The text biz

In the linguistic crystal ball

2011-11-23T16:15:00.002+02:00

One of the language topics in news chat this last week has been the latest 'coming of age' of voice recognition technology. There is, of course, a long history in this field, and there has been software on the shop shelves for a while, but it is in the headlines now because it is gaining a higher profile in mobile devices.

So what could be the linguistic consequences of an increasingly widespread use of this technology, by which a computer or device is able to process spoken input?

It is always difficult to look into the future where mass communication trends are concerned. Take the impact of text messaging, for example. The need to communicate complex messages with a limited number of characters sparked a whole set of linguistic habits among the texting population. This has led some linguists into a knee-jerk reaction about what they see as a destructive effect on language use.

However, a good starting point on this debate from an analytical point of view would be David Crystal's book Txtng: The gr8 db8. In this, Crystal argues that the language of texting is neither as deviant nor as disruptive as some linguistic purists might have us believe.

It is certainly fascinating to see a new linguistic context developing its own grammatical behaviour. Take 'you' and 'your', for example. One texting principle is that words can be reduced to a phonetic representation, so 'you' becomes the single character 'u'. This is preferable due to its more economic use of 'UI real estate'. But what happens to 'your'? Many years ago, if I needed to shorten 'your' in a scribbled classroom note, it became 'yr'. This follows another texting principle of shortening words by removing vowels, and has been used in texting. However, 'u' seems to have grown beyond being a simple phonetic representation. As one might expect in a language like English, which has a famously eccentric link between graphology and phonology, 'u' has become a morpheme as well as a phoneme. Therefore, 'your' can also become 'ur', with the 'u' being given a possessive inflection and losing its purely phonetic character. The phonetic change is made clearer by a comparison with 'u r' ('you are').

But I digress.

What about the mass use of voice recognition as a potential influence on language? For one thing, voice recognition technology starts with a limited vocabulary of commands, so that communication is more reliable within a given 'scripted' framework. Anyone who has some knowledge of the aviation industry may recognise a principle of 'controlled language' here. One trouble is that, when used by the population at large, language rarely remains 'controlled' for long.

So does the phonological similarity between, say, 'recent files' and 're-send files' mean that we will start to pronounce words differently, or in a more exaggerated manner, or with a preference for a particular regional pronunciation? Or will the technology truly develop so that it follows natural speech, rather than vice versa?

Only time will tell.

Emphatically speaking

2011-11-18T20:50:00.002+02:00

Linguists tend to be a pedantic lot. Faced with a good old bulleted list, the amount of time that goes into discussing the relative merits of introductory colons, initial capitals, and final full stops can be quite phenomenal.

It's a question of finding the right style.

Grammar is open to opinions as well, of course. One example might be whether the cricket correspondent should write 'England is all out' or 'England are all out' after the batting has collapsed yet again. The nature of style, though, means that it is always open to variation.

Faced with such choices, many people develop strong personal preferences and strong pet peeves in stylistic issues. One such issue is the use and misuse of emphasis.

There are several ways to emphasise a word or phrase, especially with software that can produce italicised and bold text at a single click. In some contexts, however, one form of emphasis might seem more appropriate than another.

Most web-savvy individuals realise that writing in all capitals is seen as the anti-social equivalent of shouting. Others realise that an underlined word on-screen may be misinterpreted as a clickable link. Italics, boldface, inverted commas, size, font, and maybe even colour can also all serve to highlight words for different effects.

One thing that does get a trifle irritating, though, is the use of multiple emphasis on one word. If a word needs that much emphasis, maybe the text is not doing the job in the first place.

A menu of taste

2011-11-09T20:45:00.002+02:00

One of the fundamental elements that we tend to use to judge countries and cultures is the food. Everybody eats, and travellers use restaurants frequently, often requesting a menu in English or in their own language.

Then, as a cuisine is exported, the concepts often need to be translated into the language of the new host nation, and maybe again for foreign visitors.

Our first experience of a cuisine, our first brush with a cultural flavour, is often therefore through the translated printed word.

Unfortunately, travellers' tales are frequently peppered with references to menus that are poorly worded or simply incorrect. The instinctive judgement of the food and the culture starts unfavourably.

Menus are certainly a specialist genre when it comes to creative writing, and creativity in a foreign language can be difficult. It is therefore no real reflection on the food if a restaurateur, probably trained to prepare gastronomic delight, sometimes falls short on linguistic subtlety in a non-native tongue.

There are sufficient complexities when writing a menu in your own mother tongue. Just now, opening a cookery book at random, I find that an English-speaking celebrity chef has come up with "poached skate with Thai flavours and its broth". Even recognising the difference between a menu and a recipe, this wording seems a little clumsy.

Many English speakers would also, I suspect, need to call the waiter over for help in understanding "trout saltimbocca". This doesn't mean that it's wrong, but, depending on the restaurant and the waiter, it might mean that fewer people choose it.

A menu needs to be worded so that it succinctly and attractively describes the contents of the dishes, implies the flavour of the food (with cultural references where appropriate), and reflects the overall theme of the restaurant.

That requires advanced linguistic skills as well as culinary prowess.

Sporting apophasis

2011-11-07T23:00:00.000+02:00

There is something of a thrill in finding a reason to comment on a rarely used word. Take apophasis, for example. The Collins English Dictionary defines apophasis as a rhetorical "device of mentioning a subject by stating that it will not be mentioned".

Rare though the word is, an interesting variant of the device is hitting the sports headlines in England at the moment. An allegation has been made that no less a sporting person than the England football captain has been seen using racist language on the pitch. The evidence, according to reports, apparently lies in lip-reading. The defence, as reported, is reminiscent of apophasis, in claiming that the word as lip-read on video is part of a denial that the word had been used.

These are muddy linguistic waters. Does an offensive word become inoffensive if it is used in a statement of denial? It remains to be seen how the incident is viewed by the authorities in England.

The gender of the comma

2011-11-03T22:00:00.001+02:00

An article in The Guardian online has revealed punctuation as a surprising device for getting round the law. The article claims that, as Chinese parents often prefer male children, a doctor in China may "use a full stop or comma at the end of medical notes – to indicate that parents have achieved their goal or must continue efforts to have a boy."

The gender-testing of foetuses is sensitive in China due to the illegal practice of gender-selective abortion. It now seems that the surreptitious manner in which medical information is allegedly communicated is leading to a new symbolism for two of the most frequently used punctuation marks.

Granted, the marks used in Mandarin Chinese are not precisely the same as the equivalents used with Latin scripts. However, the thought that the comma and the full stop (or period) are gaining a clandestine symbolic gender is intriguing in times when many people are striving to make language usage more gender-neutral.

Finding the funny bone

2011-11-02T20:00:00.001+02:00

One of the hardest things to judge when reviewing a text for publication is the appropriate nature and quantity of any humour. It may be a fairly simple task in standard technical writing, where the clear expression of facts and instructions takes priority and humour tends to get in the way. In such cases, humour is almost automatically deleted.

However, there is a cline in the application of humour, culminating in a text that is explicitly and intentionally funny or satirical. When humour is included, any textual alteration needs to be very carefully considered in context. An apparently simple spelling 'mistake' may be a deliberate pun, even if the reviewer considers it to be a poor one.

Furthermore, there are questions of cultural appropriacy, including whether readers will find material offensive or maybe just won't have the background knowledge to get the joke.

In addition, the target group of a text may get a buzz from the delicate flavours of semantic sophistication or may prefer the rare-done red meat of outright mockery. Maybe only the writer knows which crowd is the real intended readership and how they like their comedy served.

In the middle reaches of the humour cline lie any number of text types, from press releases to theatre reviews to literary fiction. (And good luck, by the way, to those fine people embarking on NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, at this time.)

One of the challenges for a sensitive reviewer in all such cases is not to confuse linguistic correction with censorship of content. The chief editor at a newspaper may be entitled to wield the censor's pen over journalistic copy, but it does not follow that a proofreader has the same right to make such a call.

To make that distinction between language and content, a high degree of linguistic and cultural awareness is required. A lot of this awareness grows through writing. Editors who don't also write, edit at your peril!

The specialists

2011-10-31T20:10:00.001+02:00

One way in which semantics occasionally pops into the news is through the ironic newspaper comment about how a 'dustman' is now called a 'sanitation engineer', or some other similar change. It is, the argument goes, political correctness gone mad.

This may trouble sociologists, too, as there is usually a wish to get away from the cultural baggage that has collected around a particular term. With so many years of associations and implications lumped onto the word 'secretary', the use of the word 'assistant' might be viewed as an escape from history.

One problem with this is that all words carry some form of cultural flavour. The word 'dustman' may have a certain semantic taste, but so does the word 'engineer'. Changing the term invites other unintentional interpretations. Check out the comedy series The Office, which plays on the distinction between 'assistant regional manager' and 'assistant to the regional manager'. (And as an aside, this is one piece of word play that successfully made the jump from the British version to the American franchise. Semantics can be a universal tool in power games.)

If, instead, we want to travel down the path of greater clarity, then we recognise that not all builders are scaffolders, even if all scaffolders are builders. Terminologists tackle these issues through concept systems, which depict the semantic links between terms.

However, we sometimes need a reality check for the way we express the concept that we choose.

Towards the reading process

2011-10-26T12:51:00.003+03:00

Whenever writers meet, either physically or virtually, it is probably inevitable that, at some point, talk will turn to "the writing process".

"The writing process" can mean different things to different people. For some, it may be almost mystical, as in the question frequently put to great writers of fiction, asking where they get their ideas from. For others, it may have an actual form, perhaps in the shape of an incomprehensible software manual, which often bears as much resemblance to a real writing process as a mobile phone user's guide does to a speaking process.

However, there is usually something missing. For how often does talk turn to "the reading process"?

It is the way in which a text is read that defines whether it is suitable, good, illuminating, or even genius. If a text cannot be read, then there is little point in writing it. And as the reader may not approach the text in the same way as the writer, the writer needs to write according to how the text is to be used, not according to how it is to be produced.

That's an easy thing to say, along with other great advice such as "know your reader". But it is the key to what works and what does not. Think "reading process", not "writing process".

This blog entry was first published at thetextbiz.com.

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Making writing extraordinary

2011-10-26T12:43:00.001+03:00

Like a business, a piece of writing needs a unique selling point. The initial 'hook' gets the reader interested, and the subsequent material provides the meat and gravy.

Sometimes the unique selling point will come naturally from the subject matter. Sensational breaking news might have sufficient impact in itself to attract readers. However, in the vast majority of cases, language choices add to the pulling power of a text - or, in the worst cases, dilute its appeal.

Many principles of rhetoric have been devised around the idea of language 'sexing up' content. The terminology of marketing may be different, but the concept is essentially the same. Words sell.

When expressing a selling point, either the message needs to be unique, or the language needs to deliver the message uniquely, or - best of all - both of these should be true. In such a case, the 'hook' can be compelling.

Even in today's constant jostle for attention, with a unique pitch, just two words can be enough.

This blog entry was first published at thetextbiz.com.

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Context is everything

2011-10-26T12:20:00.000+03:00

It happens to many writers, but how often can it be avoided? A carefully worked text, with errors corrected and stylistic edges tidied, finally sees the light of day. And it is placed next to something that completely changes the intended mood. It might be another text, or an image, or some piece of every-day realia, but the context alters everything.

In texts that are published on paper or on-screen, these text-life-threatening juxtapositional clashes need not occur. The solution may be in the hands of the writer, or it may be down to a copy-editor or advertising sales executive, but the contextual disturbance is one that can be foreseen. With a simple change of vocabulary or a nudge to the layout, it is possible to prevent an unintentionally subversive combination of elements.

If a text is to work as a whole, it should also work within a whole. In other words, a text should be suitable for its context. Without sufficient attention to the surroundings, we risk undermining the integrity of the text itself.

This blog entry was first published at thetextbiz.com.

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