Are translators different from normal people? Split personality? (Off topic)

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Are translators different from normal people? Split personality?

Thread poster: rsl

Damian Cassani
Local time: 08:24
English to Spanish
+ ...

Language = Thought?

Jul 17, 2002

I really do not believe that you are suffering from split personality disorder, simply because for me language does not shape the way we think. There has to be an independent matter of thought (as linguist Steven Pinker posits), which is then expressed through different languages. I do not think that merely because you speak different languages you have different ways of thinking. It is true that languages partition reality in different ways, and that may lead you to believe that they shape the ... See more

Alexander Alexandrov

Russian Federation
Local time: 14:24
English to Russian
+ ...

The more languages you learn, the saner you are!

Jul 21, 2002

And that is shown by examples of so many great people. (Though, there is a point of view that it is exactly because of being mad that they became geniuses). Personally, I think that knowing one more language just opens a new facet of the universe to you.

However, it is true that many professional translators are crazy. E.g., in my city (St Petersburg, Russia) they are mainly alcoholics. But that does not prevent them from being good specialists.

jaswinder singh

India
Local time: 16:54
English to Punjabi
+ ...

no,the translators are not different from normal people.

Aug 16, 2002

all humans have inbuilt creativity which make them strive to achieve the maximum.translation is also a job/career for the people who make money out of it. but translation of literary text does require special kind of sensibilities other content will be lost. it will be like a body without soul.
[addsig]

Virginija

Local time: 14:24
English to Lithuanian
+ ...

Knowing more languages makes a person more whole.

Aug 23, 2002

The more I learn from foreign languages, the better I understand myself. People of different cultures behave differently, and you behave differently in different groups at first. But the knowledge gained from translation gives me more confidence to be myself in any environment.

Katherine Matles

Spain
Local time: 13:24
Spanish to English
+ ...

Research?

Sep 23, 2002

Elena,

Do you know of any research on children who grow up speaking two languages. This is the case of my best friend. His father is from the U.S. and his mother is from Valencia, Spain. At home, he has always spoken in English. Besides he has a degree in English literature and has spent the last 8 summers in the U.S. However, since he was born and lives in Spain, of course he speaks Spanish fluently. The thing is he is truly intriguing to me. Is he is somehow more open-minded or e... See more

Elena Sgarbo (X)

Italian to English
+ ...

Katherine: yes, there is reseach on bilingualism :-)

Sep 30, 2002

In a nutshell, what most researchers find with different language pairs for the situation you describe (i.e., a child speaks one language at home, and another language outside the home), is that bilingualism may delay speech in toddlers by a few months, while the child is processing everything the child hears. Yet, once spoken language is acquired, bilingual children are usually at an advantage over monolingual children in terms of comprehension of the world around them. It seems as though the deficiencies of one language were compensated by the other, and vice versa.

Our 7 y/o son is bilingual and he has many friends who are bilingual (and a friend who is trilingual!). All these kids are at the top of their class at school, and have the best scores in reading & spelling...

Here are abstracts of some of the published articles on bilingualism:

Department of Psychology, York University, Ontario, Canada. [email protected]

Bialystok E. Effects of bilingualism and biliteracy on children\'s emerging concepts of print. Developmental Psychology. 33(3):429-40, 1997 May.

Abstract

Three groups of 4- and 5-year-old children were examined for their concepts of how print refers to language. All of the children could identify printed letters and their sounds but not read alone. The groups studied were monolingual speakers of English, bilingual speakers of French and English, and bilingual speakers of Chinese (Mandarin) and English. Bilingual children were equally proficient in both languages and were familiar with print and storybooks in both languages. The tasks assessed children\'s understanding of the general correspondence between print and language in which the printed form represents a word and the specific correspondence between a constituent of print and one of language that determines representation in a given writing system. The general correspondence relation applies to all writing systems, but the specific correspondence relation changes for different kinds of writing systems. Bilingual children understood better than monolingual children the general symbolic representation of print. The older Chinese-English bilingual children also showed advanced understanding of the specific correspondence relations in English print.

University of Miami, Department of Psychology, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA.

Oller DK. Eilers RE. Urbano R. Cobo-Lewis AB.

Development of precursors to speech in infants exposed to two languages. Journal of Child Language. 24(2):407-25, 1997 Jun.

Abstract

The study of bilingualism has often focused on two contradictory possibilities: that the learning of two languages may produce deficits of performance in each language by comparison with performance of monolingual individuals, or on the contrary, that the learning of two languages may produce linguistic or cognitive advantages with regard to the monolingual learning experience. The work reported here addressed the possibility that the very early bilingual experience of infancy may affect the unfolding of vocal precursors to speech. The results of longitudinal research with 73 infants aged 0;4 to 1;6 in monolingual and bilingual environments provided no support for either a bilingual deficit hypothesis nor for its opposite, a bilingual advantage hypothesis. Infants reared in bilingual and monolingual environments manifested similar ages of onset for canonical babbling (production of well-formed syllables), an event known to be fundamentally related to speech development. Further, quantitative measures of vocal performance (proportion of usage of well-formed syllables and vowel-like sounds) showed additional similarities between monolingual and bilingual infants. The similarities applied to infants of middle and low socio-economic status and to infants that were born at term or prematurely. The results suggest that vocal development in the first year of life is robust with respect to conditions of rearing. The biological foundations of speech appear to be such as to resist modifications in the natural schedule of vocal development.

Department of Psychology, McGill University, 1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue,

Montreal, Quebec, H3A-1B1, Canada.

Petitto LA. Katerelos M. Levy BG. Gauna K. Tetreault K. Ferraro V.

Bilingual signed and spoken language acquisition from birth: implications for

the mechanisms underlying early bilingual language acquisition. Journal of Child Language. 28(2):453-96, 2001 Jun.

Abstract

Divergent hypotheses exist concerning the types of knowledge underlying early bilingualism, with some portraying a troubled course marred by language delays and confusion, and others portraying one that is largely unremarkable. We studied the extraordinary case of bilingual acquisition across two modalities to examine these hypotheses. Three children acquiring Langues des Signes Quebecoise and French, and three children acquiring French and English (ages at onset approximately 1;0, 2;6 and 3;6 per group) were videotaped regularly over one year while we empirically manipulated novel and familiar speakers of each child\'s two languages. The results revealed that both groups achieved their early linguistic milestones in each of their languages at the same time (and similarly to monolinguals), produced a substantial number of semantically corresponding words in each of their two languages from their very first words or signs (translation equivalents), and demonstrated sensitivity to the interlocutor\'s language by altering their language choices. Children did mix their languages to varying degrees, and some persisted in using a language that was not the primary language of the addressee, but the propensity to do both was directly related to their parents\' mixing rates, in combination with their own developing language preference. The signing-speaking bilinguals did exploit the modality possibilities, and they did simultaneously mix their signs and speech, but in semantically principled and highly constrained ways. It is concluded that the capacity to differentiate between two languages is well in place prior to first words, and it is hypothesized that this capacity may result from biological mechanisms that permit the discovery of early phonological representations. Reasons why paradoxical views of bilingual acquisition have persisted are also offered.

University of California, Santa Barbara 93106-9660, USA.

[email protected]

Hernandez AE. Martinez A. Kohnert K. In search of the language switch: An fMRI study of picture naming in Spanish-English bilinguals. Brain & Language. 73(3):421-31, 2000 Jul.

Abstract

For many years, researchers investigating the brain bases of bilingualism have concentrated on two basic questions. The first concerns the nature of language representation. That is, are a bilinguals\' two languages represented in distinct or overlapping areas of the brain. The second basic question in the neuropsychology of bilingualism concerns the neural correlates of language switching, that is, the areas that are active when bilinguals switch from one language to the other. Performance between single-language and dual-language picture naming was compared in a group of six Spanish-English bilinguals using behavioral measures and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants showed slower reaction times and increased activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the mixed language condition relative to single language condition. There was no evidence that each language was represented in different areas of the brain. Results are consistent with the view that language switching is a part of a general executive attentional system and that languages are represented in overlapping areas of the brain in early bilinguals.

Department of Radiology, Stanford University, California 94305-5105, USA.

Illes J. Francis WS. Desmond JE. Gabrieli JD. Glover GH. Poldrack R. Lee CJ. Wagner AD. Convergent cortical representation of semantic processing in bilinguals. Brain & Language. 70(3):347-63, 1999 Dec.

Abstract

This study examined whether semantic processes in two languages (English and Spanish) are mediated by a common neural system in fluent bilinguals who acquired their second language years after acquiring their first language. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed while bilingual participants made semantic and nonsemantic decisions about words in Spanish and English. There was greater activation for semantic relative to nonsemantic decisions in left and right frontal regions, with greater left frontal activation. The locations of activations were similar for both languages, and no differences were found when semantic decisions for English and Spanish words were compared directly. These results demonstrate a shared frontal lobe system for semantic analysis of the languages and are consistent with cognitive research on bilingualism indicating that the two languages of a bilingual person access a common semantic system.

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