It was interesting to see that Jonathan Downie, a graduate of Heriot Watt is now the worlds first "official Glaswegian interpreter" - see http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-central/157749-parliamo-glasgow-meet-the-worlds-first-glaswegian-interpreter.
For some, the news that visitors to Glasgow need an interpreter is not surprising but for others it's a crying shame that "badly spoken English" is being promoted. (That's for those who see Scottish English as a variety of British English.)Interestingly, the concept of "good" or "bad" English tends to hold little ground in modern linguistics and is seen as a throwback to the complaint tradition where a prescriptive approach to language was the norm - telling people what they should and shouldn't do with language.
These days linguists tend to follow a descriptive approach - they try to describe what actually happens in real-life language rather than what "should" take place according to some textbook.
Personally it's a far more practical approach to language study, after all language is a vehicle for social identity, social change and individual expresion, and it's something that lives, grows, changes and develops.
Thursday 25 February 2010
Thursday 18 February 2010
Higher Education drops out
The Higher Education finance debate rages on only to add fuel to the fire over funding and the quality of education here in the UK. It's a sad state of affairs that a party which once promised to put "Education, education, education" at the heart of it's agenda now wants to make cuts in education!
Of course everyone needs to tighten the belt when the economy goes through a rough time, but it's a question of priorities.
Universities need to find cash to provide a quality student experience but this is difficult at a time when funding cuts result in staff cuts, courses being axed and perhaps most worrying if you're a happylinguist cuts in language degrees and departments.
It fails to look at the bigger picture. On one hand China and India continue to churn out graduates as quickly as they churn out goods for export, and this will result in stiff competition in the global job market in a few decades time when Chinese and Indian universities rise up the list of top notch institutions.
On the other hand, the inability of the UK to measure up to our European neighbours in terms of language skills already means that there are not enough qualified UK linguists to properly represent British companies abroad.Even the Directorate General of Translation for the EU can't find enough qualified native English speakers to work as translators!
The gap will only widen - soon it'll be an abyss - and the UK will be left even further behind, or in political terms, we could say that it will be "Dole, dole, dole" for a lot more people.
Of course everyone needs to tighten the belt when the economy goes through a rough time, but it's a question of priorities.
Universities need to find cash to provide a quality student experience but this is difficult at a time when funding cuts result in staff cuts, courses being axed and perhaps most worrying if you're a happylinguist cuts in language degrees and departments.
It fails to look at the bigger picture. On one hand China and India continue to churn out graduates as quickly as they churn out goods for export, and this will result in stiff competition in the global job market in a few decades time when Chinese and Indian universities rise up the list of top notch institutions.
On the other hand, the inability of the UK to measure up to our European neighbours in terms of language skills already means that there are not enough qualified UK linguists to properly represent British companies abroad.Even the Directorate General of Translation for the EU can't find enough qualified native English speakers to work as translators!
The gap will only widen - soon it'll be an abyss - and the UK will be left even further behind, or in political terms, we could say that it will be "Dole, dole, dole" for a lot more people.
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