Category : Interpretation
China Losing Culture Wars
The West is using cultural warfare to divide China, Chinese President Hu Jintao warned the Communist Party on Monday. “Hostile international powers are strengthening their efforts to Westernize and divide us,” Hu wrote in the latest edition of Communist Party’s magazine, 求是 (Seeking the Truth). In his piece, “Unswwervingly Take
Afghan Linguistic Allies Stuck in Harm’s Way
“Terps,” the interpreters who work for coalition forces in Afghanistan, are high-value targets for Taliban insurgents. Since shooting an interpreter in the field often spells the end of a mission by removing a military unit’s ability to communicate with locals, capping an interpreter is all the rage. On those hazardous
Dialogue of Calamity: The Great Tohoku-Kanto Earthquake Disaster
As the northwest coast of Japan has re-emerged, desolate from the great Tohoku-Kanto tsunami, those of us looking on have only our words and the stories to comprehend the incomprehensible, this vast landscape of heartbreak. So this post is not so much about the disaster unfolding in my beloved second home,
Bad News Is Good News
The world is going to hell in a hand basket. Like that’s news, right? Unless you’ve got your news filter on your browser set for cute kitten videos only, you already know that, since the news you get is always bad. And if recent research is accurate, the reason that all
Facebook Pearls and Xiuhmolpilli Ahead of Schedule
The week between Christmas and New Year’s was quiet, especially this year in NYC. Snow drifts up to car door handles imposed a still silence on Midtown streets. Short days, snowed in, and no business to be done. Somewhere between a Sabbath, when no project switch may be thrown, and
Sleight of Hand
In an earlier post, “Snakes and Language,” we looked at the role of pointing in the evolution of human language. But even with the emergence of the spoken word, the language of gesture remains fully in force, and in some ways is even more powerful a channel of communication than
Translating Brain Waves into Words
Now scientists can translate brain waves into words. Ho hum. Happens every day, right? Even as you read this, you are translating words into brain waves, right? Easy enough inside your own head, but what about someone else’s brain waves? Not so easy. Grant money is required. In recent years, various study
‘Terps Shooting Blanks
More than a quarter of Afghan linguists provided for the US Army by a translation service were hired despite failing linguistic tests, it was revealed on Nightline last night. The allegations were made in a whistleblower suit by a former employee of a company that holds contracts worth up to $1.4 billion
Guinea Pig Kids
A law intended to speed up the development of new pediatric drugs in the US has ended up pushing many trials to the children of developing and undeveloped nations worldwide, reveals a study published in Pediatrics. “The trend that we describe brings up some scientific and ethical problems,” says Dr. Sara Pasquali, a
English-Speaking Elite (How To)
Tak Fujii made his name on the Internet last month with an incomprehensibly bad English-language presentation at Konami’s E3 press conference. Tak is a manager and producer in Konami, and has previously worked as an audio director and specialized in localizing games in different languages. One of us. Not sure if
