Language: November 2008 Archives

Over the past few days, I have been spoken to in Flemish by a stranger on a few occasions, and what happens? My brain shuts down completely - I can't think of words in English, let alone in Vlaamse! I know, I know. I was teasing Mahmoud before, and now I'm having the same problem! Then again, today I said negentien and he wrote 18, and I said, "Nee achttien, negentien," and he wrote 19 and said "achttien?"

Soon afterwards, as I insisted that I am zesenveertig, Patricia and Marsi both did the basic math, 2008-1963 = 45. How is it possible that I convinced myself (for weeks if not months, mind you) that I am a year older than I actually am? Marsi was triumphant: "Then you are the same age as my mother!"

I knew I was in trouble this morning when I met Hucine on the way to class and he addressed me in goed Nederlands. Bouchra was already on my case last week. The first time I wrote some answers on the board, and Anne asked de klasse if there were any mistakes, Bouchra nailed as many of my errors as she could! (I'm just waiting for my chance to get even, hehehe!) ;-)

Friendships are developing . . . Topi has already promised to take me to Uganda. :-) Mahmoud encouraged Tolu when she hesitated over reading out loud: "Just try! You have to!" Ayman wants to tell me his story. Marinela was delighted that Bulgaria was listed first, "as it should be," in the last blogpost. (I think we are going to have to keep houd onze ogen op haar! That's "keep our eyes on her." Denk ik!)

Meer slaap zal helpen. Austublieft!

During our third Flemish class, Marsi found out how old I am. "My mother is one year younger than you," she told me. "Next year - funeral or what?" she continued. "What kind of flowers do you like?" Possibly all of the women in class besides me are here because they are married or engaged to a Belgian. Today there was talk of bridal showers and tea parties . . . I suppose I should be glad someone was thinking of any kind of celebration for me? Dank u wel!


Mijn voornaam is Steph. Ik ben Amerikaan. Ik kom uit de Verenigde Staten. Ik woon in Antwerpen. Hoe heet je?


The class is amazing. Anne is an excellent teacher, full immersion with a steady but reasonable pace. Of course it feels overwhelming, but we are getting used to speaking and hearing the words for basic introductions. Ik ben doventolk en ook leraar.

My classmates are from all over the world: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Egypt, India, Iran, Morocco, Nigeria, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and Uganda. There is no common language known by everyone in the class. Many do know English, but not everyone. Pictures, gestures, and mime supplement the curriculum and our conversations. The lingua franca will be Dutch: the official Nederlands and the common langauge, Vlaams (Flemish) spoken here in Flanders.

Dat is interesante. Nederlands shares common linguistic roots with English, while some of the Latin bits send my mind to Spanish. I got away with Que tal spreek jij with Patricia (also known as wonderwoman) before remembering the proper target language: Welke taal spreek jij? A bunch of my classmates are bi- or trilingual. The number of languages in the room is truly impressive: American Sign Language, Arabic, Berber, Bulgarian, Czech, English, Farsi, Flemish, French, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, Telugu, Turkish, Unsoka, and Yoruba. I am sure this list is not complete. At least I remember my own languages! Mahmoud got stuck on how to say "beroep" in Arabic. ;-)

This class after the weekend was rough. After struggling with buitenlanders and vreemdelingen and none of us wonen in dezelfde gemeente, it is no wonder talk turned to food and socializing. Anne announced, "there are no tourists here!" - then promptly took us on a tour of the Leopoldus Lyceum. We went op de trap and af de trap, links en rechts, through all of the gelijkvloers and eerst verdieping. Anne is quite flexible. On the first day of class, she assigned a dialogue role to me but started to take it away when she realized the geslacht didn't match. "We can't have a girl reading a boy's part," she said, but I shrugged and said, "Why not?" So she let me. What do you think will happen when they find out?

Hey! My friend Anneleen won an award from the European Commission for her educational work with young people! I think it's pretty cool. :-)

A polarization of viewpoints on the value of simultaneous interpretation (SI) was obvious from my first conversations with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). At first glance, MEPs who are fluent in two or three languages seem not to perceive much use for interpreters, while MEPs who are not so fluent beyond their mother tongue recognize and value the immediate gains of SI. A more subtle distinction that arose (which may or may not bear out over time and additional conversation) had to do with relative need: perhaps the interpreter is not desired to speak what an MEP says, but is desired to speak for others in order to guarantee comprehension of what is being said. Tentatively, there may be an implicit dynamic prioritizing listening to interpreters' work over having one's own words interpreted. If this is so, an emphasis on listening (to interpretations of other MEPs speech) might very well complement an emphasis on speaking for oneself. Both of these preferences could be construed as efforts to control the communication process.

I posed my identity-construction hypothesis in a nonjudgmental frame. "You may be right," one MEP acknowledged. "Interesting idea," said another. Choosing a lingua franca, e.g., going for speed and spontaneity, produces a different kind of shared identity than going for the use of simultaneous interpretation (SI). The question that I am investigating involves the relative effects of these choices as they aggregate over time. Such aggregation - "the collecting of units or particles into a body, mass, or amount: collective" - is the basic process by which culture is constructed. Instances of the same microsocial interaction that are replicated by different agents in a wide array of situations within a particular institutional structure and repeated over a period of time will constitute identities that both enact and represent an element of common culture. Whether or not a particular element of culture has special significance is an additional question.

An element of social interaction becomes significant when it enhances or detracts from a group's goals. This came up in another context where I was meeting people for the first time and explaining my academic field: Communication (broadly), in the subfield usually called "Language and Social Interaction," with a particular focus on how we construct meaning together. "So," I was asked, "you will judge us on how efficiently we communicate?" No, because such an assumption presumes that a group's goal is clearly focused, transparent, and commonly known. A newly formed group, or a group whose membership constantly changes, rarely has such uniformity of purpose. Rather, I would have to observe, participate, and test my observations in order to discover a group's trajectory, and then (possibly) assess (through further observing, participation, and testing) the relationships between the actions of individuals and the unfolding motive(s) of the group-as-a-whole.

In certain cases, I might observe and reflect upon the degree of match between what a group purports its goal to be and the behaviors of group members, but even in that case the first task is to determine if the stated goal corresponds with the intended goal. This latter is a better description of what I am attempting at the European Parliament. There is a publicized ambition to unite Europeans with a common basis for identification, but are the daily actions of MEPs contributing to such a construction? If so, what are the lived mechanisms, the everyday operations of interaction that cohere into widespread cultural forms recognizable as common by all European citizens? If not, where are the gaps and opportunities that could be turned to such purpose?

Models of the stages of group development, and group relations theory in particular, suggest that exploring tensions can provide evidence of the match between goal (an ideal) and practice (reality). Language use and simultaneous interpretation in the European Parliament are shot through with references to efficiency. When I try to imagine what language is being asked "to do" in the European Parliament, i.e., what is the function of language, and how does the form of language mediate its functionality, I have to wonder, are MEPs confusing "efficiency" with "expediency"? I also wonder if language is being utilized in fullest capacity to build a common framework for a European identification that exceeds nationality without erasing it.