Joshua McNeill

Author: Joshua McNeill (Page 3 of 20)

Sociolinguist | Specialist in French & Creoles, Race & Ethnicity
Sociolinguiste | Spécialiste en français et créoles, race et ethnicité

Do we need a glossary?

July 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

If nothing else, Kirby Jambon’s most recent book of poetry has provided me with a number of topics to write about on this blog (like here, here, and here). Today, I’d like to expand more on the idea of the usefulness of providing glossaries to readers who may speak different varieties of the language a work is written in.

Language variety is generally a difficult concept to begin with for those who don’t study linguistics. Usually, we think in terms of languages and dialects, where a language would be something like English or Swahili and a dialect would be something like American English or British English. Relationships between various languages and various dialects of a language are a lot more fluid than that, though.

[cml_media_alt id='1461']Guidry, R Grand-M'Man's Fine[/cml_media_alt]

For instance, Norwegian and Swedish are considered different languages, yet mutual intelligibility between speakers is very high. What’s really happening here is that these two could be considered “dialects” of one Scandinavian language, but, because they’re separated by political borders, they both aim at different standards: “Norwegian” in the former case, “Swedish” in the latter. This phenomenon of dependency is known as heteronomy.

In the case of Louisiana French, not providing a glossary for a literary work that is expected to be read by other francophones implies that one believes their variety to be a part of a larger umbrella language. In general, this sort of heteronomy helps maintain cohesion and mutual intelligibility itself over time, though it also places more value on one variety than the other. If Louisiana French is a dialect of some standard version of the language that speakers aim for, under the assumption that the latter is the “true” language, then it devalues the former.

On the other hand, the inclusion of a glossary suggests that the work in question is written in a variety that is so different that it can be seen as its own separate language, even though others might understand it. This is a position more akin to the reality of the difference between Norwegian and Swedish. The variety certainly maintains its prestige in this scenario, played out in Petites communions, as there’s no way to label it as a sub-par version of a more idealized variety, but one ironically loses any assurance that the two will remain mutually intelligible over time if this idea propagates.

And the idea that Louisiana French is not mutually intelligible with other varieties of French, or that it’s not even French, is quite alive. Many speakers don’t even refer to the language as French at all, but simply as “Cajun,” as in, “I speak Cajun.” Ethnologue, one of the most thorough and popular catalogs of languages of the world, even states that “reportedly, Cajun speakers can partially understand standard French” [my italics], as if to say it’s questionable. As a non-native speaker of Louisiana French myself, I’ve often had experiences where I’ve spoken in French with someone at length, and then, when the subject of French in Louisiana comes up later in the discussion, they claim that they can’t understand a word of it. My usage may not be completely native-like, but it certainly approximates the variety well enough that being able to understand me should equate to being able to understand native speakers, yet it’s as if, in their minds, they imagine Louisiana French as so different that it must not be the language they’re hearing if they’re able to comprehend it.

Ultimately, the choice of a adding a glossary to literary works in Louisiana French has much more political or symbolic meaning than anything else. When Mr. Jambon adds one to his book of poetry, that doesn’t automatically change the fact that the majority of the work is clearly in Louisiana French, it simply lends a little bit more support, inadvertently or not, to the idea that these varieties of French differ from eachother enough that they can be viewed as separate languages. The implications for such a view becoming consensus may need to wait until a later post.

The way of the machine.

July 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Continuing on the topic of how to create a makeshift language immersion environment (here and here), I’d like to talk today about getting lost.

Unfortunately, I used to work at an AT&T store. However, this led many interactions with Louisianians that I may have never had otherwise, such as the older Vietnamese woman I helped one day with her bluetooth speakerphone device. The situation was a bit difficult because I don’t speak Vietnamese and she didn’t speak English very well, but we worked through it. Near the end, I accidentally hit a button that caused the device to start speaking and what I heard was French. It just so happened that this woman could speak French perfectly fine, so we finished up as such.

The combination of being a seemingly insular group and being from a country which was once ruled by the French means that many Vietnamese people are probably in a similar linguistic situation. What’s important here is that this woman’s device was speaking French, though.

GPSs also speak French. These little boxes that allow us to mindlessly drive from location to location without a thought could actually be doing so in French, if that’s the language one wishes to learn. This may seem like a frightening prospect, particularly if listening comprehension is one’s weak point, but that’s exactly why it’s such a good idea.

In real life situations, one doesn’t always have the time or ability to pull out a dictionary or ask their interlocutor to repeat what they said five times; real linguistic interactions are fast-paced and full of all types of pressures to perform. That is also what happens when attempting to use an important tool in a language that’s not particularly familiar.

The advantage of using GPSs in this way is also that their vocabularies are necessarily limited. They essentially have to say things like “turn right” and “continue straight for 40 miles,” and that’s about it. This means that a user doesn’t have to have a particularly large vocabulary themselves. A learner can have a really basic inventory of words at their disposal and still be at a sufficient level to either understand every word being used by the device or to only need to learn to recognize a few extra words.

The fact that the information communicated by GPSs is also very important in a practical sense further enhances their usefulness. What could be worse than getting lost in a foreign language environment, asking someone for directions, then not being able to comprehend them? Learning to rely on getting directions in one’s target language before ever becoming lost could turn a tense situation into nothing more than a minor irritation and an opportunity to find new satisfaction in one’s language faculties when the situation is resolved.

Schtroumpfs in our library.

July 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Reading French in Louisiana is important. I’ve talked about this before in reference to the potential effects Kirby Jambon’s success with Petites communions: Poèmes, chansons, et jonglements on Louisiana literature, but what I didn’t talk about is how we access these works.

The Milton H. Latter Memorial branch of the New Orleans Public Library recently opened a new section, called the French Corner, for French books geared mostly towards children and young adults who attend nearby French immersion schools, as reported by NOLA Francaise. This initial offering was provided by the Consulate General of France, who, I have been informed, will be provided more books this fall.

Expansion will be a good thing. My initial impression of the section was that it appeared to be good for kids but limited, and I feared that it may be one of those initiatives that quickly loses steam. While a similar areas are not expected to be added to other branches, the Latter branch seems intent on maintaining theirs well.

[cml_media_alt id='1413']Schtroumpfs[/cml_media_alt]

The library won’t be relying on donations from the Consulate, but will also actively purchase books, and possibly even French films, based on staff and patron feedback. This means there’s an opportunity for those who visit this location to help guide its development by contacting them. One thing I noticed, for instance, was that there were no books by local authors. Of course, there are far greater options if one looks outside of Louisiana for books for children and young adults, but there’s no reason this can’t become a small addition to the economic possibilities for francophone writers in the state by including some. I myself suggested adding some of Jean Arceneaux’s (pen name of Barry Ancelet) transcriptions of folklore stories or perhaps Susan Spillman’s book Compere Lapin voyageur. Giving these works greater visibility and connecting Louisiana francophone publishers, such as Centenary College’s Éditions Tintamarre, to libraries could only help foster a stronger literary scene.

And let’s not forget to use French when visiting the Latter branch. I was informed that there are two full-time staffers who are fluent in French and a French speaker will be taking over managing the section in August. Just as I’ve been urging people to insist on using French in public interactions at francophone businesses around the state, we could also be doing the same when visiting libraries.

There is ample room for this initiative to grow, and it’s wonderful to see these efforts on the parts of the library and the General Consulate.

The domain of subtitles.

June 30, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Asterix, for those unfamiliar, is essentially the Mickey Mouse of France. As such, French culture can arguably be indexed in his stories, where this Gaul from a little village in Armorica drinks a magic potion to gain the strength to regularly repel Roman attempts to subjugate the last of the Gaulish tribes. One can reasonably assume that the French idealize the fortifying qualities of wine, which could certainly be described as magical, as well as the simple life, free of foreign influences. The latter has played out, for instance, in their general rejection of German influences in their music from the Baroque era up to at least the latter part of the Romantic era, as well as in tense debates over whether Muslims can cover their heads in schools and even in public spaces in general. While this is all well and good, Asterix is more importantly useful for learning French.

As I wrote about before, video games can be a great source of linguistic immersion, but so can TV and film. The question is how exactly to watch a film, though, to get the most out of it in terms of language learning. That is, one can view a foreign film with subtitles (in one’s native language), captions (in the target language), or just as is, each providing different advantages. Bianchi and Ciabattoni, linguists from the University of Salento and the University of Pavia respectively, did a fairly convincing study on this in 2008. While I haven’t had time to do a thorough reading of the literature, I think this study is a good starting place and mostly agrees with the results of previous studies cited in the write-up.

Bianchi and Ciabattoni found that, in general, beginners benefit most from watching foreign films with subtitles. This is often what happens in low level courses when a film is put on, although my gut feeling is that most students simply read the subtitles, watch the action, and pay no attention to the actual language being used. Presumably, the reason that this works for beginners is because they can attach sounds and images to immediate translations, eventually building up connections, which is supported by Bianchi and Ciabattoni’s finding that acquisition is most likely when all three of these input streams match up the best. This means that focusing simply on two levels of input and ignoring the third is a sure way to fail to improve one’s language skills, even if it is still entertaining.

Things change when looking at advanced speakers, however, according to Bianchi and Ciabattoni. In these cases, captions are the most useful. The difference is presumably that subtitles begin to vie for attention when learners are already capable of parsing most of the input directly. This matches the general trend of beginning language learning with lots of translations and then moving more and more towards remaining consistently in the target language. For instance, beginner textbooks often translate everything but, by the intermediate levels, teachers begin suggesting that students use standard dictionaries in the language being learned. Ultimately, the goal is to live in the language, avoiding the potentially extra processing required to flip back and forth constantly.

Why would Asterix be good for all this, though? He wouldn’t be. That is, he wouldn’t be good for advanced learners. One should generally seek out media that uses language just above the level that they currently understand. Asterix films, with their relatively basic vocabulary, should work well for beginners, but that same limited vocabulary would mean that advanced users could only use them for things like practicing listening comprehension. The input hypothesis, developed by Krashen, is generally pretty terrible, but this part of the idea is difficult to argue against. Imagine, for example, trying to parse a phrase with five unknown content words and one unknown grammatical construction compared to a phrase with just one unknown word. Clearly, one would have an easier time with the second phrase because there would be that many more context clues to work with.

Unfortunately for Louisiana, though, there are very few films and, as far as I know, no TV shows in Louisiana French. Louisianians wishing to learn French simply have to make do with materials from outside sources, ironically, considering Louisiana’s designation as “Hollywood South.” Perhaps the potential for French becoming part of the film industry here will be the subject of a later post.

Hide and then party.

June 8, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Or the party is hidden? Or the cache is done?

There are several lexical differences between Standard French and Louisiana French. One says cache-cache [hide hide] in France, and sometimes cache-est-faite [cache is done] in Louisiana to mean hide-n-seek, but that is not the focus of this post. We’re going to talk about orthography.

This compound noun is written as above, cache-et-faite [cache and done], cache-fette, cachez-fête [hide the party], and caché-fête [hidden party]. Each of these spellings is pronounced the same and can also mean something different if one considers their components.

The writing of Louisiana French, or rather of any unwritten language, is perfect for studying the way that speakers separate words in their heads. It’s very much possible that the standard French writing system influences speakers to think that, for example, je sais [I know; ʃɛ] is truly two words, whereas je [I] is a clitic that can’t be separated from the verb. So, one could just as well write chais without creating much trouble. In fact, these things often come about in informal domains; one can find the spelling chu for je suis [I am; ʃy] in texts as well as online, for example.

In Louisiana, agglutination is the example of this that appears the most often. Liaisons, when they are very regular, become real parts of the words. As such, one says le n-oncle [the uncle; l’oncle in Standard French] and un z-haricot [a bean; un haricot in Standard French] because the standard writing fails to influence illiterate speakers. These forms are still variable, however. As one approches Creole, one see them become rules. Ultimately, this requires a new orthography. The trouble that one finds, trying to write Creole with the writing system it is based on, makes this new orthography more or less necessary, but on loses something with this choice.

So, that brings us back to the subject of cache-est-faite. I guess I didn’t talk about this word much, I kind of got lost, but another angle that I’d like to talk about in another post, is etymology.

There’s only one poverty.

May 31, 2015 / / 0 Comments

I spoke about the way that one can create a false immersion environment using virtual worlds, but today I’d like to talk about the way one can make the most of the input that one receives in these worlds. That is to say, let’s talk about metalinguistic awareness.

[cml_media_alt id='1328']Noms comptables[/cml_media_alt]

We can begin to understand this idea using an example from a poem by Kirby Jambom, who I already wrote about here and here. On the right, one can see a pattern: noun (plural) et leur(s) noun (singular/plural). The first noun is always plural while the second is either singular or plural. Since there are several people in each instance, one would expect that the second noun would be equal to the first, but that’s not the case. This is because of the difference between count nouns and mass nouns.

A count noun is a noun that one can modify with a number, like the word bêtise [joke] in this case. On can speak of several bêtises (i.e. deux bêtises, trois bêtises, etc.). On the contrary, one cannot speak of several pauvretés [poverties]. There’s only one, then no more, thankfully. For that reason, the word pauvreté is a mass noun.

Mr. Jambon’s text makes this difference clearly evident, but I’m pointing it out to demonstrate what “metalinguistic awareness” means. It means that one reads carefully. It means that one thinks about what one is reading then asks good questions. It’s as important to understand why one would say this or that as to understand what a phrase means. Always ask “why” when reading. Read carefully. It’s easier to learn a few rules than to memorize 3,000 phrases.

Religious tongues.

May 27, 2015 / / 0 Comments

That is a recording of the Hellenic College Holy Cross Seminarian Chanters, who were singing during the New Orleans Greek Festival. It was a beautiful sound, that of the two singers, that resembles the flourid organum of Léonin (also known as Leoninus), the principal voice moves freely while the other voice rests on single notes for very long periods of time. In any case, neither pronounces the words quickly, choising instead to meditate on the word of God. Because of this, it’s unlikely that you can hear that they’re singing in English.

[cml_media_alt id='1311']Grec[/cml_media_alt]

I’ve written a bit about the importance of institutionalizing endangered languages. I also touched on the case of Hebrew (which I intend to write more on). Likewise, Greek seems to be institutionalized in the Orthodox Church, but not as strongly, at least in New Orleans, as the only exists in the writing, as in the picture to the right.

This wasn’t the case for Louisiana French in the past, when it was normal to attend Mass in French. Nowadays, Masses like that maybe only take place at festivals in Lafayette. But why? Evidently, there are priests who speak French and people that want to go to mass in French, judging by festivals and the fact that there have been opportunities to learn prayers on the Louisiana French Facebook group. In my opinion, it’s because of the dispersion of speakers. Maybe there are not enough of them in each parish, and the goal for the priests is to reach as many people as possible. That means that English is the most effective means because everyone in Louisiana speaks it. Yet the festivals gather enough francophones that Masses are possible, but in order for that to happen normally in the churches, speakers have to make themselves known as speakers, well enough that it seems necessary to offer services in French.

An open music box.

May 24, 2015 / / 0 Comments

In musical history, what differentiated New Orleans from the rest of the United States was that it didn’t prohibit slaves from keeping their drums and playing music. There was a space, and people used it to create. On Sundays, the slaves could descend on Congo Square, where they would beat their instruments, dance, and create. This spirit continues even today in the city, in traditions like festivals, second lines, and Mardi Gras Indian processions, which take place in the streets, et even in Congo Square. Open space, without prohibitions, is an integral part of creation, and maybe that is most evident in New Orleans, where one finds projects like the Music Box Roving Village:

This installation is yet another example of the way that open space offers the opportunity to create freely here. It also reminds me of the protest against the noise ordinance more than a year ago. After this event, city council members were considering some rules that would have made it so that one couldn’t have, for example, amplification or music without a stage. It was strange that this possibility was being considered in the first place considering the history of the city. That worried me, but the fact that this installtion is still possible gives me hope.

French lessons with the Daedric Prince.

May 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

It’s not as dark as it sounds, although it is most definitely as nerdy as it sounds.

There are numerous strategies for learning languages, but perhaps the most effective strategy is total immersion. That is to say, learning a language is easiest when you’re constantly forced to use it because no one around you understands your first language. In fact, linguist Stephen Krashen developed the input hypothesis in the 1980s based on the idea that immersion is literally all that a learner needs. But how can one achieve the same effect in a place that is distinctly not immersive? One solution I’ve found is to use online worlds.

I’ve been playing massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) since the 90s. These games are played exclusively online with hundreds to thousands of other players in giant worlds filled with interactive characters (NPCs). Currently, I play one called The Elder Scrolls Online (@joshisanonymous if you play yourself), which is an online version of a very popular single-player role-playing game (RPG) series. What’s special about this game, besides its fun high fantasy setting and game mechanics, is its extensive use of voice-overs for NPCs, available in French. In fact, not only will basically every NPC speak to you in French, but their dialogue is also displayed in written form.

[cml_media_alt id='1290']ESO Screen[/cml_media_alt]

Since this is interactive, NPCs generally speak one to three sentences at a time before allowing you to respond. This has the effect of providing regular amounts of linguistic input in chunks that are small enough to process, with an answer key when you can’t figure out a phrase. All of this is also provided within an activity which you would naturally be drawn to partake in. My personal experience has been that this helps greatly with listening comprehension. It even provides an opportunity to learn new vocabulary about an activity you are naturally inclined to talk about–I know the French word for ballista now, which may not seem useful, but it is when you play a lot of video games.

This environment could potentially lead to many interactions with other French speakers, as well, although The Elder Scrolls Online doesn’t seem to be particularly adept at grouping speakers of the same language together. Still, one could potentially join a guild of players who speak French in order to play through all the in game activities in an immersive way.

Obviously, this is not as effective as real life language immersion because you can’t simply spend every hour of every day playing games–I mean you could, but you probably shouldn’t. However, it is a reasonable compromise.

I intend to have regular posts like this, explaining creative learning strategies for acquiring a language.

Support bilingualism; be monolingual.

May 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Though it is not the only way to ensure that a language remains healthy, as in the case of Catalan, which was completely forbidden during Franco’s rule but remains quite strong today, institutionalization of a language is very important. Hebrew, for instance, may have only been possible to revitalize because it was already so deeply embedded within Judaism, and hence Jewish culture. Institutionalization in no way guarantees that a language will flourish, but it may guarantee that it at least has a stable persistence, providing the opportunity to be revitalized in the first place when the time is right.

Perhaps one of the best ways to ensure that a minority language is institutionalized within a community is to make sure that no one in that community can speak the majority language. One can see this in services that are offered to more recent immigrant communities, such as Vietnamese and Hispanic communities in New Orleans. A new community health center was recently opened in New Orleans East, where many Vietnamese people live, and it offers services in both Vietnamese and Spanish via translators. This both provides speakers of these languages with important services in their native tongues as well as economic opportunities for those who know these languages.

In the case of languages such as Louisiana French, a minority language which can very nearly always be easily avoided, speakers must insist strongly on its use to get the same result, perhaps to the point of refusing to speak English, regardless of being perfectly fluent in it. This doesn’t bode well for a population of speakers who just a few decades ago were generally ashamed of the language. Even people who have grown up with Louisiana French and use it professionally are liable to use English as their day to day language. In this climate, the desire to affect a change in the linguistic makeup of the state must be particularly strong.

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