Neurocognitive Linguistics is an approach to linguistics developed by Sydney Lamb (http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lamb/) which uses relational networks to model what the brain actually does when it handles language. You can read more about it at the LangBrain site (http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lngbrain/main.htm) and Glottopedia (http://www.glottopedia.de/index.php/Neurocognitive_linguistics).

Neurocognitive Linguistics Lab (“NeuroLab” for short) is a program for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux that allows you to experiment with relational networks using a convenient GUI, and record the results of your experiments in tabular form.

• Meaning Based: “a translation which prioritizes the meaning rather than the form of the original language.”
• Form Based: “a translation which prioritizes the form of the original language rather than the meaning.”
• Literal Translation: “a form based translation”
• Word for Word: “a form-based translation and I don’t know much about languages.”
• Free Translation: “I don’t like this meaning based translation.”
• Paraphrase: “I really don’t like this meaning based translation.”
• Accurate: I like it.
• The Most Accurate: means either
  • as an opinion (I believe this is the most accurate translation) “I really like it.”
  • as a statement of fact (this is the most accurate translation) “I know nothing about translation theory or languages.”
• Dynamic Equivalence: “I read a blog post about translation once.”

I’ve demonstrated before that what you think is “word-for-word”, or even one that conforms to the grammatical structure of the source text (“formal”) is actually nothing like it, but let’s have another example.

From Anabasis by Xenophon we have this scene in a battle:

τὰ δ᾽ ἅρματα ἐφέροντο τὰ μὲν δι᾽ αὐτῶν τῶν πολεμίων, τὰ δὲ καὶ διὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων κενὰ ἡνιόχων. οἱ δ᾽ ἐπεὶ προΐδοιεν, διίσταντο: ἔστι δ᾽ ὅστις καὶ κατελήφθη ὥσπερ ἐν ἱπποδρόμῳ ἐκπλαγείς: καὶ οὐδὲν μέντοι οὐδὲ τοῦτον παθεῖν ἔφασαν, οὐδ᾽ ἄλλος δὲ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ μάχῃ ἔπαθεν οὐδεὶς οὐδέν, πλὴν ἐπὶ τῷ εὐωνύμῳ τοξευθῆναί τις ἐλέγετο.

Word for word, this is:

The and/but chariots they-went/were-driven the on-the-one-hand through of-their-own of-the of-enemies, the on-the-other-hand also through of-the of-Greeks without of-drivers. Those and/but when they-might-see, they-stood-apart: he-is and/but who also was-seized like in in-hippodrome panicked: and/but nothing indeed but-not/neither this-one to-suffer they-said, but-not/neither another and/but of-the of-Greeks in in-this in-the in-battle suffered no-one nothing, except on on-the on-right-wing was-shot someone it-was-said.

To make this even minimally comprehensible in English you need to make a lot of changes:

And the chariots drove some through the enemies’ own lines and some through the Greeks’ without drivers. And whenever they saw, they stood aside, but there was one who indeed was caught like someone panicked in a hippodrome, but indeed they said that he suffered nothing, nor did anyone else among the Greeks in this battle suffer anything, except on the right wing one was shot, it was said.

We had to re-order words, add words, change tenses, get rid of double negatives, and otherwise munge things to get even this clumsy text. And yet there’s a lot we still don’t have: who is the “they” in the second sentence? It becomes clearer with the context, but it’s not good English to have a pronoun refer to a referent in a possessive construction. What’s a hippodrome? I didn’t know they had guns in the 4th century BC…

Here’s Carleton L. Brownson’s translation:

As for the enemy’s chariots, some of them plunged through the lines of their own troops, others, however, through the Greek lines, but without charioteers. And whenever the Greeks saw them coming, they would open a gap for their passage; one fellow, to be sure, was caught, like a befuddled man on a race-course, yet it was said that even he was not hurt in the least, nor, for that matter, did any other single man among the Greeks get any hurt whatever in this battle, save that some one on the left wing was reported to have been hit by an arrow.

My favourite Bible translation in English is the Revised English Bible.

That said, why would I be hostile (and I am, if you’ve ever talked about it with me) to the idea that some utterances are “better” or more “correct” than others?

The problem is that “language” is a fuzzy concept. Language varies enormously between different communities, social groups, and all the gallimaufrey of human interaction.

Why do people persist in attributing value to one particular variety of language over another? As a tool of social dominance and status signalling. As Geoff Pullum notes in his excellent talk on the subject, the written expression of a particular form of English spoken in London a couple hundred years ago has become associated with, not to put too fine a point on it, being successful in business and politics. Therefore, using this one dialect, which is called Standard Formal English, merely out of a myriad of others in the continuum that is mutually-intelligible English, signals that you are a member of the upper class, that you had the priviledge and leisure in your childhood to become fluent in it.

Note that this post is written in pure SFE. I don’t wish to discourage the use of Standard Formal English, as it serves a useful purpose in facilitating communication around the world.

What I do intend to discourage is the notion that using other varieties of English is “wrong”, “bad” or “broken”. This is as ludicrous as the idea that wearing jeans and t-shirts is “wrong”. There are situations in which wearing jeans would be inappropriate (a funeral), just as there are times when wearing a formal suit would be inappropriate (the beach). Likewise, there are times when Standard English is appropriate (a job interview), and times when it doesn’t matter one bit (a text message to a friend).

To think otherwise is, in a nutshell, a morally reprehensible prejudice. I had a conversation the other day with someone who had believed all their life that “Low” German was a “funny”, primitive pidgin, thus consigning millions of people to the status of subhumans. I had some trouble convicing them that the “Low” and “High” in varieties of German referse to geography, not any qualitative judgement, and that the only reason that the “High” variety has the higher prestige is that it happened to be the variety that Luther spoke when he translated the Bible.

I will teach my daughter that Formal Standard English is a useful life skill, but I would never dream of telling her that she is a lesser sort of person if she uses abbreviations in a text message, any more than I would insist that she wear a formal business suit to the beach.

Highlights of this release include:

• The primary new feature in this release is the “Grid Item”. This
  type of network item allows you to create a small “template” network,
  along with symmetrical connections to its top, bottom, and sides.
  Then the program generates a huge grid consisting of repeated
  instances of your template, with each instance connected to its
  neighbors via the edge connections. The overall topology of the grid
  is cylindrical; the sides wrap around, but the very top and bottom
  rows can connect to other network items.
• A simple way to input and output text to a grid is provided via the
  “Text IO Item”. This is a network item that has 256 connections in
  and out; if you connect it to a grid item that has 256 horizontal
  repeats it will feed your text (in UTF-8 format) byte by byte as
  activation to the different grid repeats, and output results from the
  grid if one of its outputs is activated.
• There are several UI improvements in version 1.2.0, including a
  palette of network items from which you can drag items into the
  network editing area.
• The underlying network automaton is vastly sped up in version 1.2.0
  by using seqlocks instead of mutexes to manage memory consistency.

You can reply with questions or discussion about NeuroLab on this
mailing list. Please report bugs via the issue tracker:
https://bitbucket.org/kulibali/neurocogling/issues/new

Neurocognitive Linguistics is an approach to linguistics developed by
Sydney Lamb which uses relational
networks to model what the brain actually does when it handles
language. You can read more about it at the LangBrain site and Glottopedia.

Neurocognitive Linguistics Lab (“NeuroLab” for short) is a program for
Windows, Mac OS X and Linux that allows you to experiment with
relational networks using a convenient GUI, and record the results of
your experiments in tabular form.

Neurocognitive Linguistics Lab is Copyright (C) 2010,2011 Gordon
Tisher, and available under the terms of the BSD License.

James McGrath has started a meme that widens the net a bit:

List every language that [you] have made some sort of concerted effort to learn, even if [you] didn’t get beyond the first lesson or so, or even if [you] are still learning it. No need to specify the degree of fluency in the blog post – if readers are curious how much Swahili you know, they can ask.

Here’s my list, in no order whatsoever:

• French
• German
• Spanish
• Italian
• Russian
• Norwegian (Bokmål)
• Basque
• Cantonese
• Mandarin
• Arabic (Standard, Levantine)
• Japanese
• Neo-Melanesian
• Krahn (Tchien)
• Dioula
• Swahili
• Lingala
• Poqomchi’
• Anglo-Saxon
• Greek (Attic, Koine)
• Latin (Classical)
• Hebrew (Biblical)
• Sumerian
• Akkadian
• Esperanto
• Ido
• Lojban
• tlhIngan Hol
• Latejami
• Toki Pona
• Láadan

Highlights of this release include:

• Abstract/Compact Notation: You can now build relational networks using the bidirectional nodes and links of the Abstract (formerly “Compact”) notation.
• Subnetworks: There is a new item type that allows you to create sub-networks and link in and out of them.
• Variable Link Lengths: You can now change the length of links (i.e. the number of time steps it takes for activation to spread through the link).

Neurocognitive Linguistics is an approach to linguistics developed by Sydney Lamb which uses relational networks to model what the brain actually does when it handles language. You can read more about it at the LangBrain site and Glottopedia.

Neurocognitive Linguistics Lab (“NeuroLab” for short) is a program that allows you to experiment with relational networks using a convenient GUI, and record the results of your experiments in tabular form.