European Observatory for Plurilingualism

-> Le bilinguisme : un atout pour réussir
La mondialisation des échanges va nécessiter un besoin accru en professionnels de toutes natures qui manieront au mieux plusieurs langues différentes.
L’enjeu économique va donc résider dans notre capacité à former des Français qui pourront travailler à l’étranger, comprendre les astuces d’une langue et les non-dits qui surviendront dans une conversation.
Comment nos enfants franchiront-ils les barrières du langage ? Quelle importance apporter au bilinguisme aujourd’hui et pour quels enjeux ?
Pour répondre à ces différentes questions, Jacques PETIT a réuni autour de lui deux experts de la question :

– Julien VIAUD, Directeur-Fondateur de SPEAKING AGENCY
Mail : julien@speaking-agency.com

ET

_ Barbara Abdelilah-BAUER, Linguiste et Psychosociologue BILINGUISME CONSEIL
Mail : barbara.abdelilah@bilinguisme-conseil.com

-> Learning Dialects Shapes Brain Areas That Process Spoken Language
Oct. 18, 2013 — Using advanced imaging to visualize brain areas used for understanding language in native Japanese speakers, a new study from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute finds that the pitch-accent in words pronounced in standard Japanese activates different brain hemispheres depending on whether the listener speaks standard Japanese or one of the regional dialects.

-> (Les Echos) Le futur de l’apprentissage des langues est dans l’e-formation
LE CERCLE. Selon une étude du Figaro parue en septembre 2013, le niveau moyen des salariés en anglais n'évolue que très faiblement chaque année.
Un salarié sur deux évalue toujours son niveau d'anglais comme étant en dessous de la moyenne. Cela se révèle d'autant plus alarmant lorsque l'on constate dans cette même enquête que 51 % des salariés ont déjà été confrontés, dans le cadre professionnel, à une situation en anglais où ils se sont retrouvés en difficulté. Il peut s'agir d'un appel téléphonique, d'une présentation orale, de la rédaction d'un email / document ou de la compréhension d'un document écrit.

-> Le blog de Cultures, Langues, Textes, l'actualité de l'unité de service en SHS du campus CNRS de Villejuif.

European Observatory for Plurilingualism
Nous apprenons tous une ou plusieurs langues mais connaissons-nous bien ce moyen de communication universel ? Pourquoi autant de langues existent-elles? Au travers d’une série de questions, il s’agit d’arriver à mieux comprendre les langues du monde, mais aussi de mieux appréhender le travail des #linguistes descripteurs. C'est l'objectif de cette nouvelle série "#Languesvivantes / langues vitales": décrire des langues pour comprendre le Langage. Le premier épisode se propose de répondre à la question : "Combien de langues sont parlées dans le monde ?"

-> Jajo the Rabbit 'hired' as translator at Birmingham courts
AN INTERPRETER has told how she registered her pet, Jajo the RABBIT, as a translator with a controversial Ministry of Justice-backed agency

-> Seven Existential Concerns of Highly Miserable Translators
Let’s face it, many translators are not exactly carefree, happy-go-lucky dudes and dudettes, eternally optimistic and blithely unconcerned about the future.

For the most part they are very serious and rather somber individuals, who often wear the typical “translator’ s scowl” on their face because they are highly distrustful of the dangerous world around them (and who might have a propensity to wallowing in their misery).

And with good reason. Our existence, professionally speaking, is being existentially attacked on so many fronts these days that most non-translators think that we will become extinguished any day now as a result of machine translation, as they believe that the intelligence that we are trying to sell to our customers, namely “human intelligence”, is no match for artificial intelligence, which is much faster, more reliable, and virtually free.

So what are the main existential problems that translators enjoy being afraid of at the beginning of the twenty first century?
...
1. Machine Translation Will Soon Wipe Human Translators Off The Face of the Earth
2. Our Competition in Third World Countries Will Soon Destroy Us
3. Cheap Translation Agencies Will Soon Drive Our Rates to Next to Nothing
4. Computer Memory Tools Like Trados Will Soon Reduce Our Rates to Next to Nothing
5. Big Translation Agencies Are Constantly Demanding Lower Rates from Translators
6. Blind Auctions on Translation Portals Such as Proz and Translators Cafe Will Soon Reduce Our Rates to Next to Nothing
7. Bad Payers, Non-Payers and Scammers Are As Plentiful in the “Translation Business” as Mushrooms in a Bohemian Forest after Rain in September

-> Bilingual children have a dual-process mind, lower stress levels
The benefits of growing up bilingual are many, and now new data further deconstructs the process that makes bilingual children so remarkable.
According to research presented in the International Journal of Bilingualism, not only do bilingual children have an enhanced ability to process sounds, therefore accelerating their learning capabilities, but they also use two completely separate sound systems to learn languages.

“It has commonly been debated whether a bilingual child has one large set of sounds from both languages or, conversely, two separate sound systems,” said Ithaca College researcher Skott Freedman to Science Daily. “A way of testing this theory is to measure a child’s language productions in both languages using some measure of complexity and then comparing the two languages.”

Other benefits for bilingual children
◾Improved attention to detail
◾Ability to focus on important details
◾Early onset of conflict management skills
◾Improved memory
◾Improved executive control
◾Protection against certain illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease
◾Lessening of symptoms associated with cognitive decline
◾Improved social skills
◾Reduced stress
◾Reduced risk for depression