If you read a great deal, you recognize that only a few books are truly profound and will be regarded as noteworthy among those written in a particular era.Having just finished “Native Speaker” I was both moved, and extremely impressed.This is clearly one of the distinguished books of this generation.

Chang Rae Lee is clearly a man of acute depth and insights, and he eloquently represents distinctly different cultures, and the angst, disillusionment, and metamorphisis arising from survival that affects immigrants.He also probes fundamental issues of family, loyalty, betrayal, and the question of what constitutes success.While he employs Korean, and Korean American prototypes, his themes and issues are fundamentally human, but perhaps distinctly American.

Furthermore, Lee is a superb wordsmith and a beautiful writer, with a masterful command of the English language, which he skillfully and artistically, employs to convey his complex tale and profound concepts.

I was motivated to read this book when I read that this was the book that had been recommended by many as that which diverse, fractious, and iconoclastic NYC should claim as it’s own in the trend for each of the nation’s cities to focus on a book to read.However, this is an important book for all Americans, as it trully speaks to the American experience.I noted one review compared it to Ellison’s “Invisible Man”.While I think that it stands alone, if I were to compare it with other American classics they would instead be Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” and Richard Wright’s “Native Son”.I am very pleased that I chose to read this book; it is noble, touching, and important.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Native Speaker (Paperback)

I’m searching for a native Finnish speaker who is willing to add me on any kind of messenger or via email talk to me in Finnish. Needing one person who is patient so can correct me if i make mistakes…after all the best way to practice and learn a language is to use it and i have no opportunity to use an everyday language anywhere (I’ll be studying Finnish starting with October at the Uni so probably then will be able to learn more). If anyone is interested being my Finnish penpal just leave a comment (your email adress will anyways appear to me in the control panel if you give it) or write an email to me on any of the following adresses: bebelusa_reka@yahoo.com / akiholic.girl@gmail.com or add me on MSN: bebelusa_alice@hotmail.com / Yahoo!:bebelusa_reka.

The aim of English For You And Me is to provide free English podcasts for the advanced level student.

Improve your comprehension by listening to a native speaker discuss cultural issues in the Anglophone world.

Familiarise yourself with the way real English is spoken.

I must state that I speak with a southern English accent, similar to the well-known BBC pronunciation. I am going to study topics such as the media, British culture and the English language itself; as well as fun things, like slang and celebrities. I will also try to enlist a family member for real-life conversation! It will involve the use of quite a wide range of vocabulary.

Enjoy!

Jenny.

The Violence of Color-blind Politics: De-Realizing the Loss of Race

As a part of a larger intellectual project to study the conditions of US modernity in terms of loss, this essay examines how Chang-rae Lee’s novel Native Speaker allows for a re-conceptualization of US color-blind politics—its insistence on the disappearance of race as a requisite for progress and the implications of this loss de-realized as gain. Instead of considering color-blindness in conventional terms as signifying an end of racial prejudice, I would like to explore its implicit violence in denying the loss of race, indeed, insisting that race cannot be lost at all. I do not mean to suggest that racialized classifications should remain fixed, but that their deconstruction needs to be troubled and reexamined. Merely conceiving the disappearance of race as a gain fails to acknowledge a loss of particular means of identification that can render the self unintelligible and essentially lost. As race is unseen, to what extent does it also leave the self unseen? In his essay “The End(s) of Race” David L. Eng suggests that proclamations of color-blindness within official US discourse are unsettling because they may only serve the political purpose of maintaining a progressive public image, but I argue that this rhetoric becomes even more problematic when it calls for the sudden identification with an amorphous, ambiguous post-race society and the disavowal of race as something that is being lost. I assert that it is only through mourning this loss can we move forward as a nation because mourning compels a complex reexamination of the self, which allows for new means of identification to be realized and fashioned. Rather than suggesting a mere fixation with the past, grieving strongly anticipates the overcoming of loss that invariably points to the future.

Comments

I still think my abstract is overly theoretical and I should try to discuss the novel a bit more…

Well suggestions and constructive criticism are always welcome.

Proofreading and editing for Thai students

Need to prepare your thesis for submission to your University?

I undertake commissions from university students who have prepared their thesis and now wish to have it proofread and edited before submission to their faculty advisers.

Each job is thoroughly and accurately carried out, and more importantly prepared according to your deadline.

This week’s task is to design a school project in accordance to the Hessian English curriculum that makes use of New Media. As there has been only this single restriction I let my mind float… I admit that it was maybe floated a little bit far off and aside and I know that my ‘dream project’ is next to impossible to become reality… nethertheless I hope you like it and get an impression on how it would be if there was enough time, money, skills, and technical equipment to realise such a project.

My ‘dream project’ deals with a topic that is part of the 9th grade curriculum – Great Britain and the world and thereby focusing on Great Britain’s former colonies and members of the Commonwealth respectively, as well as on the former colonizer itself.

During the project the students shall get in contact with schools and students from England, Australia, India, China, Canada, the United States, Africa etc. and talk with them via Skype or comparable devices about their daily lives – but also about things important to their education such as economy in the certain countries, cultural aspects (e.g. special holidays and traditions), special country sites people in these countries are proud of (e.g. US – the Grand Canyon, Canada – the Niagra Falls, Australia – the Great Barrier Reef) and so on. As there is a multitude of different aspects that can be talked about the students will not get bored so fast and become interested in foreign countries.

In order to document their results, the students create a homepage that includes every part of their correspondence: Introductions of the part-taking students from all schools and characteristics of the countries involved, small projects within this bigger one the students had worked on in accordance to newly gained interests (e.g. introducing special traditions or country sites) as well as a message board or blog via which the students can keep up the connections to their fellows abroad. Of course, this whole experience would be perfect when the students get the chance to actually meet with the foreign students in their home countries or in Germany respectively in some kind of exchange program.

Well, well… I know… quite utopian… … However, I am curious to read your opinions on my ‘dream project’. Feel free to comment!

My understanding of a native speaker is someone who has spoken a language since they were a baby, rather than having learnt it as a child or adult. The language comes instinctively and its grammar structure internalized before the child reaches age 3. Some say that language starts as early as in the womb where the fetus perceives the rhythms of the mother’s speech. There is some confusion as to whether someone like myself speaks Standard English as I also often switch to colloquial Singlish in informal situations.

I came across research done by my Linguistics lecturer from University, Dr Anthea Fraser Gupta. She writes that in Singapore we have 2 extreme varieties of English.

Singapore Standard English (SingStdE) and Singapore Colloquial English (SCE). Most speakers who control SingStdE switch to SCE on some occasions, while there are many speakers (including most children) who speak SCE but do not speak SingStdE well…..Many things that are required in StdE (such as tense marking, plural marking, BE) are optional in SCE.

Finished reading Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker a few weeks ago.  I need to start making entries every day because I don’t have too much specific to say now.  Enjoyed the book.  I could see it working well in the Contemporary American Ethnic Literature course.  Would I need to cut out Kingston’s Woman Warrior if I bring this in though.  The students really get into Kingston , so maybe not a good idea.  Lee’s book is more recent and deals more directly with “American” experience.  Really gets at the betrayal of one identity over the other.  More father/son relationship as opposed to mother daughter.  Would be great to show 2 very different experiences.  Lee’s character shows the compromises of  assimilation whereas Kingston is trying to connect with Chinese culture.

Ho la sfortuna di lavorare da molti anni per una società di Londra, con una posizione che richiede l’utilizzo della lingua inglese almeno quanto di quella italiana. Di norma sarebbe una bella cosa, dopotutto come sappiamo bene la ‘i’ di inglese fa parte delle magnifiche quattro (o cinque?) ‘i’ – risparmiatemi l’elenco per favore. Però non si tiene conto di una discriminazione al contrario, chissà perchè molto in voga nel nostro paese: sei ridicolo se parli inglese con l’accento giusto. Non dico che ti devono fare un applauso, e capisco che talvolta chi vuol fare il saputello accentui la pronuncia in modo troppo enfatico e faccia sorridere, ma da qui a essere additato tra le risa generali come novello Alberto Sordi from Kansas City ce ne vuole.
Ma prima di arrivare all’accento, è interessante anche analizzare le storpiature di termini stranieri nel linguaggio comune, a beneficio – stando a chi le sostiene – della praticità e dell’utilizzo facile da parte di tutti. Quindi, per esempio, la parola che fa da titolo in questo post, noto prodotto di igiene intima, non si legge in inglese come si dovrebbe, con un ovvio significato etimologico, ma ‘all’italiana’ e senza significato alcuno. Divertente. Perchè? Non si sa. Forse lo hanno deciso i creativi del Branding di qualche multinazionale dei prodotti di consumo, quelle che da sole (o meglio in tre o quattro) controllano il 60/70% dei prodotti nei supermercati. Per qualche curioso motivo, queste società globalizzano tutto tranne il nome, che deve rimanere locale e ignorante. Anche se onestamente ci vedo lo zampino italico. Posso immaginare lo scambio di battute tra manager:
‘Ma sei matto? Carefree (pronunciato giusto)? E come fa a dirlo la massaia quarantenne di Frosinone?”
“Scusa, non può imparare?”
“La massaia?”
“Perchè?”
“Sei licenziato.”
E l’altro manager, anche lui giovane e di mentalità vagamente aperta. Sarà gay o comunista.
“Ma anche Carefree (pronunciato come si scrive) deve impararlo, allora cosa cambia? Anzi, passo dopo passo l’inglese lo imparerebbero tutti, se cominciassimo a utilizzarlo in modo corretto..”
“Giusto, ma sei licenziato anche tu.”
Comunque, nell’Italia di internet, dei cellulari di nuova generazione e di altri inutili e costosi marchingegni tecnologici, in fondo l’inglese ormai lo masticano in molti. E arriviamo al nocciolo della questione: pronunciare corretto è sbagliato? Socialmente inopportuno? Parrebbe di sì. E pronunciare sbagliato è corretto? Anche qui, sì, stando alla dinamica di livellamento verso il basso che spesso noi italici sembriamo adottare. Del tipo: visto che siamo tutti messi male, dove credi di andare tu con quell’accento da fighetto? Mi rendo conto che forse qualche amica o amico, durante la nostra adolescenza, dopo un corso di lingua a Boston si è resa insopportabile con quella pronuncia più falsa che altro – BASTON, RIGHT? – che non andava via nemmeno cinque anni dopo il viaggio. E ci ha fatto odiare l’inglese ben pronunciato. Oppure un’altra amica o amico che, dopo essere stata in vacanza-studio a Cambridge per quel TOEFL di cui tuttora ignoro peculiarità e utilizzo (conosco solo il prezzo, eccome), fingeva di non ricordarsi più l’italiano quando si andava a bere in gruppo il sabato sera. D’altronde, in televisione l’inglese è più maccheronico che al mercato rionale, e benemeriti presentatori e soubrette dai cachet importanti non sono in grado di tirar fuori una frase in lingua straniera decente, davanti al George Clooney o Xavier Bardem di turno (tranne Raffaella Carrà, e ho detto tutto).
Perchè non danno qualche serie televisiva ‘pilota’ in lingua originale, su qualche lungimirante canale? Non sarebbe un brutto inizio, vista la popolarità riacquistata dei telefilm di oggi. Perchè non ci si sforza di leggere e parlare inglese con il giusto accento? Certo, fino a quanto l’immagine del native speaker in tv è quella del tizio delle Iene che fa il professore di inglese… Zappa sui piedi, la chiamerebbero altrove. Orgoglio coatto, che di per sè non è un concetto sempre sbagliato, per quanto mi riguarda. Ma in questo caso è meglio essere un pelo più esterofili e meno italo-centrici nella visione del mondo, aiuta anche a capire che non siamo i depositari della verità nelle cose: da come si rifà un letto alla valorizzazione del personale in una ditta. Anche se siamo certo maestri nel far scivolare le responsabilità altrove. La dolce vita italiana, la conoscono tutti. Un’esistenza col sole in faccia, occhiali scuri, sorriso stampato, senza preoccupazioni. Una vita carefree.

Blog postings have been a bit sparse from me lately and for that I apologize. I have been enjoying a bit of time off due to mid term season and a Korean national holiday. To make up for it, here is a little gem for all the ESL instructors out there: my final essay that accorded me my 100 hour TEFL certificate. Feel free to chastise me for committing 3 lamentable acts of academic fraud: citing Webster’s dictionary, citing Wikipedia, and getting really loose with APA regulation. That kind of irreverence makes me a big hit at parties.

Building Rapport with Language Learners

One of the keys to relationship building is rapport. But what is rapport really? Webster’s dictionary defines rapport as “relation marked by harmony, conformity, accord, or affinity”. Wikipedia suggests that rapport is “one of the most important features or characteristics of unconscious human interaction. It commonly refers to commonality of perspective … being on the same wavelength as the person with whom you are talking”.

Evidently, then, rapport is crucial for not only the building of relationships, but also for instruction in the ESL classroom. If students are not on the same page as their teacher, it is unlikely that they will ever form a synergetic relationship whereby the student is able to have language skills imparted on them by their instructor.

But can rapport be manufactured? The aforementioned wiki has suggested that rapport occurs on an unconscious level, far below the monitored surface of daily human interaction. Common knowledge, contrary to that idea, tells instructors that they should do their best to “get through” to students, but after that, it is up the student to make a conscious decision to connect with the teacher so that learning can occur. A little research indicates that there are subtle tricks that can be used by instructors to build a level of unconscious rapport.

Neurolinguistic theory can be used as a strategy to work towards building relationships with students. Firstly, teachers should ask themselves the following question: “What job am I trying to accomplish?” Teachers might suppose that they are just attempting to teach a second language, but that is not the whole story. Teachers should also be in the business of building relationships. Through these relationships and bonds, the foundations for language learning can take shape.

The first step: “determine mutually satisfying goals”. How will your relationship with your students be beneficial to you? How will it be beneficial to your students? If your answers are “I will get paid, and they will learn something”, then you have proposed two ideas that are unrelated to the building of rapport. Throw them out.

Perhaps your students can teach you a few words of their native language, in exchange for you taking some time to find out some personal information about them, and then discussing it. These ideas can create rapport.

The second step: “establish nonverbal rapport”.  This is where the subtle tricks can come into play, to be used to manufacture a level of rapport. Nonverbal rapport can occur through matching, whereby you align yourself with the person you are attempting to build rapport with. This could be through your posture, facial expression, rate of breathing, voice tone, tempo or pitch, etc. The idea is to adjust your physical state of being in order to “enter the world” of the students. The simplest manifestation of this in the classroom is to come down from the exalted podium position and look the students in the eyes, on their level. Another is to match the tempo with which the students use English (usually slow). Speaking English at the normal rapid pace will not aid the instructor in building rapport. What about choosing a particularly difficult student and attempting to breathe at the same rate that they do while adopting their posture? The use of nonverbal rapport can be an interesting experiment for the ESL instructor.

The last step: “produce positive feelings in others”. This can be achieved by leaving your personal issues outside of the classroom and choosing a positive state of mind. This positive approach, combined with an establishment of nonverbal rapport, can enhance the instruction process in the classroom, especially if the instructor can match their rapport building ability with a high level of instructional competence.

References:

Webster’s Dictionary. Definition of Rapport.

Wikipedia.org. Rapport Article.

NeuroLinguisticProgramming (NLP): The New Technology of Achievement Book. 1994.

The ending of this novel was unexpected but I really love it. It is such a change in tone from the earlier parts of the novel; it’s lighter and more optimistic. Henry and Lelia’s relationship has been re-built. This is shown in the way they treat language when they work together teaching speech therapy. When I read this end scene, where Henry and Lelia teach together, in my mind I contrasted it with their first meeting in which Henry notices how carefully Lelia speaks, her critical attention to language and proper English speech. Henry also takes English speech very seriously, as Lelia remarks, constantly paying attention to the way he speaks. This relates to the theme of race in that Henry connects speech with race, and wants to speak correctly so that he can be “American.” Later, he doesn’t want to read to Mitt, afraid that his speech, which is not as perfect as Lelia’s, will somehow corrupt his son’s development.

I like how the last scene shows such growth from the hypersensitivity surrounding language earlier in the novel. The kids enjoy Lelia’s teaching because she “makes the talk unserious and fun” (348). Furthermore, Lelia “wants them to know that there is nothing to fear, she wants to offer up a pale white woman horsing with the language to show them it’s fine to mess it all up” (349). It is valuable for the children to understand that even white people can mess up when speaking English. This shows Lelia and Henry recognize the importance of being able to relax and be comfortable in your own skin if you ever want to be able to improve. Likewise, Henry enjoys his job as the “Speech Monster” (348). Even though he is still playing a role, he is having fun with it, and he is doing something important– acting as a role model for children who are not native speakers of English. Lelia reinforces the children’s individual identities when she calls out each of their names in their native languages, and breaks down barriers of racial/national identity when she tells them they have each “been a good citizen” (349). This sounds like a funny thing to say, but it makes sense in the context of the novel.

As I was reading with the theme of race in mind, I noticed how race affects relationships between characters in this novel. Henry says of his father: “He never said it, but I knew he liked the fact that Lelia was white . . . the assumption being that Lelia and her family would help me make my way in the land” (58). Later, Lelia’s father has a very similar reaction to Henry: “I can see now why Lelia chose you . . . She needs someone like you . . . There’s so much that’s admirable in the Oriental culture and mind” (121). Henry’s father sees his race as a disadvantage that can be assisted by marrying into a white, American family, whereas Lelia’s father see’s Henry’s race as an advantage, something that will make him a good husband. Overall, there seem to be mixed opinions about race in this novel, and what position it places a person in socially, culturally, etc.

There is also a connection between race and the way characters communicate with one another. In Henry’s Asian American family, he is raised in an environment where there is a lot of silence; there are situations where it is better not to speak. For example, after Henry’s father is robbed by black men in his store, he came home, “went straight up to the bedroom and shut and locked the door . . . He wouldn’t answer” (56). In this situation, hiding oneself away, remaining silent, seems to be a way of maintaining pride, dignity, not showing weakness. I can’t help but feel that the adult Henry, both in his career choice and in his relationships with people, mimicks this behavior, keeping himself hidden, avoiding talking about certain things. Later, Henry acknowledges this, thinking about John Kim’s silence toward Janice in order to make a larger statement about Koreans: “We perhaps depend too often on the faulty honor of silence, use it too liberally and for gaining advantage” (96). Ahjuma, the housekeeper, is another Korean character that exemplifies silence and the hidden self–Henry doesn’t really know anything about her, even her name. Contrastingly, white characters in this novel–Lelia, her father, Janice–strike me as outspoken in a typically American way.

I think this is a big part of the problems in Lelia and Henry’s marriage–the communication. Mitt’s death, and the aftermath in which, according to Lelia, they never discuss the death, deeply impacts their relationship: “we’ve never really talked about it” (129). I do think Henry recognizes his inability to communicate with his wife in a way that satisfies them both. This passage really struck me: “I tried once or twice to pick up the habit [smoking], in sympathy with my wife, so we could sit together by the windows in the heat and not talk, and not always have to look at one another, to have those tranquil moments true smokers seem to share and secretly count on” (128). He longs to share those comfortable silences that you have with someone, where it’s not necessary to talk because you just understand each other. I get this. Still, Lelia needs him to talk to her.

There are definitely some issues of identity going on in this novel so far, and also identity as related to race and also language. Care is taken to describe each character’s ethnic background (reflected in their names) and there is also a lot of focus on the way characters speak/use language.

Henry Park, the main character, is Korean and an immigrant to the U.S. His identity to me is unclear at this point; he hasn’t yet revealed very much about himself or even what he does for a living. He is some kind of spy working for a private organization, who is assigned to follow and get close to people and write biographies (?) of them. I don’t feel like I really know him except in how he compares himself to others. There is his “American wife,” Lelia, who is white, and as Henry emphasizes on meeting her for the first time, “her voice surprised me with its pitch, clearer and higher than I was hearing these days” and what he noticed about her, even before her appearance, was that “she could really speak” (8-10). Lelia identifies Henry as Korean by his last name, but comments that it is the way he speaks that really gives away his foreignness: “You look like someone listening to himself . . . If I had to guess, you’re not a native speaker” (12). If I had to guess, I’d say this concept is pretty important, as it is the title of the book, tying together the concepts of “nativeness” (race/identity) with a person’s speech (language). Later, at work, he identifies many of his co-workers, Jack Kalantzakos- Mediterranean, Pete Ichibata- Japanese, and so on. He says: “Each of us engaged our own kind, more or less” (17). I’m already sensing some racial tensions here.

We also get characterizations of Henry from the list Lelia compiles about him. Included in this list are descriptions such as “illegal alien,” “Yellow Peril: neo-American,” “stranger” and “spy” (5). I notice she focuses on qualities that define Henry’s character by his race, his foreignness. Later, Henry finds another piece of paper on which Lelia has written “False speaker of language” (6). I’m hoping to understand what is meant by this phrase as I keep reading.

What is a native speaker anyway?

Claire Kramsch, from the University of California, Berkeley, in her paper “The Privilege of the Nonnative Speaker” discusses the definition of the native speaker implying that it may not really have to do with the privilege of birth or education, but with being recognized as such by the relevant speech community.

“…can one still speak of a canonical native speaker addressee? …linguists have started to examine this construct critically, beginning with Thomas Paikeday in his 1985 book “The Native Speaker is Dead!”. In interviews with Paikeday, over forty linguists, including Noam Chomsky, systematically scrutinize the usual definition of the native speaker of a language as someone who has an intuitive sense of what is grammatical and ungrammatical in the language. Paikeday concludes that the “native speaker in the linguist’s sense or arbiter of grammaticality and acceptability of language… represents an ideal, a convenient fiction…”. Because no publisher wanted to touch such a controversial book, Paikeday had to publish it himself, and linguists and educators circulated it under the table. For in language pedagogy the linguistic authority of the native speaker, derived from that of Chomsky’s “ideal speaker-listener”, had been extended beyond grammar to include social behaviour and cultural knowledge as well. Where would teachers and learners take their models from if there was no such thing as a native speaker?

Defining native speakership as the result of a particular education transforms it from a privilege of birth to one of education. Education bestows the privilege of being not only a native speaker but a middle-class, mainstream native speaker. …Native speakership, I suspect, is more than a privilege of birth or even education. It is acceptance by the group that created the distinction between native and nonnative speakers. …It is not enough to have intuitions about grammaticality and linguistic acceptability and to communicate fluently and with full competence; one must also be recognized as a native speaker by the relevant speech community.”

Well, language learners, after all it seems we still have hope of achieving at least a near-native speakership if we study hard enough, regardless of Chomsky’s definition (whom I really admire anyway… but I will relay on Claire Kramsch and Thomas Paikeday on this one).

If you wish so, you can read the full paper by downloading the PDF from the Educational Resources Information Centre.

Unique Multilingual Perspective

Have you ever wished you achieved a “native sound” in the foreign language you are studying?

I guess there are people with an innate talent for learning languages and they get to sound as any other local speaker, maybe with an alien pronunciation or word here and there, but still good enough to make you forget you are actually talking to a foreigner. I’ve had that experience talking in Spanish with an Italian friend, who has even managed to internalize jargon and regional accents.

However, if you are not among those privileged learners who are able to emulate the “idealized native speaker”, never worry. You are simply attaching relevance to your own “multilingual perspective” on the foreign language you are learning. At least, some scholars say so .

“Moreover, whereas students can become competent in a new language, they can never become native speakers of it. Why should they disregard their unique multilingual perspective on the foreign language and on its literature and culture to emulate the idealized monolingual speaker? Such a question goes against the grain of received knowledge in foreign language study, because language has traditionally been seen as a standardized system, not as a social and cultural practice. Viewing language as a practice may lead to a rethinking of the subject position of foreign language learners and foreign readers of national literatures –in particular, to a discovery of how learners construct for themselves a linguistic and social identity that enables them to resolve the anomalies and contradictions they are likely to encounter when attempting to adopt someone else’s language.”

If you wish so, you can read the full paper by downloading the PDF from the Educational Resources Information Centre.

The Privilege of the Nonnative Speaker

I have recently found an opinion paper with the title “The privilege of the nonnative Speaker” which I read with much interest, as it discusses several interesting concepts related to language learning. It challenges, from the perspective of linguistic travel, traditional assumptions which have rendered an idealized authority to the figure of the “native speaker”.

I kind of liked the deidealization of this fuzzy character I have always looked up to as a learner of a foreign language. Maybe this paper simply relieves some of the frustration I have often felt not being able to “sound native” after decades of serious and conscious study of English as my first foreign language. Perhaps it simply provides me with a fair and educated justification for my occasional failure to fully follow some native speakers (all the while a bell rings at the back of my mind saying “all these years of study for nothing”).

Anyway, I figure I’m not the only language learner often confronted with the native speaker ideal. So I thought I will share some interesting paragraphs of this paper with other language learners. As it is a bit long, I will do so in several posts.

“The study of foreign languages and literatures is predicated, explicitly or implicitly, on the notion of the native speaker. In language pedagogy, the premium put on spoken communicative competence since the 1970s has endowed native speakers with a prestige they did not necessarily have in the 1950s and 1960s, when the grammar-translation and then the audiolingual methods of language teaching prevailed; today foreign language students are expected to emulate the communicative skills of native speakers. …Foreign language study acquires credibility and legitimacy from being backed by national communities of native speakers, who set the standards for the use of their national languages… this idealization of the native speaker, has not been put into question. But native speakers do not always speak according to the rules of their standard national languages; they display regional, occupational, generational, class-related ways of talking that render the notion of a unitary native speaker artificial.”

If you wish so, you can read the full paper by downloading the PDF from the Educational Resources Information Centre.

At the university here, they have a tandem partner program where you get the chance to speak with native German speakers and they get to learn your native language from you.  I saw a flyer posted in the Max Weber Haus (where I take most of my Germany courses) from someone looking for an English-speaker.  I replied to it and we finally sorted through both of our schedules and decided to meet tomorrow night at 8 p.m.  My partner’s name is Sascha and it is really weird because it is pretty much like a blind date trying to figure out how to meet someone when you have no idea what they look like.  Luckily, Sascha found me on Facebook so now we can see pictures of each other before we go wandering aimlessly through the cafeteria.  However, when I looked at said pictures, I realized one important detail without which it would have been even harder to spot each other.  Sascha is apparently a boy’s name in Germany!

Der Song, der bei Cellyman im Hintergrund spielt ist ja von meiner Band Why Date?
Nach dem Stress der Film-Woche wollte ich den Text jetzt nochmal überarbeiten und neu einsingen.
Ist jemand zufällig Native Speaker? Ich bin mir bei einigen Textstellen nicht sicher, ob man das im Englischen überhaupt so sagen kann:

Song of Evil
You believe in freedom of the soul,
until it is under my control.
Everyone is dancing to my will
and I need no poison need no pill …

… because I’m Evil, Evil, Evil

If you’re just ordinary,
it will not help to run,
or hide in any other way,
I do mind-control for fun.

I want to do some evil with the evil league of evil,
this is important for my evil scheme,
because evil is something I believe in,
who would not want to join the winning team

…the League of Evil, Evil, Evil

Chop Sticks!

So, last Friday’s staff lunch was hosted by a professor who took us for Dim Sum. (I don’t know how to spell it) This was a brand new experience for me. I got a major dose of culture shock to say the least. In the car ride to the restaurant, I asked about what this might entail and learned that dim sum is not a food, dim sum is all about the way it’s served. 

It seems that no amount of huge family meals could have prepared me for this. Honestly, I got in the car afterwards and breathed a sigh of relief… It was probably the most stressful and hysterical lunch hour of my life.

Dr. Tan (the professor whose idea this was) was so excited to have us and be able to show us something that most of us had never experienced before. He is native Chinese and this is normal for him. He speaks very quickly and with a thick accent. I always feel like I am at least a sentence behind when we exchange good mornings. 

So this is how Dim Sum works according to my one brief encounter:

You are shown to a table and they set a teapot and cups out along with a small plate and chop sticks. That’s all. No menu. Then, these waiters wander up and down the aisles with these carts, like street vendors, and they yell in their native language what they have. If your plate is empty they will fill it and then put a check on the table whether you wanted it or not. Apparently if you don’t speak their language, they will just keep setting things down and charging you. Luckily Dr. Tan was in control. He spent the entire time, yelling at the waiters and trying to get to know each of us at the same time.

It went like this:

NO. TAKE THAT AWAY. NONE OF THAT. YES THANK YOU TWO OF THOSE. WHO WANTS THIS ? TRY IT YOU’LL LIKE IT. IT’S VERY GOOD. PORK. NO, SHRIMP. THIS ONE IS CHICKEN. WHO WANTS RICE. BRING US MORE RICE! I SAID RICE!

At the same time he was asking us how we are doing and how the school year is going…

So really it sounded like this:

YES, THAT IT… MORE CHICKEN. NO MORE PORK. AMIE, HOW ARE YOU? TAKE THAT AWAY. WE DO NOT WANT THAT. THAT’S GOOD TO HERE. AMIE, WHERE DID YOU SAY YOU ARE FROM? SAN DIEGO. IT’S BEAUTIFUL THERE. WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE? DO YOU LIKE THAT. I THOUGHT YOU WOULD. WHO NEEDS MORE TEA? BRING MORE TEA. THEY’LL BRING US MORE TEA… WHO WANTS MORE…

It probably didn’t help that I was facing away from the aisle, so the yelling waiters and their food carts were racing behind my back. All the noise and craziness and the chopsticks made it very hard to concentrate on eating. It was hard to even pay attention to our conversation, I just found myself giggling through the whole thing. 

Then, I noticed something else. Our table cloth was covered with more food than any of us actually ate. It looked like a pack of animals had made the mess. So, I looked around at the other tables, theirs were perfectly clean as if it works this way all the time. 

Anyway, that’s the news from my crazy lunch hour. I should learn how to use those chop sticks!

“Native Speaker” is a novel written by Chang-Rae Lee.

The protagonist Henry Park has problems to define his own cultural identity. He is of Korean origin which he cannot deny in his life at least caused by his outward appearance. He has problems with situating himself in a culture. What he does is to somehow search for `a sort of collective one true self, hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed selves, which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common.´ Henry does not find this `collective one true self´ neither in his wife who is American, nor in his father who was Korean. Henry sees himself positioned somewhere in between these cultures as a born Korean living in the American society.

This problems with defining  his identity follow Henry in every situation in his life. His job as a spy gives him the chance to hide. Henry´s problem with defining his own identity influences him in many situations in his life.