austraLasia 1515
When is language not a language?
ROME: 2nd April 2006 -- Have you ever wondered what 'the new languages of the media' really means? Let me tell you that as a linguist raised in the Chomskyan tradition, but also as a native speaker, I have wondered and am still wondering. Most native speakers of English with or without a trained linguistic background, have this inborn sense that language is a human faculty and that its application to anything else is at best metaphorical and at worst deceiving.
Over time I have made a study of this term in the context of Salesian documents. It produced very interesting results. It suggested on the one hand that English readers often have to engage in mental gymnastics to understand what our documents are really saying (and I am referring only to a single term here, 'languages'), and on the other hand, that we might give a little more thought to a debate that has been raging for fifty years now.
Part of the difficulty comes from the fact that there are quite different schools of linguistic thought on the Continent (think of Saussure, Levi-Strauss, the Prague School...) from those in Britain, US, Australia - think Chomsky, Halliday, Dixon...). But what is commonly agreed upon is that where Latin-based languages have three words (linguaggio, lingua, parola to go straight to the point), English has but one, language. And in English, language is normally applied to a human faculty or something at least a recognisable extension of the human as in 'body language' - but even here, it is immediately seen to be metaphorical. We are becoming used to 'computer language', but are able to recognise a finite grammar, rules and so forth. Further extension of the term becomes nice poetry, but unhelpful prose.
Instead, linguaggio in Italian is a more abstract term, but when we move to the point of abstraction at which human language and cinema, or young people's subcultural styles fall together, then we are at a point where all kinds of behaviour fall under the mantle of language. St. Paul's Publications have published a Dizionario di scienze e techniche della comunicazione (1996) where they point this out - saying that even in Italian a term like linguaggio audiovisivo "is at best a working hypothesis;...after thirty years of research it has not been possible, despite notable effort, to demonstrate the existence of cinematic or television languages".
Now with regard to our own documents. A corpus of all official documentation from 1960 to 2006 produces the following statistics: 91 uses of the term linguaggi and 213 of the singular form linguaggio, virtually all of them in the context of phrases like 'language of catechesis', 'new language of media' and so on. What is fascinating is that the use and extension of the terms reflects a debate going on in the world around us but without ever referring to that debate. In the '60s (GC19) but a single mention of the singular linguaggio, with 'scolastico' attached, a concern about catechesis. In 1971 (GC20) it still appears in the singular but with nuovo attached for the first time and a semi-definition that it is to do with the 'characteristic style' of young people's system of communication while recognising that there is language 'in senso stretto'. This is just after Chomsky's well known lecture (1968) where he made it clear that for him language was a 'specific type of mental organisation'. That is his 'senso stretto'. Our usage began to diverge from that to 'style', and it follows along that track thereafter to linguaggi audiovisivi, esspressioni drammatiche, creativtà (GC21) and so on, broadening all the time. The broader understanding of language was acceptable in the context of the European 'schools' I referred to earlier, but there is little doubt that it left English readers bemused. Nor has there been a real effort to define the way we are using these two terms, (the one word in singular and plural form) though there have been some part definitions.
My final point is this. When the Vatican translator went to work on John Paul II's last Apostolic Letter, Rapid Development, he came across linguaggi ineditiin n. 3 of that letter. He translated it as vocabulary. Full marks in my book. Linguaggio and linguaggi appear to invite the gloss languages and language in English, but especially in the context of communications, I would suggest these are false friends. Vocabulary, expressions are two of a range of possible terms according to context. It is not only nor primarily a translation issue as the St. Paul's Dictionary cited above indicates. We could benefit from some further definition of certain terms we are using with considerable frequency now. Linguaggi(o) is one of them It appears 25 times in AGC 390!
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AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
When is language not a language?
ROME: 2nd April 2006 -- Have you ever wondered what 'the new languages of the media' really means? Let me tell you that as a linguist raised in the Chomskyan tradition, but also as a native speaker, I have wondered and am still wondering. Most native speakers of English with or without a trained linguistic background, have this inborn sense that language is a human faculty and that its application to anything else is at best metaphorical and at worst deceiving.
Over time I have made a study of this term in the context of Salesian documents. It produced very interesting results. It suggested on the one hand that English readers often have to engage in mental gymnastics to understand what our documents are really saying (and I am referring only to a single term here, 'languages'), and on the other hand, that we might give a little more thought to a debate that has been raging for fifty years now.
Part of the difficulty comes from the fact that there are quite different schools of linguistic thought on the Continent (think of Saussure, Levi-Strauss, the Prague School...) from those in Britain, US, Australia - think Chomsky, Halliday, Dixon...). But what is commonly agreed upon is that where Latin-based languages have three words (linguaggio, lingua, parola to go straight to the point), English has but one, language. And in English, language is normally applied to a human faculty or something at least a recognisable extension of the human as in 'body language' - but even here, it is immediately seen to be metaphorical. We are becoming used to 'computer language', but are able to recognise a finite grammar, rules and so forth. Further extension of the term becomes nice poetry, but unhelpful prose.
Instead, linguaggio in Italian is a more abstract term, but when we move to the point of abstraction at which human language and cinema, or young people's subcultural styles fall together, then we are at a point where all kinds of behaviour fall under the mantle of language. St. Paul's Publications have published a Dizionario di scienze e techniche della comunicazione (1996) where they point this out - saying that even in Italian a term like linguaggio audiovisivo "is at best a working hypothesis;...after thirty years of research it has not been possible, despite notable effort, to demonstrate the existence of cinematic or television languages".
Now with regard to our own documents. A corpus of all official documentation from 1960 to 2006 produces the following statistics: 91 uses of the term linguaggi and 213 of the singular form linguaggio, virtually all of them in the context of phrases like 'language of catechesis', 'new language of media' and so on. What is fascinating is that the use and extension of the terms reflects a debate going on in the world around us but without ever referring to that debate. In the '60s (GC19) but a single mention of the singular linguaggio, with 'scolastico' attached, a concern about catechesis. In 1971 (GC20) it still appears in the singular but with nuovo attached for the first time and a semi-definition that it is to do with the 'characteristic style' of young people's system of communication while recognising that there is language 'in senso stretto'. This is just after Chomsky's well known lecture (1968) where he made it clear that for him language was a 'specific type of mental organisation'. That is his 'senso stretto'. Our usage began to diverge from that to 'style', and it follows along that track thereafter to linguaggi audiovisivi, esspressioni drammatiche, creativtà (GC21) and so on, broadening all the time. The broader understanding of language was acceptable in the context of the European 'schools' I referred to earlier, but there is little doubt that it left English readers bemused. Nor has there been a real effort to define the way we are using these two terms, (the one word in singular and plural form) though there have been some part definitions.
My final point is this. When the Vatican translator went to work on John Paul II's last Apostolic Letter, Rapid Development, he came across linguaggi ineditiin n. 3 of that letter. He translated it as vocabulary. Full marks in my book. Linguaggio and linguaggi appear to invite the gloss languages and language in English, but especially in the context of communications, I would suggest these are false friends. Vocabulary, expressions are two of a range of possible terms according to context. It is not only nor primarily a translation issue as the St. Paul's Dictionary cited above indicates. We could benefit from some further definition of certain terms we are using with considerable frequency now. Linguaggi(o) is one of them It appears 25 times in AGC 390!
____________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
