Time and Tense - English, what a wonderful language!

The common idea of tense is often used to cover all forms of the verb in relation to both form and function and springs from different basic premises. Firstly most language learners think of verb formation and usage with the obvious relationship between tense and time. In fact in many languages, such as Spanish or French, time and tense are synonymous. Secondly, like many concepts in English grammar – such as avoiding split infinitives for example – the idea of tense develops from the historical approach of trying to harmonise English grammar with Latin grammar. This motivated grammarians to look for corresponding forms between “tenses” and many language learners do the same in an attempt to understand how English works.

In most cases, we would normally represent time by means of a timeline concept marking the past, the present and the future. While time is a universal concept, not all languages express time in the same manner. Linguists now make a distinction between tense and aspect. Tense is defined as the “absolute location of an event or action in time” and is generally marked by inflection in the form, in other words it can be considered as a grammatical form, while aspect “refers to how an event or action is to be viewed with respect to time.” [i]

While we might be accustomed to think of expressing time according to the past, the present and the future, it can be said that English only has two tenses – present tense and past (or non-present) tense since these are the only forms that show inflection:

John walks to work – Mary is ill (Present tense)

John walked to work – Mary was ill (Past tense)

As a general rule the third person singular of the present tense is inflected –s (I sing but she sings) and the past tense is usually formed by the stem + -ed (talk – talk +ed = talked.)  English does not have a future tense in the sense of having an inflected form, equivalent to the French parlerai or Spanish hablaré but expresses the future in a variety of ways, such as by using constructions like will + infinitive or be going to + infinitive.

In the case of aspect, it is generally held that an action can be viewed as progressive (sometimes known as continuous), perfective or perfect progressive. Since this refers to the manner in which the verb is viewed or regarded, the question is how to teach this to an English language student since the differences are often slight, ambiguous or context dependant.

The formation of aspects is as follows:

The progressive aspect is formed by using the construction to be + verb + -ing :                                     He is + sleep + -ing = he is sleeping

The perfective aspect is formed by using the construction to have + past participle :

                                    He has + eaten = he has eaten

The perfect progressive aspect is formed by the construction to have been + verb + -ing :

                                    He has been + sleep + -ing = he has been sleeping

Both tense and aspect can be combined in various ways to form the following paradigm:

	Simple	Progressive	Perfective	Perfect Progressive
Present	walk	am walking is walking are walking	have walked has walked	have been walking has been walking
Past	walked	was walking were walking	had walked	had been walking

From the above we can see the variation in verb forms and contrast their various uses. In general terms, the progressive aspect refers to something which is still in progress during a temporary period, such as a planned action. The perfective aspect links two events at different times, one of which is generally in the past, but the other may still be ongoing. 

Thus:

John sleeps soundly (Present simple – states a general fact, John is not sleeping at this moment in time)

John is sleeping soundly (Present progressive – the action is ongoing, John is sleeping at this moment in time)

They have lived in Spain for five years (Present perfective – action started in the past and they are still living there at the present)

Peter had been walking the dog when he slipped (Past perfect progressive – he was in the process of walking the dog when another event took place, his phone rang)

Some textbooks will make the distinction between the two concepts, tense and aspect, while others will use the general term “tense” to cover all forms of the verb. This former option is chosen by Quirk et al in A Grammar of Contemporary English which differentiates between time, tense and aspect and deals with the simple present and the simple past together as tenses, before moving on to aspect, while Parrott’s Grammar for English Language Teachers follows the latter option.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Parrott, Martin (2000) Grammar for English Language Teachers Cambridge University Press

Quirk et al (1989) A Grammar of Contemporary English Longman, Essex 18^th edition

The Internet Grammar of English

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[i] Both the definition of tense and aspect are taken from the Internet Grammar of English.

Profit before passion - what the ALS / MOJ fiasco teaches us!

Very often freelance translators and interpreters are accused of being a little bit naïve when it comes to business – after all our passion is all about language and so that’s what we want to concentrate on. Yet it’s easy to forget that we are also in business – taking care of the accounts, advertising, marketing and much more. But what happens when the business becomes more important than the passion? Well the ALS fiasco is what happens.

If you don’t know what that’s about (have you recently been abducted by aliens??) let me explain. Applied Language Solutions (ALS), was a successful translation agency run by Gavin Wheeldon. Gavin, who appeared on Dragon’s Den and has a penchant for expensive cars, sold his company to Capita for megabucks.  (There we have the first clue as to where his passion lies.) Anyway ALS won a contract from the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) to provide interpreting services to the police and court system in England.

ALS managed to do this by promising to cut costs while maintaining standards – something they could only hope to achieve by riding roughshod over the national framework arrangements for Public Service Interpreters and slashing rates of pay to such a low level that professional linguists would in some cases earn little more than the national minimum wage. Despite the fact that all the professional translation and interpreting bodies in the UK voiced their concern, and despite the fact that the majority of qualified interpreters refuse to work with ALS, the plan went ahead.

The result? Absolute chaos within the legal system – court cases have been adjourned, people have sat in jail cells waiting for an interpreter that never shows up and in some cases when the interpreter does manage to turn up – they either can’t actually speak English well enough to know what they are supposed to interpret or they have no knowledge of the process they are involved in!

Despite well documented evidence showing the MOJ agreement is a farce, ALS continue to claim that things are “getting better”; the Minister responsible, Crispin Blunt MP, does what a politician does best – stubbornly defend an unworkable policy while quoting incorrect figures about interpreters’ earnings; standards fall because professional interpreters will not work under such atrocious conditions and innocent people are being denied their basic legal right to a fair trial.

The lesson? ALS is a business, and Gavin Wheeldon has shown that his passion is not for language or linguistic excellence. He has made a bucket load of money by cashing in on the translation industry so that he can indulge his passion for fast cars and good luck to him if that’s what he’s worked for.  But why do it on the backs of the very individuals who have helped you become what you are?

Those of us who work as linguists have a true passion for what we do. We know that we need to be good in business, but our main motivation is that we love what we do. Call me naïve but I’d rather put passion before business any day!

Will language skills help you stand out in the job market?

That was the question posed by the Guardian newspaper in a Q & A Discussion that took place on Thursday 29 March. What resulted was a lively discussion that raised a lot of good points and highlighted some great career advice for language graduates. It's well worth a read, but here are a few points that came out:

The idea that the British are rubbish at languages is actually a bit of a myth. True, linguistic ability is not nearly as common as it should be in the population, but these discussions (and lots like them) demonstrate that there are some very capable linguists out there, and we're not just talking about holiday French, we're talking high levels of linguistic ability.

A language degree in itself is not enough for a career using languages. If you want a job where you are using your language skills as an integral part of the job you need other skills to complement your languages. That takes us to another point...

Universities that offer language degrees need to do more. Employers see language ability as an additional skill but still want graduates to be skilled in other areas. This is hugely frustrating for language grads. Maybe universities should offer more elective modules in topics such as marketing, business administration, engineering etc so that graduates can sell themselves more positively to potential employers.

And finally, one of my greatest pet hates - employers need to stop paying rubbish wages for language skills. If an employer truly values the language skills of their workforce they will pay a wage that reflects that. None of this nonsense about advertising for highly qualified staff for little more than the minimum wage. You do not just pick up a foreign language - it is learnt and it requires hard work over a long period of time.