with what someone else has said or suggested, as examples like these show:

Well I’m sorry but that doesn’t seem like a fair deal to me.
She says it’s the truth but I’m afraid I still don’t buy it.

Even saying ‘I don’t know’ is sometimes a way of ‘softening’ an expression of strong disagreement: in reality, you do know exactly what you think! For more on the joys of pragmatics, have a look here, and keep following our small talk blogs.

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/thats-not-exactly-what-i-meant-actually

Auxiliaries and imperatives

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

making suggestions

I'm at the conference of the International Pragmatics Association in Manchester (UK) this week, and I was interested to see that there's a poster in the poster session (which is already posted, though the session's not till tomorrow) on directive speech acts in AmE and BrE. 'Directive speech act' means an utterance that is intended to get someone to do something. Being an impatient sort, I've looked up the author of the paper, Ilka Flöck of Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, and found an earlier paper by her on another aspect of the issue. The PDF is here, if you'd like to read it yourself.

The British (and English people, more specifically) are often stereotyped as being very indirect in their style--that is, implying their meanings rather than saying exactly what they mean. (The stereotypical British use of irony is a classic example of this--saying the opposite of what one means in order to implicate one's true meaning.) Americans, on the other hand, are often stereotyped as being very direct--brash or bossy, even.

So, what happens when people from these cultures make suggestions? For her study, Flöck defines suggestions as follows:

A speech act is understood as a suggestion when the following conditions apply:
- The speaker (S) wants the hearer (H) to consider the action proposed.
- S and H know that H is not obliged to carry out the action proposed by S.
- S believes that the suggestion is in the interest of H.
- S may or may not include herself in the proposed action  (Flöck 2011: 69)

Flöck looked for suggestions in two corpora of spoken English: the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English and the British component of the International Corpus of English. Skipping to the end, she found that:

Apart from modest preferences for one or the other head act or modification strategy, no major differences between the two varieties could be observed. Unlike other speech acts, suggestions might therefore not have a strong potential for intercultural misunderstanding.  (Flöck 2011: 79; emphasis added)

That is, on the whole, the British and Americans do not differ in whether they prefer direct or indirect strategies for suggestions. What Flöck did find were some differences in how the indirect strategies are phrased, with the British modifying their requests more (using 'upgraders' and 'downtoners') and Americans relying more on the 'head' of the suggestion--the unadorned sentence and its verb phrase in particular.

Now, I do not want to claim that I am not bossy. I'm a first-born. I'm a teacher. Of course I'm bossy. But at the same time, I do not perceive myself as being anywhere near as bossy as a certain Englishman thinks I am. And I suspect that this might be because of some of the different preferences for phrasing Flöck noticed.  One difference was in the modal verbs used in suggestions. British speakers used more modals of obligation (should, shall), while Americans tended toward(s) can, but Americans also used more Why don't you...?  (Note: the fact that you say either is not counterevidence to this! Both cultures use all these strategies--but at different rates in the corpora.)

The British-preferred modals of obligation are considered by Flöck to be more direct.  That is, they're communicating the directive meaning: 'I think you should do this'. Can on the other hand, is (arguably--depending on how you like your modal verb analysis) ambiguous between a weak obligatory meaning and a capability meaning: i.e. 'you are able to do this and therefore you have the option to do it'. My question is: might should-preferers perceive can as too ambiguous for use in this context, or find its option-giving meaning to be insincere? Or am I basing too much of my hypothesi{z/s}ing on the fact that my husband thinks I'm bossy?

I can also see that Why don't you... might be perceived as bossy. It has no modal at all. It sounds like it's implying that the other person should have already thought of doing the suggested thing.

And I think (but these kinds of self-reportings are notoriously [BrE] dodgy) that I use can (e.g. Can you do it this way? You can try this.*) a bit and that I use Why don't you a lot more than BH would. And when he either automatically does the suggested thing or takes issue with me being bossy, I sometimes say: Wait a minute! It was just a question/suggestion! 

The British indirectness tends to come from the use of modifiers, such as with understaters like a bit, to begin with, for the moment and downgraders like just, perhaps, at least, maybe, probably. With these markers missing, no wonder British people (for it's probably more than just BH) find me bossy.

Because I'm away from my books and because it's hard to google research on US/UK interactions,** I haven't anything more hard-evidency to offer you about mutual stereotypes of bossiness or about suggestion styles. My suspicion is that Americans are more likely to expect negotiation to follow suggestions, whereas the British are more likely to expect compliance (possibly with a bit of griping about it afterwards--this fits with the British complaint culture: see this or this, for example). 

Flöck's paper here at IPrA compares her corpus results to what people do in the classic pragmatics research tool: the Discourse Completion Task (essentially, a written role-play).  And I'll just say, it looks like the DCT doesn't do very well.  Go Corpus Linguistics!

Before I leave, to the long-suffering Better Half: Happy Anniversary!


* Could is not in Flöck's modal comparison chart. I'm assuming that when she says can, she means can and not can/could, but I might be wrong about that. For me, could is much more natural in suggestions than can, and it's a bit more indirect).

** Because one gets everything on American-Chinese interactions that happen to cite something from the British Journal of Psychology and so on and so forth.

References
Flöck, Ilka (2011) "Suggestions in British and American English. A corpus-linguistic study." Paper presented at the 33rd annual meeting of the German Linguistic Society 2011 [Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft, DGfS], Göttingen, February 2011. 

Flöck, Ilka (2011) "‘Don't tell a great man what to do’: Directive speech acts in American and British English conversations." Poster presented at the 12th International Pragmatics Conference, Manchester, July 2011. 

Source: http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2011/07/making-suggestions.html

Small Talk

Small talk is no small matter

Posted by Stan Carey on July 05, 2011

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Today we say good-bye to green English and hello to small talk. During the month of July, we’ll be exploring small talk in English, starting with an introduction by regular contributor Stan Carey, freelance writer, editor and blogger.

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For many of us, small talk is a daily occurrence. We engage in it with family, friends, loved ones and strangers. It happens at home, at work, on the move, and wherever we encounter other people. It’s no surprise, then, that our attitudes to it are very mixed. Some people take pleasure in it; some resent or even detest it. Others engage in it without feeling strongly about it or paying it much heed.

When we meet a stranger, for example at a business meeting, on a social occasion, or in a casual encounter, small talk serves a useful phatic function. It helps us tune in to other people’s accents and dialects, and to get used to their presence and the ways they express themselves. Before moving on to more contentious topics, such as finance or politics, we will have spent time sharing images and idioms and agreeing light-heartedly about various uncontroversial matters.

If the context is business, talking about travel and accommodation is apt to be both interesting and potentially useful to the parties involved. We can share tips, learn about one another’s tastes and habits, and bond over common frustrations and experiences.

The weather is perhaps the star of small talk. Comments about the weather can even replace greetings, so instead of “hello” we might remark to someone, in passing: “Grand day out”, or “Lovely evening.” In Ireland, we are blessed with what I would euphemistically call “interesting weather”. Never mind four seasons in one day: some days we are blessed with eight seasons by mid-afternoon. It is predictably unpredictable, and this variability makes it ideal for idle chit-chat. We need never tire of the tendency to talk about it.

Weather talk is neutral, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the suitability of subjects and modes of address varies considerably from culture to culture. So it’s worth doing a bit of research before continuing your small-talk habits in an unfamiliar culture. Small talk might be “informal conversation about things that are not important”, but this does not imply that small talk itself is not important!

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/small-talk-is-no-small-matter

Double Voice Discourse (Baxter) - Women management hedging

Women told to speak their minds to get on in boardrooms

Study shows that language used by female executives in meetings harms their prospects

Women – including those who work in senior positions for some of the country's leading firms – are held back from reaching the very highest levels in business because of the difficulties they find in striking the right tone of language during high pressure meetings.

The claim is made by linguistics expert Dr Judith Baxter, who undertook an 18-month study into the speaking patterns of men and women at meetings in seven major well-known companies, including two in the FTSE-100.

The research found that women were four times more likely than men to be self-deprecating, use humour and speak indirectly or apologetically when broaching difficult subjects with board members in order to avoid conflict. And it doesn't always work.

Baxter said such language, which the study describes as "double voice discourse" (DvD), was used because women were often heavily outnumbered on boards. As a result, senior women engage in a kind of linguistic second guessing, adjusting their language to make the right impact on colleagues. Examples included beginning comments with phrases such as "I am probably speaking out of turn, but…" and "Sorry to cut across you like that but…"

When employed effectively, this kind of language could be a useful tool to manipulate those around them, she claimed, but self-deprecation and an apologetic style were risky because striking a wrong note could lead to appearing defensive and weak.

Baxter, a lecturer in applied linguistics at Aston University, said women were left open to accusations that they were not fully in control of their arguments, which could lead to a complete loss of authority during meetings. "They have to work really hard to hit the right note with their colleagues", she said. "I have seen a woman use all the wrong linguistic strategies, and she lost the room".

Baxter said she had heard one woman director, who had spoken just twice in a meeting, say: "Sorry, sorry, I'm talking too much, I'm talking too much."

According to the annual Female FTSE Board report from Cranfield University School of Management, the proportion of women on the boards of FTSE-100 companies is only 12.5%, a marginal rise on the previous year.

Baxter said: "I found very few differences between men and female leadership language, but there was this one key difference, which I call double-voice discourse. Women use this when they are facing criticism or when handling conflict. While men tend to direct and straight talking and if they are confrontational it is regarded as nothing personal, women avoid being directly confrontational and use a range of strategies to preserve a range of alliances, if not friendships, to achieve their agenda.

"I am not saying that women are more sharing and caring than men. I am not saying they are more altruistic. They are doing it to achieve their own agenda."

But Baxter added that the difficulty in mastering such language not only made it difficult for women to progress, but may put a lot of women off aiming for the top positions.

Baxter said women appeared to use DvD only when greatly outnumbered by men. Karren Brady, West Ham United FC's vice chair and star of BBC show The Apprentice, did not need to use the linguistic tricks, she had noticed.

But Helena Morrissey, 44, recently named one of the most influential woman in the City, who oversees investments worth £47bn as well as her family of nine children, said she recognised Baxter's findings from her own experiences. "It is hard to generalise because there is a spectrum, but actually the women I have worked with over the years certainly don't seek confrontation and would tend to try to avoid it, which would be consistent with this pre-empting of criticism and anxiety, I suppose; hedging, using humour to soften things.

"There are some men who enjoy a good fight, enjoy confrontation, but I don't think I have met any women who want to spark an argument, while I have seen men in the context of mainly male-orientated boardrooms or senior discussion almost seem to push somebody to have that discussion in a quite confrontational way. It is not only that women speak differently, but they are also trying to avoid what will happen next, and this is their style to get there."

Morrissey, the chief executive of money management firm Newton, said she did not want women to start acting like men, but they should be conscious of their language.

"It may be seen as a bit of weakness on the part of women, because you are not playing the game in the same way. Maybe subconsciously there is a feeling that this person isn't as decisive, can't hold her own, is unsure of her arguments," she said.

"Don't say 'you aren't going to like this'; just say it and know that is not making yourself be like the man. You will get your point across and no one is going to think badly [of you]. Well they might, but that is all part of the discussion and the hammer and tongues."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/19/women-language-boardroom-study

Language Lectures

May, 31, 2011

40 Fascinating Lectures for Linguistics Geeks

Linguistics is kind of like The Force — it surrounds us, penetrates us and binds the galaxy together. Or at least the planet, anyway. Both this universality and frequent intersections with a diverse array of subjects — including, but not limited to, cognitive science, literature, politics, psychology, communication, anthropology and more — make linguistics a compelling, dynamic, nuanced study. The following lectures, by no means the only ones available online, represent a lovely little slice of how language permeates all things, for better and for worse.

1. Grey Matters: Understanding Language: Presented by University of California at San Diego’s Dr. Jeffrey Elman, this hour-long talk delves deeply into the cognitive components behind language and language acquisition. Specifically, why humans are the only animals capable of speech.
2. Jesse Sheidlower: The F-Word: The editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary itself offers up a humorous and thoroughly provocative look at one of the most inflammatory words the language possesses. His amazing insight and expertise shed light on the alchemy of offense and how one mere syllable can still pack a megaton punch.
3. Murray Gell-Mann on the ancestor of language: Although this Nobel Prize winner is better known for his physics and discovery of quarks, he still enjoys exploring other topics, and used some TED time to share his linguistics research. Right now, Murray Gell-Mann devotes his time to discovering any common ancestral roots between today’s staggeringly diverse selection of languages.
4. Speaking Up: The Origins of Language: Dr. Lowell Gustafson of Villanova University’s political and social sciences departments pulls from his anthropological experience to deliver a stimulating lecture about linguistics. Here, he attempts to bridge gaps and focus on what different speakers have in common rather than what keeps them apart.
5. Teaching Standard English in Urban Classrooms: For linguistics buffs interested in education — or working in the industry — this lecture by Rebecca Wheeler might prove riveting. She hopes to formulate more effective strategies for giving writerly voices and opportunities to oft-marginalized urban students.
6. Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies: Science and linguistics converge in Patricia Kuhl’s revealing lecture about the startling way little kids acquire their dominant languages. Using "the modern tools of neuroscience," she charts the bizarre and beautiful process during one of the most explosive cognitive periods in a person’s life.
7. TEDxDartmouth — Timothy Pulju: The Uncanny Science of Linguistic Reconstruction — March 6, 2011: As both a classicist and linguist, Timothy Pulju "resurrects" Latin and showcases how languages evolve over time. Despite having no native speakers, in many ways it continues to live on in the current Romance languages — most notably Italian, French and Spanish.
8. Roy Blount Jr: Alphabet Juice: All languages possess a certain frenetic energy that few stop to fully contemplate, but Roy Blount Jr’s Alphabet Soup pushes this phenomenon to the forefront and challenges readers (and listeners!) to completely rethink words. In his talk with Valerie Jackson of "Between the Lines," the literary Renaissance man humorously covers the wonder of everything from the Oxford English Dictionary to obscure slang.
9. Patricia Ryan: Don’t Insist on English!: International communication and commerce places so much emphasis on English, Patricia Ryan believes it might overshadow amazing ideas and insights hailing from other linguistic backgrounds. Her TEDxDubai lecture makes an amazingly compelling case about how such narrowness actively impedes human progress and asks viewers to open themselves up to what non-native speakers have to say.
10. George Lakoff: Moral Politics: Considering politics as it exists today is little more than an obnoxious game of rhetorical one-upsmanship, it makes sense that many language geeks would find it an interesting topic. George Lakoff with University of California Berkeley explores how the two interact with one another, along with the strategies election winners use to hook in audiences — regardless of whether or not they actually say anything substantial.
11. Propaganda and War: Iraq and Beyond: Another lecture merging linguistics, perception and politics into one impressively stimulating listen, this time courtesy of the distinguished Noam Chomsky. While he uses the Iraq War as his primary examples here, what he has to say about the way governments wield language and images as a means of manipulating public favor can still be applied across geography and time.
12. Alan Siegel: Let’s simplify legal jargon!: Excessively technical language used in law, medicine, finance and plenty of other fields oftentimes isolates outsiders, preventing them from completely comprehending many necessities. Alan Siegel is an expert in business and branding matters, and he uses his background to beg for a bit of linguistic streamlining to make government forms accessible to all.
13. Barbara Johnstone Lecture: Pittsburghese: Even those with little to no interest in languages still understand how variances occur between regions; just because individuals hail from the same nation or linguistic background doesn’t mean they speak the exact same words and phrases. Carnegie Mellon hosted a lecture by Rhetoric and Linguistics Professor Barbara Johnstone showcasing one such example from Pittsburgh, emphasizing how the city’s own unique dialect became integral to its personal identity.
14. Deborah Fallows on Dreaming in Chinese: The Dreaming in Chinese author builds upon many of the themes found in her book, not the least of which revolves around how learning Mandarin opened up an entirely new cultural world to explore. Despite its notorious difficulty, Deborah Fallows believes that taking the time to absorb it proved one of the most educational, rewarding experiences of her life.
15. Wade Davis on endangered cultures: Language may open up individuals to new ideas and insights, but many wield it as a weapon of cultural devastation. During his stint with National Geographic, photographer Wade Davis witnessed firsthand how the encroach of languages such as English and Spanish are wiping out the traditions of indigenous peoples at a depressingly rapid clip.
16. "If That Language May Be Dying, Why Are You Studying It?" By Thomas T. Field: This University of Maryland, Baltimore County presentation tackles pretty much exactly what its title promises — Thomas T. Field ruminating on the importance of studying dead and dying languages. He mainly features his work on Glascon and uses it to illustrate many preservation points non-professionals might not even consider.
17. Stephen Burt: Art of the Sonnet: Stephen Burt, an English professor at Harvard University, presents a lovely little talk for linguistics and literature aficionados alike. Some of the greatest sonnets in the world make for an amazing example of how to elevate language to an artistic, creative level.
18. Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on apes: Marvel at how this renowned primatologist plunged into the unique sociology, psychology and biology of bonobos and chimpanzees — which ultimately peeled back some startling truths about their linguistic aptitude. With sufficient training, some of these incredible creatures were able to comprehend human speech and cultural cues almost as well as any Homo sapien child.
19. Viewpoint and Perspective in Language and Gesture: Distinguished professor Eve Sweetser spoke at Case Western Reserve University about her groundbreaking forays into linguistics at a time when such studies were discouraged. She also enthusiastically expands upon how metaphors, gesture and cognition all play an integral role in communication and language.
20. A Lesson in Lying/A Deal Is A Deal: Immanuel Kant’s philosophies discouraged all untruths — including white lies — as fundamentally unnatural. Rhetoric, language and linguistics fans will greatly enjoy watching Michael Sandel painstakingly dissect this belief with hypothetical situations.
21. Erin McKean redefines the dictionary: This passionate lexicographer founded the digital Wordnik and believes the traditional bound dictionary as "an eight-track tape" — a blurry technological memory only barely registering in succeeding generations. Erin McKean hails computers as the greatest tool for comprehensively listing words and their myriad definitions.
22. David Laitin — Multilingualism and Country Wealth: At his Universitat Oberta de Catalunya lecture, Stanford’s David Laitin adroitly welds linguistics to sociology and political science. He draws parallels between societies boasting multilingual populaces and their economic prosperity or failure.
23. Spoken Word Showcase: When language and music come together, both hold the potential to become even more powerful, strong than they are alone. Nobody knows this better than poet Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo, who hosts a wonderful showing of Bostonian students presenting both original works as well as those by previously established writers.
24. James Geary, metaphorically speaking: Many don’t realize the subtle ways in which figurative language can actually mold perspectives and actions, but it does happen. James Geary pulls examples from both history and pop culture alike to perfectly illustrate how metaphor shapes humanity for good or for ill.
25. Items and Generalizations at Work: Case Western Reserve’s Ninth Conference on Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language hosted this talk by Princeton professor Dr. Adele Goldberg in 2008. Here, she opines on the creativity, generalizations and structures behind linguistics — and the myriad ways in which they subvert and contradict themselves.
26. Breakthrough: Foreign Language Films in the US: General American audiences unfortunately tend to dismiss foreign language movies and marginalize them to niche status, as a result missing out on some incredible works of artistic merit. Sebastian Silva directs a discussion with cinema professionals Steven Raphael and Marcus Hu about the possible positive future of these films in the United States.
27. Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to global voices: Interacting with Brazilian Twitter users opened up multimedia enthusiast Ethan Zuckerman to the internet communities beyond the English speaking world. From one simple question about the Galvao bird came an entire epiphany regarding how getting past language barriers is an integral part of valuable educational and cultural exchange.
28. Monica Heller — Competencia entre ideologies linguistiques: Language buffs looking for a few shots of sociology and politics in with their daily intake will get quite a bit of stimulation from Monica Heller’s talk at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Where once linguists spoke of how minority speakers relate to majority ones, now they’ve started focusing more in differences between socioeconomic statuses.
29. Jean-Loup Chiflet: Eccentricities of the French Language: As both a writer and a reporter, Jean-Loup Chiflet intimately interacts with French on a daily basis — and considers himself possessing 40 years of experience. Such a laudable position has granted him a keen insight into all things Francophone, and he shares his humorous observations here.
30. Steven Pinker on language and thought: Paying close attention to word choice makes all the difference in the world when communicating clearly and effectively, and renowned linguist Steven Pinker explored this phenomenon intensively in his The Stuff of Thought. He also delves into linguistic evolution, be it as lofty as an academy or slang "of the people" proudly springing into existence with no formality.
31. Statistical Spoken Language Generation of Stylistic Variation for Dialogue Applications: Dr. Marilyn Walker of the University of Sheffield blurs the lines between the organic and the mechanical in her illuminating North Carolina State University talk. This forum discusses the possibilities for greatly improved AI and video game design based on natural human conversation patterns and behaviors.
32. Beyond Decoding: Word Knowledge and Reading Skill: Lovers of all things linguistic must also understand the complex science behind how communication and language acquisition works. Charles Perfetti breaks it all down for viewers and listeners hungry for more information about the amazing human brain and how it impacts reading comprehension.
33. Jay Walker on the World’s English Mania: People worldwide clamor to pick up English as a second language, owing to its myriad professional applications. Jay Walker wanted to know why, and spent a considerable amount of time globetrotting, photographing, video recording and — of course — talking to get to the bottom of this phenomenon.
34. SFU Public Lecture: How to Read World Literature: Simon Fraser University hosted Dr. David Damrosch for a provocative glimpse at how the literary canon is shifting away from exclusively touting European and North American authors and embracing global diversity. No matter their era or chosen medium, peoples around the world still have something valuable to say.
35. The Man Who Made Lists: Roget and His Thesaurus: Learn the fascinating history behind one of the English language’s most influential reference books – Roget’s Thesaurus – courtesy of Joshua Kendall. Plagued with mental illness and consorting with some of the world’s keenest minds, Peter Mark Roget began compiling word lists as a means of discovering order amongst daily disorder.
36. Dan Dennett on dangerous memes: Memes are essentially word viruses, spreading concepts from person to person at an incredibly frenetic pace. Considering his expertise and passion for science, philosophy and human consciousness, Dan Dennett is the perfect lecturer to bring this phenomenon to vivid light.
37. UO Today #322: Although an interview as opposed to a lecture, what University of Oregon’s Northwest Indian Language Institute Director Janne Underriner has to say. Talking with Steve Shankman of the Humanities Center reveals the organization’s efforts to preserve Native American languages and the sort of sociological, political and cultural challenges they encounter along the way.
38. Language as Sacrament in the New Testament: Franz Wright, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, explores how the New Testament uses language to convey sacred concepts and directives, making an argument about how communication in and of itself could be considered a sacrament. Jesus’ teachings, he believes, contain some oft-ignored poetic components well worth researching.
39. Laura Trice suggests we all say thank you: No matter the language, the sentiment "thank you" can prove one of the most powerful of all — and Laura Trice hopes to promote this mindset. Her talk only lasts about 3 minutes, but what she shares resonates well past time and geography alike.
40. Babel is Not a Curse: Embracing Second Languages: Jean Harzic once served as the CEO of Alliance Francaise, a position which granted him plenty of insight into French society, culture and linguistics. This talk draws from his experience in order and urges listeners and viewers to slough off monolinguism and strive to learn another language; doing so will help them break away from sporting only one particular mindset.

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Source: http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2011/05/40-fascinating-lectures-for-linguistics-geeks/

Anglo-EU Translation Guide

What the British say	What the British mean	What others understand
I hear what you say	I disagree and do not want to discuss it further	He accepts my point of view
With the greatest respect…	I think you are an idiot	He is listening to me
That's not bad	That's good	That's poor
That is a very brave proposal	You are insane	He thinks I have courage
Quite good	A bit disappointing	Quite good
I would suggest…	Do it or be prepared to justify yourself	Think about the idea, but do what you like
Oh, incidentally/ by the way	The primary purpose of our discussion is…	That is not very important
I was a bit disappointed that	I am annoyed that	It really doesn't matter
Very interesting	That is clearly nonsense	They are impressed
I'll bear it in mind	I've forgotten it already	They will probably do it
I'm sure it's my fault	It's your fault	Why do they think it was their fault?
You must come for dinner	It's not an invitation, I'm just being polite	I will get an invitation soon
I almost agree	I don't agree at all	He's not far from agreement
I only have a few minor comments	Please re-write completely	He has found a few typos
Could we consider some other options	I don't like your idea	They have not yet decided
Correct me if I'm wrong	I'm right, don't contradict me	I may be wrong, please let me know
Up to a point	Not in the slightest	Partially

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/55551980/Anglo-EU-Translation-Guide

Quote - Power of Metaphors

Metaphors in mind

Posted by James Geary on April 11, 2011

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Metaphorical English month continues with a guest post by James Geary, author of I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World as well as two books about aphorisms: The World in a Phrase and Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorist. James Geary discusses metaphor in this TED video and writes regularly on the topic on his blog. He tweets @JamesGeary.

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From a scientific point of view, climate change and global warming are equally likely to be actually taking place. But that’s not the way self-identified Republicans see it. In a survey carried out at the University of Michigan, 60% of self-identified Republicans said they believed climate change was happening, but only 44% said the same about global warming. Around 86% of self-identified Democrats said they believed the environment was altering, regardless of how that process was described.

Crime is a plague on our cities, infecting communities with fear. Offenders lurk in our neighborhoods, preying on law-abiding citizens. Solutions to urban crime are independent of whether the issue is characterized as a virus (‘plague’, ‘infecting’) or a wild animal (‘lurk’, ‘preying’), right? Wrong. Asked to solve one city’s crime problem, participants in a Stanford University study tended to propose social reforms (eradicate poverty, improve education) when crime was described as a virus. But when crime was described as a wild animal, they tended to propose harsher enforcement policies (jail criminals, enact tougher laws). Both studies reveal the hidden power of metaphor to influence how we view the world.

Mention the word ‘metaphor’ and most of us think of our favorite line from Shakespeare or Keats. But metaphor is everywhere. We utter about six metaphors a minute. Metaphor infuses not just the way we speak but the way we think. The metaphors in these two studies provoke such different responses because they conjure up such different associations. ‘Climate change’ is far more neutral than ‘global warming’. After all, things change all the time. Why shouldn’t the climate? And who in their right mind would overhaul the educational system when threatened by a beast? The wild animal metaphor activates our instinct for fight or flight; the virus metaphor prompts us to inoculate ourselves by cleaning up our act.

Metaphors hide in plain sight, and their influence is largely unconscious. We should mind our metaphors, though, because metaphors make up our minds.

Source: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/metaphors-in-mind

The Unraveling of 'dude'

“Dude:” Thoughts on an American Word

Posted on April 4, 2011 by trawicks

I am skeptical about claims that American English is “colonizing” the other Englishes. But I will concede one point: the word dude is entirely our doing.

Dude, in America, is a word that lies somewhere between British mate and bloke. Like mate, it can be used in a vaguely affectionate second-person: “Don’t worry about it, dude.” And as in bloke, it can be used in descriptive third-person sentences: “That dude is stressed out.”

In America, when we think of dude we tend to associate it with the dialects of California. In particular, the word seems ubiquitous in several sub-cultures: the California drug culture (“Far out, dude.”), the California surfer culture (“That was a gnarly wave, dude!”), and the crunchy/environmentalist set (“The earth is a living thing, dude.”).  All stereotypes, but with a certain amount of truth to them.

Nowadays, of course, dude is heard throughout America. And I’ve heard enough younger Brits, Canadians and Australians use it that I’m guessing it is starting to plant itself elsewhere.

Like a lot of words in American English dialects, though, dude apparently derives from African American Vernacular English (AAVE), the dialect spoken by African Americans throughout the United States. As per the wonderful Online Etymology Dictionary:

dude: 1883, “fastidious man,” New York City slang of unknown origin. The vogue word of 1883, originally used in reference to the devotees of the “aesthetic” craze, later applied to city slickers, especially Easterners vacationing in the West (dude ranch first recorded 1921). Application to any male is recorded by 1966, U.S., originally in Black English.

It seems, then, that dude entered the lexicon of Black English sometime in the early-to-mid 20th Century, where it morphed into a general term for “man.” Then, like many African American terms, it slowly filtered into the broader spectrum of American English dialects.

Here is what’s interesting, though. Dude is currently used in both African American Vernacular English and “white” dialects like General American. But it’s used somewhat differently in these two contexts.

Among AAVE speakers, I have noticed that “dude” is used far more commonly in the third person. For example, an AAVE speaker might say:

“What’s wrong with that dude?”

But the sentence …

“What’s wrong with you, dude?”

… doesn’t sound right in AAVE. In California or other kinds of Englishes, on the other hand, this question would sound perfectly normal.  This is my own perception, of course, but I’ve noticed that African Americans (who speak AAVE) rarely refer to the people they are directly speaking to as “dude.”

Of course, AAVE has long been known to “disassociate” itself from certain words when they enter “white” English. Terms like hip, jive, and cat (referring to “man”) are all African Americanisms that were completely rejected by the AAVE-speaking community after they found popularity in other American Englishes.  So it appears that the “affectionate” usage of dude may have gone the same route.

Opening this discussion up to the floor, I’m curious if anybody can give me more info about the spread of dude to international dialects. When a Brit or Australian or Irishmen uses dude while talking to an American, is that because the word has actually spread to those countries? Or are these people just trying to “fit in?”

Source: http://dialectblog.com/2011/04/04/dude/