What’s in a campaign slogan? The Daily Show takes a look at the relationship between language, semantics, and politics.
John Oliver consults a political advisor to see if Ieshuh Griffin’s campaign slogan, “NOT the ‘whiteman’s bitch’” will be met with success.
Institution: China Art Gallery
Location: Beijing, China
Materials: Mixed media installation / Hand-printed books and scrolls printed from blocks inscribed with ”false” characters.
An installation that took Xu Bing over four years to complete, A Book from The Sky is comprised of printed volumes and scrolls containing four thousand ”false” Chinese characters invented by the artist and then painstakingly hand-cut onto wooden printing blocks.
*Personal Note: The Oatmeal is one of my favorite artists/comics/social commentators on the web. Check out his site and show him some love.
Informative conversation with K. David Harrison, assistant professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia and the author of the new book “When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World’s Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge”. He is the Director of Research at the Living Tongues Institute and was recently featured in the documentary called “The Linguists” which followed hands-on linguistic field work in countries around the world. In this fascinating interview, Harrison discusses the critical importance of the world’s many threatened languages and the vital knowledge that each language uniquely packages and holds for all of us. Harrison also discusses the need for more trained linguistic personnel to go out into some of the remotest parts of the world to document these nearly extinct languages before they are lost to humanity forever.
President Obama’s children’s book is a tribute to thirteen groundbreaking Americans and the ideals that have shaped our nation - from the artistry of Georgia O’Keeffe, to the courage of Jackie Robinson, to the patriotism of George Washington. The book was acquired and the manuscript completed prior to the President’s taking office in January 2009. Proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to a scholarship fund for the children of fallen and disabled soldiers.
In a country where most states declare English as the official language, Speaking in Tongues turns the issue on its head and explores how bilingualism can be a national resource. Following four students involved in an educational experiment designed to make them bilingual, the film discusses immigration, assimilation, globalization, and what it means to be American.
Watch the film in its entirety here. It is also available in Chinese and Spanish.
“Going Big,” an episode from the Chicago Public Radio podcast “This American Life,” highlights social activist and educator Geoffrey Canada’s attempts to break the cycle of poverty in Harlem. Canada points to 1980s research in Kansas City by a pair of psychologists who did a “close-up study of two sets of families, one group in which parents were on welfare, and another in which the parents held professional jobs. It turned out that the biggest difference between the two sets of homes was language.”
The shocking discovery was the “kids with professional parents heard 20 million more words in the first three years of their lives than the kids on welfare.”
Theomeny (n) - the wrath of God.
American soldiers in Afghanistan are relying on civilian interpreters who in some cases don’t know the languages they were hired to speak, resulting in dangerous military mistakes.
A former screener of translators alleges in a lawsuit that his former employer overlooked cheating on language proficiency exams, according to an ABC News report. The whistleblower, Paul Funk, told ABC that 28 percent of the interpreters hired by the firm between November 2007 and June 2008 failed the U.S. government’s language requirements. The company denies the charges and is fighting the lawsuit.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/09/100342_in-afghanistan-vital-information.html#ixzz0zgvHm25K
