International exchanges are inevitable in order to develop our projects and to ensure a sufficient critical base for the research. This confronts us with the problem of translating ideas, concepts and results that have developed in our local working language. As we know, English nowadays plays the role of the pivotal language in most conferences and publications. My intention is not to argue with this position -- a pivotal language is needed -- but to understand what are the main problems raised by writing and communicating in a language that is not the one in which the work is done.
English speakers themselves must question the meaning of words, sometimes neologisms, used by a non-English speaker. Of course, what is at stake is not the words but the meaning they convey. These issues are being addressed in the study of learning mathematics in a second language, or in the study of the variety and variability of teachers' vocabularies in different languages.
As researchers the issue is somewhat different. In particular, we must coin words and expressions to name phenomena or concepts in our own working language and then the challenge of translating them, or to understand words and expressions specific to the domain coming from another cultural and linguistic environment-- sometimes via the pivotal language.
I am preparing a short essay on these issues. I will appreciate your contributions, hence my questions:
Do you have examples to share or any particular experience? What do you think about the reasons for these difficulties and the impact they may have on your own communication?
Nicolas Balacheff
Teachers may assist students achieve academic success by explicitly communicating positive expectations for each student, providing equal opportunity for students to engage in class discussions, and conveying to students that they are confidence in their capacity to succeed in their courses.
This is not something you learn when you first start learning arithmetic. However, this is a fundamental skill that every student should master since it allows them to develop critical thinking. Certain situations in life need you to be analytical, which is critical when making judgments.
Mathematics is the systematic application of matter. Mathematics organizes and prevents chaos in our lives. Mathematics fosters certain abilities such as reasoning ability, creativity, abstract or spatial thinking, critical thinking, problem-solving ability, and even excellent communication skills.
This is an interesting question to think about.
Not sure whether this is what you are interested in, but here is my recent story. As a context, I operate with English, Hebrew, and Russian, while being aware that I mastered none of them.
Recently, a colleague from Israel and I have been working on a project, the data for which comes from a NZ university. The project is about the first teaching steps of people whom we didn't know how to call. In the North American context, the usual term is "Teaching Assistant". But this term was recently criticized. The colleague and I talk in Hebrew, where we use "metargel" - literally, a person who leads a practice or an action of practicing something. This duality works nicely as "metargel matematika" as a person whose job is to practice math with students and as the key action of the job. We thought that the closest term in English is "tutor", and we saw that UK-based colleagues use it. We also found a previous study from NZ that used "tutor". This made us confident in our linguistic decision.
But then we sent a paper from this project to an American conference. Being aware that "tutor" may be confusing for the audience, we added a footnote about it on page 2. One of the reviewers wrote that they strongly object our use of the word (even though we highlighted the diversity of terms, gave references, and explained our decision) and wrote that if we insist on it due to cultural reasons, the explanation should feature in the very first sentence.
Nicolas Balacheff, you have raised in important point. You might find some interesting experiences of an international teacher educator, who struggled in deciphering the linguistic as well as cultural appropriate vocabulary. Please read the attached article (or jump to p.9 for specific example). Hope this helps.
Article Questioning Our Credibility: An Exploration of the Professio...
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