Author: rgjones

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Is this English: “Get down from the car!”?

For anyone familiar with the ethnic and linguistic make-up of Florida, it will come as no surprise that in the Miami area (and elsewhere in the state), everyday language use is characterized by a mix of English and Spanish. “Spanglish” is a term used to describe the influence of English into spoken Spanish. Now a linguist at Florida International University (Phillip Carter) has published findings that indicate a new version of English is emerging in the Miami area which is heavily influenced by Spanish. An article on the research in Scientific American provides some examples:

“We got down from the car and went inside.”
“I made the line to pay for groceries.”
“He made a party to celebrate his son’s birthday.”

For most speakers of North American Spanish, those sentences sound strange. In fact, as Carter points out, these are “literal lexical calques,” i.e., direct, word-for-word translations.

“Get down from the car” instead of “get out of the car” is based on the Spanish phrase “bajar del carro,” which translates, for speakers outside of Miami, as “get out of the car.” But “bajar” means “to get down,” so it makes sense that many Miamians think of “exiting” a car in terms of “getting down” and not “getting out.” Locals often say “married with,” as in “Alex got married with José,” based on the Spanish “casarse con” – literally translated as “married with.” They’ll also say “make a party,” a literal translation of the Spanish “hacer una fiesta.”

Carter provides additional examples that are based on phonetic transfers: “’Thanks God,’ a type of loan translation from ‘gracias a Dios,’ is common in Miami. In this case, speakers analogize the ‘s’ sound at the end of “gracias” and apply it to the English form.

A YouTube video provides further examples from Carter’s research:

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A multicultural sash: opening the floodgates?

The Mexican-American graduation sash

At a high school graduation in Colorado, a student of Mexican-American heritage wanted to wear a sash to celebrate her bicultural identity. The school’s administration refused her permission with the justification that “allowing that regalia would ‘open too many doors.’” The student, Naomi Peña Villasano, sued the school but a federal judge last Friday upheld the decision barring her from wearing the sash. According to an article in the New York Times, at the graduation on Saturday, Ms. Villasano flouted the ruling and wore the sash anyway, apparently without incident. The article points out that Ms. Villasano’s case comes amid disputes elsewhere about what is protected free speech at commencement ceremonies. In Oklahoma on Thursday, the State Legislature overrode Gov. Kevin Stitt’s veto of a bill allowing students to wear Native American regalia at high school and college graduations.

In fact, schools in the US have recently become flashpoints for disputes that reflect the stark polarization in the political climate in the country as a whole. In Virginia, that was seen recently in new standards for teaching US history, with a first version of the standards downplaying the mistreatment of Native Americans, who in fact were described as the first “immigrants” to America. In many states, history curricula have been changed to align with Republican views opposing teaching the less savory sides of US history, such as the effects of slavery on the situation of African Americans today. Discussing sexual orientation in schools has also been a target, especially any introduction of topics related to LGBTQ+. That has led to book bans in many localities, including in the county next to mine in Virginia, Hanover County. There a local organization recently gave the school board a list of around 100 books it wanted banned. According to a news report from a local TV station, the group who submitted the proposed ban-list highlighted reasons ranging from content like “alternate gender ideologies” and “controversial social and racial commentaries,” to “alternate sexualities” and “self-harm.” A parent in the report commented, “We have seen this before. The Nazis have tried to burn books and erased the contents of those books.”

Indeed, the trend is very worrisome, as removing books from circulation stifles the ability of children to learn from the experiences of fictional characters (or of historical figures) that might mirror or illuminate their own lives and help them with the development of their personal identities. On a more positive note, I heard today that the English Department at my university (VCU) is seeing an uptick in the number of declared English majors entering the institution. The reason, according to the Department Chair: young people’s opposition to book banning.

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“You can’t see me” gesture and racism in sports

Caitlin Clark using "You can't see me" gestureThe recent Women’s NCAA basketball tournament captured the attention of the US sports watching public, something unusual for women’s sports. Games were exciting and featured players like Caitlin Clark from the University of Iowa, whose play was described in the New York Times as “transcendent” and “electrifying”. She is also a player who makes rich use of nonverbal communication on the course, raising her hand up to her ear to rouse the crowd or holding out 3 fingers on each raised hand to signal 3-pointers, her go-to shot. But she also has used gestures to “trash talk”, as in repeatedly using the “You can’t see me” celebratory gesture, popularized by wrestler John Cena.

The use of that gesture by Clark did not generate much in the public space until last week’s championship game, won by Louisiana State University (LSU) over Iowa. In the closing minutes, LSU’s Angel Reese using the gesturestar player, Angel Reese, herself used the gesture in front of Clark. She also held up her hand to Clark, pointing to her ring finger, meaning that she, not Clark, was going to be receiving the championship ring. After the game, Reese, who is African-American, was widely criticized for using the gestures. Reese subsequently defended herself, stating that Clark, who is White, had not been accused of disrespect for using the “You can’t see me” gesture. She also pointed out that Clark, in Iowa’s game against the University of South Carolina, had used a “wave-off” gesture to mock South Carolina guard Raven Johnson, while Johnson was on the 3-point line and Clark was at the foul line, indicating that Johnson didn’t need to be guarded because she wasn’t capable of making the 3-pointer (although later in the game she scored three 3-pointers).

It’s hard to see the difference in reactions to Clark and Reese as anything other than racism, holding a Black player to a higher standard than a White player. Clark herself afterwards stated that she was not bothered by Reese’s gestures and defended the right of women to engage in trash talk, as has long been customary in men’s sports.

Today is Easter on the Western Christian calendar, which this year coincides with the periods of other major religious observances, Passover and Ramadan. It should be a time of peace, reconciliation, and renewal. But conflict is rife today, from the ongoing war in Ukraine to Black Tennessee lawmakers being expelled yesterday from the state legislature (over protesting a school shooting). Violent conflict is occurring in the holy city of Jerusalem where clashes have taken place in the last few days at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, located close to historical and holy sites in Judaism and Christianity, notably that of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Conflict is perhaps inevitable in sports events, where it emerges naturally from competition, but wouldn’t it be great if that were its only manifestation in human affairs? And if it took only the form of nonverbal mockery?

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Working longer? No thanks!

Commuters in South Korea

This post on work life is a follow-up to the comments on “quiet quitting”. Expectations for how long people should work (hours per week) and how long they should keep working (retirement age) vary substantially from culture to culture. In the US, the 40-hour work week has been legally mandated since 1940. The retirement age varies depending on how old one is; for those born in 1960 or later the age is 67, although it is possible to retire earlier with reduced benefits. Not much has changed in terms of the work timetable in the US for quite some time, although of course the pandemic changed where many people worked. Periodically, there is interest in moving to a four-day work week (with the same pay for 32 hours/week). Recently, for example, there has been some buzz about the recent success in Great Britain of switching to that system in a large variety of companies.

However, elsewhere there are proposals to make significant changes to work life. One that has been in the news recently is the suggestion in South Korea to move to a 69 hour (!) work week (from the current 52, which includes overtime hours). South Korea has long had an expectation that workers put in substantially more work hours through overtime or participating in after-hours work-related social activities. That has been the case as well in other South Asian countries such as Japan. The proposal in South Korea from the country’s president has been met with resistance, especially from younger works who have little interest in conforming to a “live to work” culture.

Meanwhile, in France, the French President has also made a proposal affecting work life, namely that the French will need to work till age 64, rather than the current retirement age of 62. That proposal, now officially promulgated (without a vote in the legislature) has, as in South Korea, led to wide-spread protests. The French, by the way, have a 35 hour work week, a far cry from what’s been proposed for South Korea.

Of course, the actual “on the clock” work time may not be a true reflection of the time devoted to work or at least to be available for work-related tasks. That too varies by culture. In many jobs in the US, for example, it’s routinely expected that employees be reachable electronically after hours. Many people in the US check their messages in the evening and on weekends. That’s quite different from the situation in most European countries, where there is still a separation between work life and home life. The Germans have a proverb: “Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps”. That literally translates as work is work and schnaps is schnaps, the meaning being that when I’m at work I focus on work, but when the work day is over, I’m off the clock and ready to enjoy life (i.e. drink Schnaps, or maybe beer). I know from working with colleagues in Europe not to expect them to answer emails over the weekend, and particularly not when they are on vacation. Maybe that’s a “work to live” outlook that the workabholic US and South Korean cultures could learn from.

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Caste discrimination banned in Seattle

This past week the City Council of Seattle voted to ban discrimination based on caste. This references the hierarchical social division in South Asia which places some castes, such as Brahmins higher than lower-ranked castes, particularly Dalits (formerly called “Untouchables”). As Seattle is not located in Asia, but in the US state of Washington, this action might appear surprising. There are, however, a large number of South Asians in Seattle, many drawn to the city to work for tech companies such as Microsoft, which are located there. In India, discrimination based on caste still exists despite being officially banned. The ordinance from the City Council is designed not to prevent discrimination against Indians or South Asians in general (that’s already illegal) but targets discrimination within the immigrant community. There have been several legal cases in recent years from Dalits who allege unfair treatment in employment. The public radio program The World did an illuminating series on caste in America.

Many in the US are likely to be unaware of caste distinctions and probably would not be able to tell what caste someone belongs to. How do Indians themselves tell? An Interview recently on the World with Yashica Dutt, the author of “Coming out as a Dalit” pointed to the different ways that Indians can determine what caste a person belongs to. The first is the person’s name, which can reveal information such as the region of India your family is from, your native language, and your religion – all information that points to caste identity. An online Indian name decoder provides such data based on family names. If the name is not revelatory, according to Dutt, the person might be asked where they are from and whether they are a vegetarian (Brahmins are). Additionally, someone’s clothes may be an indicator, especially if they are wearing the “sacred thread” (an indication that one has passed through a Hindu rite of passage). Another interesting tell for South Asian professionals she mentioned is to find out what a person’s rank was in engineering or medical college in India.

For foreigners the caste system may be invisible but for South Asians it is quite real and can have real consequences on how one is treated by others. In that way it is a bit reminiscent of colorism in societies where there tends to be mixed populations of dark and light-skinned people. That includes Brazil, South Africa, the United States, where often darker-skin people are discriminated against.

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ChatGPT and the human-machine relationship

There has been an eruption of interest recently in generative AI, due to the public release of ChatGPT from OpenAI, a tool which, given a brief prompt, can generate in seconds texts of all kinds that are coherent, substantive, and eerily human-like. The availability of such a tool has led educators, especially in fields relying on essay writing, to wring their hands over students simply turning in assignments written by ChatGPT. Some have embraced GPTZero, a tool designed to determine whether a text is written by an AI system (in my testing, it was hit and miss in its accuracy). Some school systems have banned the use of ChatGPT.

I believe that is the wrong approach; I believe we need instead to help students use AI tools appropriately, adjust writing assignments accordingly, and lead students to understand the limits of what such tools can do (there are many). ChatGPT will soon be joined by similar tools and their abilities are sure to grow exponentially. That means they will see wide use in all domains of human activity. In their real lives after graduation, students will be expected to use such tools; let’s prepare them for that future. I argued last year for that position in a column in Language Learning & Technology (“Partnering with AI”).

In a forthcoming LLT column (“Expanded spaces for language learning,” available in February), I look at another aspect of the presence of such tools in our lives, namely what it means in terms of the human-machine relationship and in understanding the nature (and limits) of human agency. A spatial orientation to human speech, which emphasizes the primacy of context (physical, virtual, emotional, etc.) has gained currency in applied linguistics in recent years. Rather than viewing language as something set apart from spatio-temporal contexts (as was the case in structuralism or Chomskian linguistics), scholars such as Pennycook, Bloomaert, and Canagarajah show how the spatial context is central to meaning-making. This perspective is bolstered by theories in psychology and neuroscience that cognition (and therefore speech) is not exclusive to the brain, but rather is embodied, embedded, enacted, or extended (4E cognition theory). That places greater meaning-making emphasis on physicality (gestures, body language) as well as on the environment and potential semiotic objects in it (such as AI tools!). I argue that an approach helpful in understanding the dynamics at play is sociomaterialism (also labeled “new materialism”). This is an approach used widely in the social sciences and more recently, in studies in applied linguistics. It offers a different perspective on the relationship of humans to the material world. Reflecting theories in the biological sciences, sociomaterialism posits a more complex and intertwined relationship between an organism and its surroundings, for us bipeds that translates into a distributed agency shared by humans and non-humans (including machines).

Here is an excerpt from the conclusion:

A spatial orientation to language use and language learning illuminates the complex intertwining of people and artifacts physically present with those digitally available. The wide use of videoconferencing in education, for example, complicates concepts of local and remote as well as online versus offline. Neat divisions are not tenable. Mobile devices as well represent the intersection of the local and the remote, of the personal and the social; they are equipped to support localized use, while making available all the resources of a global network. From a sociomaterial viewpoint, the phone and user form an entanglement of shared agency; smartphones supply “extensions of human cognition, senses, and memory” (Moreno & Traxler, 2016, p. 78). The sensors, proximity alerts, and camera feeds function as stimuli, extending cognition while acting as an intermediary between ourselves and the environment. For many users, smartphones have become part of their Umwelt, an indispensable “digital appendage” (Godwin-Jones, 2017, p. 4) with which they reach out to and interact with the outside world.

A sociomaterial perspective and 4E cognition theory problematize distinctions of mind versus body, as they also qualify the nature of human agency. The increasing role that AI plays in our lives (and in education) adds a further dimension to the complex human-material dynamic. AI systems built on large language models produce language that mimics closely human-created texts in style and content. A radical development in writing-related technologies is the AI-enabled incorporation of auto-completion of phrases into text editors and online writing venues, as well as suggestions for alternative wording. Auto-completion features in tools such as Google Docs or Grammarly raise questions of originality and credit. That is all the more the case with tools such as ChatGPT which are capable of generating texts on virtually any topic and in a variety of languages. O’Gieblyn in God, human, animal, machine: Technology, metaphor, and the search for meaning (2021) argues that due to the powerful advances in language technologies, we need new definitions of intelligence and consciousness, an argument bolstered by 4E cognition theory. In consideration of the language capabilities of AI tools today, particularly the text generation capabilities of services such as ChatGPT, we also need new understandings of authenticity and authorship.

O’Gieblyn points out that AI is able to replicate many functional processes of human cognition such as pattern recognition and predicting. That derives from the fact that language generation in such systems is based on statistical analysis of syntactic structures in immense collections of human-generated texts. That probabilistic approach to chaining together phrases, sentences, and paragraphs is capable of producing mostly cohesive and logically consistent texts. Yet these systems can also betray a surprising lack of knowledge about how objects and humans relate to one another. This results in statements that are occasionally incoherent from a social perspective. This is due to the fact that AI systems have no first-hand knowledge of real life. Unlike human brains, AI has no referential or relating experiences to draw on. Since the bots have no real understanding of human social relationships, they assume universal cultural contexts apply to all situations, not making appropriate distinctions based on context. This can lead to unfortunate and unacceptable language production including the use of pejorative or racist language.

The deep machine learning processes behind LLM-based chatbots do not allow for fine tuning or tweaking the algorithms. Today we have better insight into human neural networks through neuroimaging then we do into the black box of artificial neural networks used in AI. That fact should make us cautious in using AI-based language technologies in an unreflective manner. At the same time, advanced AI tools offer considerable potential benefits for language learning, and their informed, judicious use—alongside additional semantic resources that are contextually appropriate—seems to lie ahead for both learners and teachers.

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Last statue down

Statue of A.P. Hill being removed

This month the last remaining statue of a Confederate War hero, A.P. Hill, was removed in Richmond, Virginia. That concludes a movement that started with the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, with the series of statues on Monument Avenue being taken down one by one. The last statue on that street, of Robert E. Lee, was removed last year. The statues, erected during the Jim Crow South, celebrated the “Lost Cause”, the idea that the Civil War was fought over states’ rights and not slavery. The A.P. Hill statue took longer to remove because he was buried under the monument and Hill’s descendants filed a lawsuit against its removal. According to Richmond’s mayor, Levar Stoney, “Over two years ago, Richmond was home to more confederate statues than any city in the United States. Collectively, we have closed that chapter. We now continue the work of being a more inclusive and welcoming place where all belong.”

The hope expressed by Stoney that Richmond (and the US as a whole), had turned a chapter on racism with the reaction to the death of Geoge Floyd has not been fully realized. It was perhaps naïve to think that long established views embedded in willful ignorance and prejudiced worldviews could be changed by clear evidence of the institutional mistreatment of African-Americans, most obviously by the police. But perhaps the removal of statues celebrating slavery and white privilege can help move the needle somewhat. At the least, in Richmond, African-Americans from 2023 on no longer need live among monuments that celebrate their history of enslavement.

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Creative symbols of protest

Protesters holding up the Friedman equation

If it is not possible for citizens to verbalize their views on issues of concern, it may be possible for them to use nonverbal means of expression. That is a necessity for protesters in countries run by authoritarian regimes. Some interesting ways of protesting are emerging from China in recent weeks. That includes protesters waving blank sheets of paper, while others make use of mathematical formulas to make their statements. According to a recent piece in the Guardian, the blank white paper represents censorship, and may also “be read as a reference to the deaths last week of ten people in a building fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, which was blamed on lockdown restrictions that protestors believe prevented the residents from escaping in time. In China white is a colour used at funerals.” A startling video was posted online of a woman holding a blank piece of paper, with a gag over her mouth and her arms chained. The formula that is being used for protesting is the Friedman equation, which governs the expansion of the universe. There are two symbolic meanings here as well. The first is that the pronunciation of Friedman is similar to “free的man” (free man), a cry for personal freedom. The second is the idea of “opening up” which relates to the meaning of the formula, symbolically referring to the need for the Chinese government to free cities from COVID lockdowns.

The public protests are very unusual in China, where even peaceful demonstrations are quickly broken up. It’s also remarkable that the protests are being held in many cities across China. As one might expect, the universities in China have seen numerous protests. As a result, many of them have been closed down and students sent back home. While the most recent protests have been sparked by the fire in Xinjiang, they have gone beyond calling for Covid lookdowns to be eased, with calls for not just freedom of expression, especially online, but even for the ouster of leader Xi Jinping. In China, those are dangerous opinions to voice.

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Hamilton auf Deutsch

The German cast of Hamilton

Translating always means approximating the meaning of the original text. That is especially the case for translating literary texts, where it’s not just a matter of finding equivalent meanings but also of conveying the feel and style of the original. When the texts are poetry that makes the process even more complicated, as there is a need to make decisions on issues like rhyme, alliteration, meter, rhythm, etc. Then there is the cultural component. Literary texts are embedded in socio-historical contexts, which may be familiar to the intended readers of the original. Translators need to determine whether to simply convey the cultural context as in the original or add or explain so that it is understandable to the readers of the translation. Then there is humor and word play. Music complicates further, as the translated language must fit in to the time constraints built into song lyrics.

Translating the celebrated musical Hamilton into another language has all those complications and more. The story told in the musical is deeply enmeshed in the history and mythology of the founding of the United States. The story and the central figures in it are well known to anyone who has attended schools in the US. For those not having that background, the dynamics of the exchanges among characters in the musical, taken from historical accounts, will be unfamiliar. Then there is the kind of music in Hamilton, namely hip-hop or rap. While that style of music originated in the US, it has spread across the world, so the musical form will likely be familiar, at least to young theater goers. However, in the US, the cultural context of rap is tied closely to African-Americans and that is reflected in the musical, at least in its original stage version and movie, in which the main characters are Black.

So, translating Hamilton into German was no easy task, as pointed out in a recent piece in the New York Times: “Hamilton is a mouthful, even in English. Forty-seven songs; more than 20,000 words; fast-paced lyrics, abundant wordplay, complex rhyming patterns, plus allusions not only to hip-hop and musical theater but also to arcane aspects of early American history.” It wasn’t just the challenge of keeping the musical character as close as possible to the original, it was also the problem linguistically of going from English to German, as the piece states, “a language characterized by multisyllabic compound nouns and sentences that often end with verbs”. Translations from English to German often end up being considerably longer than the original. That was going to be a problem here. So, the translators had to be flexible and creative, finding ways to keep the wordage down, while maintaining the essentials of the content and including as many of the artistic effects in the lyrics as possible. The latter included the internal rhyming that is characteristic of rapping and is used extensively in Hamilton. The translators were able to work with the musical’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, who monitored the translations to make sure the lyrics in German fit the spirit of the original. The New York Times article and a piece in National Public Radio provide examples of the wording in German. The clip below shows the results.

The German Hamilton started playing this month in Hamburg; it will be interesting to see how German theater goers react. One of the interesting aspects of the German production is that the makeup of the cast mirrors that of the New York production, with actors of color playing the main roles. The fact that this was possible in Germany is a demonstration of the surprising diversity in contemporary Germany, with waves of immigration having significantly changed the homogeneity of the population there. In fact, many in the cast are immigrants, or the children of immigrants. Not all are German citizens, but they all speak fluent German, mostly as their first language. For my money, the songs sound very good (and natural!) in German.

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Quiet quitting or bringing your whole self to work?

Bartleby, the first quiet quitter?

Recently there has been a flood of media accounts and TikTok videos of “quiet quitting” – meaning not that folks are actually quitting their jobs, but rather that they are doing the minimum at work, putting in just enough effort to keep their jobs. The idea is that one should develop a healthy work-life balance and not overdo the commitment to one’s work world. The term may be newly popular but the concept is not. For Germans the idea may conjure up “Beamten” (civil servants), who have guaranteed positions from which they are very difficult to dislodge. Civil servants in many other countries may have a similar status. Students of American literature may make another connection, namely to Bartleby the Scrivener (by Hermann Melville), who when asked to do a work task responds, “I would rather not”. Some have pointed out that the refusal to go above and beyond minimum work duties is a product of the pandemic (and work at home environments) and the ensuing glut of job openings, allowing workers to be choosier in employment situations.

On the other hand, there has been a workplace practice that points in a quite different direction, namely “bringing your whole self to work”, the idea that we should be fully present in all our personal traits and preferences at work (our “authentic” self). As pointed out in a recent column in the New York Times, this is an idea popularized by corporate consultant and TED talker Mike Robbins and celebrated at companies such as Google. The idea is that workers feel more comfortable at work if they are able to express aspects of their personal identities. The column asserts that the “whole self” movement has become popular in part because it aligns with calls for instituting more diversity and inclusion in the workplace. From that perspective, employees don’t have to hide who they really are in order to be accepted in the workplace.

Cynics, looking at my own field of employment, might say, quiet quitting? In academia, it’s called getting tenure. Tenure is supposed to guarantee academic freedom, so that professors aren’t fired for controversial or unpopular opinions they may voice. But for some, it may mean that the job security tenure brings amounts to a sinecure, a job for life that one keeps even if performance is problematic. A friend of mine from graduate school on the day he received tenure, went down into his basement and started converting it to a man cave, anticipating a different lifestyle in his future. Of course, for many workers, those in low pay environments such as fast-food or factory workers, the work environment is such that neither quiet quitting nor “whole self” engagement is applicable – the jobs simply don’t allow for much in the way of personal investment. At the same time digital tracking devices are being employed for white collar workers, keeping watch on their every move and thus restricting what leeway they have at work.

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Monuments, cultural identity, and language

Soviet-era obelisk in Latvia recently demolished

Where I live, Richmond, Virginia, has in the US been a center of the recent movement to remove public monuments to individuals or movements associated with causes on the wrong side of history. In the case of Richmond, the monuments were statues of figures representing the breakaway Confederate States, determined to maintain the slavery of Blacks. The impetus to examine the appropriateness of public monuments celebrating racism came from the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Now in the Baltic states public monuments associated with Russia or with the Soviet Union are coming under increasing scrutiny and in some cases being removed. It is a phenomenon based largely on the Russian war on Ukraine.

However, the situation in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania is complicated by language issues. While the majority of inhabitants of those countries support Ukraine in the war, each country has a sizable number of native Russian speakers. Many of those people, ethnic Russians, support Russia in the war and do not approve of the removal of Soviet-oriented monuments. In Latvia, one third of the population speak only or primarily Russian. Recently, the Latvian government dismantled a tall obelisk erected in 1985 as a memorial to Soviet soldiers killed in World War II. According to a story in the New York Times, that obelisk was important to the Russian minority, with Russian speakers gathering at the obelisk each May 9 to commemorate the Soviet victory over the Nazis. It’s not just the ethnic Russians in Latvia who were upset over the demolition of the monument, the Kremlin accused European countries of attempting to rewrite history and disregarding Russia’s role in World War II.

According to the NY Times piece,

Latvia is not alone in seeking to dismantle symbols of the Soviet era: Other nations critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including Poland, have said they will do the same. Estonia recently removed a Soviet-era tank from a World War II memorial, prompting a wave of cyberattacks from a Russian hacking group.

We can’t know how the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine (and its possible outcome) will affect Russia’s neighbors, especially the former states belonging to the Soviet Union. We do see now Russian citizens becoming less and less welcome in many parts of the world or in particular domains such as sports competitions. The European Union is currently debating whether to prevent Russian tourists from visiting EU countries.

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You don’t like kimchi? You’re not really Korean.

Katianna Hong cooking soup.

As I wrote recently in this blog, for those from mixed ethnic backgrounds, one avenue to reclaim what feels like a lost heritage from one of the parents is to learn that parent’s language. The feeling that one does not fit into a personally linked ethnic group has sometimes been labeled racial imposter syndrome. It’s the sense that some individuals may have that their lives are in a sense inauthentic because they don’t conform to key aspects of the ethnic heritage with which they identify.

A current piece in the New York Times describes a different way to connect with that less dominant side of ones family cultural heritage, namely through food. The article, “Food Is Identity. For Korean Chefs Who Were Adopted, It’s Complicated”, explores how adoptees in the US from Korea (a large group) have learned to cook Korean food, with some becoming professional chefs. The situation is described as “complicated” for several reasons. The cooks have grown up in non-Korean environments and often have had little exposure to Korean cuisine until later in life. They tend not to cook straight traditional Korean dishes, but rather integrate Korean cooking techniques and ingredients into many dishes they prepare. One woman in the article, Katianna Hong, is described as “a Korean woman adopted and raised by a German Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother.” She makes matzo ball soup, a traditional Jewish food, in an unconventional way:

Instead of the mirepoix of carrots, celery and onions her grandmother called for, Mrs. Hong opts for what she calls “Korean mirepoix” — potatoes and hobak, a sweet Korean squash — cooked slowly in chicken fat until translucent. She dribbles a spoonful of the mixture around a hulking matzo ball surrounded by swollen sujebi, the hand-torn Korean noodles, all floating in a bowl of chicken broth as creamy and cloudy as the ox bone soup Seolleongtang.

The article describes the soup as “a tribute to her adoptive family’s background and her own heritage”. While for the adoptees, the experience of cooking Korean may bring personal fulfillment, the chefs may face backlash from other Korean Americans that their cooking isn’t Korean enough. Here again, the situation is complicated. Kim Park Nelson, an associate professor of ethnic studies at Winona State University, herself a Korean adoptee is quoted in the article on the complexity involved:

The most common example I hear, and what I have experienced, is being asked if I like kimchi. I do, but not all adoptees are crazy about kimchi. There is almost a nationalistic connection between kimchi and Korea.  It’s like a test question: Are you actually Korean?

Adoptees learn to cook Korean from different sources, but often from social media such as YouTube. The experience of starting to make Korean food can prove to be emotional: “For a Korean adoptee, eating Korean food can be a reminder of the loss, grief and disconnection they’ve experienced. Cooking may intensify those feelings.” It may be scray to assert ones identity as “Korean” if one has not grown up eating Korean food:

Feelings of self-doubt — the impostor syndrome — can turn into fears of cultural appropriation. Many adoptee chefs say they feel like outsiders looking in, wondering not only if they have permission to cook the cuisine of their heritage, but also if what they’re doing could taint it.

As one Korean adoptee chef stated in the piece: “In some ways, Korean food becomes a marker of what you aren’t.”

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Loneliness: Can AI and robots help?

OriHome robot, a social companion from Japan

Japan has a Ministry of Loneliness with a Minister whose mission is to combat social isolation in the country. This is a widely recognized problem in Japan, with a special term, hikikomori, created to refer to shut-ins who have virtually no contact with other people. Loneliness is common among older Japanese, but a study showed that it is prevalent among younger age groups as well. Prolonged social isolation can lead to depression and increases the risk of suicide, a perennial issue in Japan. Now the Japanese government through its Loneliness Minister is enlisting AI tech to help alleviate the problem. There is an experimental program which lends out robots to those who are isolated or who struggle with anxiety about social interactions. The robost, called OriHome, are tiny, just 9 inches tool, white, with green eyes. They are controlled by an app on mobile devices. According to the report, the robot has two arms, which it moves about expressively while talking, allowing for integration of nonverbal communication.

OriHome is not the first such device in Japan designed to provide companionship to humans. Paro is a robotic seal deployed in a retirement facility. Sony Aibo robot dogs have been available for some time. A piece in the Huffington Post traces the evolution of robotic companions in Japan. While the Japanese tend to embrace new tech early and often enthusiastically, the trend towards socially competent AI is something we are seeing world-wide, particularly through smart voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. Advances in voice recognition and in more naturally sounding synthetic voices have grown at a fast pace in recent years. Tech companies are also trying to make the assistants more social, through providing more human-like politeness formulas and small talk. They are also beginning to be able to build persistent models of user interactions, which enable multi-turn conversations and some degree of follow-up from previous conversations. Recently a Google engineer claimed that Google’s most advanced AI conversation partner, Lamda, had in fact become sentient. Most AI experts have expressed extreme skepticism. But the claim alone demonstrates how sophisticated such AI systems have become in being able to mimic humans engaged in conversation.

In the current issue of Language Learning & Technology, I have a column which examines how partnering with AI has benefited language learners, particularly in terms of writing in a second language.

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Cultural themes in US society and their deadly consequences

White flags on the National Mall representing deaths from COVID

In the US in recent weeks there has been a disturbing milestone – over 1 million deaths from COVID-19 – and several tragic events, i.e., mass shootings in New York and Texas. Although quite different in nature, these developments, I believe, highlight central cultural themes in contemporary America related to individual freedom of choice and to attitudes towards authorities, particularly as represented in science and the government. The events are disturbing and tragic but also worrisome in that the power of these cultural themes appears to be growing, with potentially catastrophic future impacts on public health and safety.

A recent article in the NY Times highlighted the fact that Australia’s Covid death rate has been one-tenth of that in the US. The article points to a “lifesaving trait that Australians displayed from the top of government to the hospital floor, and that Americans have shown they lack: trust, in science and institutions, but especially in one another.” That trust, present in Australia, absent in the US, was “fundamental in getting people to change their behavior for the common good to combat Covid, by reducing their movements, wearing masks and getting vaccinated”. While Australians followed community rules, sharing a mutual concern for others (“mateship”), many Americans insisted on their personal freedom not to wear a mask or to get vaccinated. For many in the US that individual freedom of choice trumped all other factors, including social responsibility.

That obsession with personal freedom to act, despite potential dangers to others, is a cultural theme that carries over to gun ownership in the US. There is strong evidence that the widespread lack of restrictions on owning firearms of all types, including military-style assault weapons, leads to more and more gun deaths, including suicides. Efforts at the federal level to institute restrictions have failed repeatedly over the years. At the recent convention of the NRA (National Rifle Association), NRA leaders and attendees responding to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, were, according to an article in the Texas Tribune, “unified in their belief that the shooter’s access to guns was not to blame”. Instead they pointed to cultural issues:

They attributed this attack and others to a broader breakdown in society wrought by the removal of God from public schools, the decline of two-parent households, a perceived leniency toward criminals, social media and an increase in mental illness. They described feeling ostracized for their beliefs, and not just those on guns. For their refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine. For their objections to gay people serving as teachers. For their belief in disciplining children through spanking.

Instead of restricting sales of guns, NRA adherents focused on cultural issues and “framed any attempt at curtailing gun rights as chipping away at their freedoms”. But just like refusing to be vaccinated puts others at risk, the insistence on the absolute freedom to own guns makes them so widely available that it seems inevitable that public safety is at risk, as the raft of mass shootings has shown.

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“I’m a fraud within my own identity”: Racial Impostor Syndrome

Emily Kwong at age 2 with her grandparents

There was a compelling story this week on NPR dealing with individuals from families with mixed ethnic backgrounds.  In the story, Emily Kwong discusses her decision to learn Mandarin Chinese at the age of 30. Her Dad had grown up speaking Chinese as his first language, but when he started school, he started learning English, and soon switched over completely. When she was little, Emily had learned some Chinese from her grandmother but had not retained any. As an adult, she started to feel increasingly that she needed to try to reconnect with the Chinese side of her identity and decided that necessitated learning the language of her father.

The feeling that Emily has of “feeling that I’m not Chinese enough” has sometimes been labeled racial imposter syndrome, the sense that individuals may have that their lives are in a sense inauthentic because they don’t conform to key aspects of the ethnic heritage with which they identify. That might be related to a lack of knowledge about traditional customs or aspects of the way of life, or be connected to the individual’s appearance. But quite likely there will be a language component. For Emily, learning Chinese has proven to be a challenge, as it is for many native English speakers, particularly if one starts later in life. However, the difficulties she has had with the language pale when compared to the shame she feels in not being able to connect at all with her Chinese-speaking relatives:

I’ve decided that any shame I might feel about imperfect pronunciation, fumbles with grammar is nothing compared to the shame I felt about not knowing the language at all; the shame I feel as my older relatives rattle off dim sum dishes and I stare down the menu pictures, feeling like a fraud within my own identity, missing something I never had in the first place.

This sense of feeling like a fraud within one’s own identity is likely felt by many individuals from immigrant families or those with connections to multiple cultures. NPR a few years ago did a series on such cases, which are increasing as American identities become more mixed. The accounts of experiences are revealing. A woman whose mother is Panamanian and father a white American recounted:

When I was young (20s) and living in the city, I would get asked multiple times a day where I was from, where my people were from, because Allentown, Pennsylvania, clearly wasn’t the answer they were looking for … It always felt like the undercurrent of that question was, “You aren’t white, but you aren’t black. What are you?” But truthfully, I don’t feel like I fit with Latinas either. My Spanish is atrocious and I grew up in rural PA. Even my cousin said a few weeks ago, “Well, you aren’t really Spanish, because your dad is white.” Which gutted me, truly. I identify as Latina.

Another individual featured was a light-skinned biracial woman:

White people like to believe I’m Caucasian like them; I think it makes their life less complicated. But I don’t identify as 100% white, so there always comes a time in the conversation or relationship where I need to ‘out’ myself and tell them that I’m biracial. It’s a vulnerable experience, but it becomes even harder when I’m with black Americans. It may sound strange — and there are so many layers to this that are hard to unpack — but I think what it comes down to is: they have more of a claim to ‘blackness’ than I ever will and therefore have the power to tell me I don’t belong, I’m not enough, that I should stay on the white side of the identity line.

Emily’s effort to retrieve a heritage through language learning may not apply to everyone, but for many it may be an important tool for feeling less like a “fraud”. The experiences in her family illustrate a frequent pattern in immigrant families, namely that the first generation may give up their first language, as Emily’s Dad did, in order to assimilate into mainstream US society. That was widely the case throughout the 20th century in the US. Second or third generation children, like Emily, discover often that not speaking the language of their immigrant parent or parents leaves a void in their sense of who they are.