Language news

Language in the news

By Jane Lugea, University of Huddersfield

EARLY LANGUAGE
EXPOSURE LEAVES
IMPRINT ON THE BRAIN
Recent neurolinguistic research
findings show that lost first lan-
guages can leave a lasting impres-
sion on the human brain. The study
was published in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences
(PNAS) in the US and involved car-
rying out MRI scans on babies of
Chinese birth that had been adopt-
ed into French-speaking Canadian
families. The results contradict the
findings of previous research, which
suggested that the childhood lan- Chinese children adopted into French-speaking families in Canada still responded to Chinese tones.

guage of adoptees is erased from

the brain as the children acquire
their new language.
Mandarin Chinese is a tonal
language, meaning the same word
can have various meanings depend-
ing on the tone used. The study
showed that Chinese children, in
spite of being adopted at 12 months
into French-speaking families in
Canada, nonetheless responded to
Chinese tones, even though they
had no conscious understanding of
the language.
The experiment involved 49
girls aged between nine and seven-
teen in the Montreal area. Among
the 49 girls, there were three groups
including the Chinese adoptees, girls
bilingual in Chinese and French, and
a control group of girls who had had
no exposure to Chinese. All groups
were asked to listen to ‘pseudo
words’ that used the tones prevalent
in Chinese languages. Even though
the adoptees could no longer speak
or understand the language of their
birth, the MRI scans revealed that
they had the same brain activity in
response to the tones as the Chinese
speakers.
Commenting on the study, a
professor of educational linguistics
at the University of Birmingham,
Angela Creese, suggested that the
age of the adoptees (12.8 months on
average) was significant: “It is at that
stage that speech starts to emerge
in children. The babies would have
been able to isolate sounds particu-
lar to their language.”
Kate Watkins, professor of
cognitive neuroscience at the Uni-
versity of Oxford, said the findings
had interesting implications for
those who may want to relearn their
first or early languages: “If your brain
is wired up to detect these [sound]
categories you are probably going
to have an easier time learning the
language.”
Alison Mackey, professor of
linguistics at Georgetown Univer-
sity, said the new findings provide
evidence for the hypothesis that
early language learning is perma-
nent, and what appears to be lan-
guage loss may actually just be a
problem of retrieval. She said: “It’s
there, but it’s not easily accessed.”
Mackey questioned whether the
Chinese adoptees could get close
to native-like fluency and suggested
that follow-up studies could exam-
ine the “cognitive benefits” of their
early exposure.
PLEBGATE: PROBABLY,
ON THE BALANCE OF
LINGUISTICS
The ‘plebgate’ scandal has continued
for two years in the British news,
since the now ex-cabinet minister
Andrew Mitchell was accused of
calling two police officers ‘plebs’.
The altercation took place as Mr
Mitchell, who was government chief
whip at the time, attempted to leave
Downing Street via the main gate on
his bicycle and was stopped by the
police officers on duty.
According to PC Rowland’s
version of the exchange, having es-
corted Mr Mitchell to the side gate
of Downing Street, the minister

06 Babel The Language Magazine | February 2015

 Language news

then told him: “Best you learn your

fucking place… You don’t run this
fucking government, you’re fucking
plebs.” Mr Mitchell then added, “You
haven’t heard the last of this.” The
politician owned up to swearing, but
contested the police officer’s claim
that he used the word ‘plebs’.
Ultimately, the case boiled
down to the likelihood of Mitchell
using the word in question or of PC
Rowland lying. The saga recently
came to a close as High Court judge
Mr Justice Mitting ruled: “I am satis-
fied at least on the balance of prob-
abilities that Mr Mitchell did speak
Former cabinet minister and Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell.
the words alleged or something so
close to them as to amount to the

Paris killings: an attack on

same including the politically toxic
word ‘pleb’.” The judge came to a de-
cision after consulting two forensic
linguists to help decide which ver-
sion of events was most likely, in
light of CCTV footage of the 15-sec-
ond exchange.
It is notable that the judge
also used contextual information as
a basis for his decision, ruling that
PC Rowland was “not the sort of
man who would have had the wit,
imagination or inclination to invent
on the spur of the moment an ac-
count of what a senior politician
had said to him in temper”. If he was
making up his account, PC Rowland
would have had to have come up
with the words within seconds, ac-
cording to the judge.
The case not only shows the
importance of forensic linguistics in
high profile casework, but also the
centrality of semantics in identify-
ing meaning potential and of prag-
matic concerns (such as background
knowledge and context) in making
legal judgments. Poor PC Rowland
though: not only was he called a
‘pleb’, but a witless one at that!
freedom of expression
By Prof Lesley Jeffries, Babel’s Co-editor and leader of the
Language in Conflict project (www.languageinconflict.org)
As Babel 10 went to press, freedom of speech was very much on our minds, as the
dreadful slaughter of satirical cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo in Paris was being discussed
on every broadcast and on the cover of every newspaper. Of course, we linguists know
that language (and that includes visual language) is a powerful tool, but it is not often in
our daily lives that we come up against such a raw sense of its potential explosiveness.
Where linguistic research comes up against questions of potential offence is in its
attempts to theorise the location of meaning. Is meaning in the text of the language
we use? Is it in the intentions of the speaker or writer? Is it in the minds of the hearers
and readers? Of course, there is a sense in which it is in all three of these, and one
could add to the list broader locations of meaning (in social norms, for example).
Much of our lives is spent trying to make the three (or more) types of meaning match
– or at least understand where they don’t. But speakers and writers are not always
conscious of their own intentions, since many ideologies are so frequently assumed
that they seem like common sense and are not so much articulated as assumed. Think,
for example, of the ideal shape of women in present day society which is taken for
granted in many contexts.
We often find ourselves caught between our own principles and the perceived
principles of those we speak to or about, and we make compromises to avoid causing
offence to those around us. But we can’t always do so, as we may not always know
where the gaps are between our outlook and the views of those around us. And at
times, it is important to acknowledge our principled stand, even where we know it will
not be welcome.
However hard it is to negotiate the difficulties of human communication, being honest
and true to oneself at the same time as avoiding gratuitous offence, there can be no
act of speaking, writing – or drawing – so heinous that it justifies cold-blooded murder.
We at Babel deplore any attempts to close down debate and we share the world’s deep
sympathy with the families and friends of the victims of the attack.

Babel The Language Magazine | February 2015 07