I was recently poring over some of the excellent books by the late British educator and popularizer in the world of philosophy and critical self-reflection Bryan Magee. Throughout this lovely spree of reading and serpentine contemplation, I was enjoying myself and hop-skipping from page to page, practically dilly-dallying in all the wisdom of books that I can include among the most influential on my worldview as a human being, such as Confessions of a Philosopher and Ultimate Questions. I was recognizing in his words some familiar sentiments and ideas—and when you happen across an author who brings into the light everything that you were mulling and even stumbling over in…
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It is quite simple, actually: that there are phenomena that we cannot explain —such as moments or events that run the gamut of the fortuitous, accidental, absurd, miraculous, paranormal, or otherwise inexplicable—does not in itself justify our attributing a cause or explanation of any kind to these phenomena. If we concede the simple and credible assertion that human existence is filled with all kinds of inexplicable phenomena, then the only reasonable response to these phenomena is—no response, nor the attribution of any definite cause. We are then in a position to undertake an orderly and rational process of investigation, hypothesizing, and testing, and any conclusions arrived at should remain at…
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The registers of a language are a fascinating thing. Even the mere fact that registers exist is fascinating. And while everyone can recognize that the kind of language that we use as human beings varies with the circumstance—people don’t use the same vocabulary and phraseology in a courtroom as in a taxi or a supermarket—for the student of a foreign language, the importance of a grasp of multiple registers is often underplayed or overlooked. And even if they are nominally recognized, often enough the registers of a language are understood as implicit. This is probably fine for the native speaker, who doesn’t need to consciously understand very much at all.…
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It is evident as a kind of motive intrinsic to the vast majority of media and entertainment that it believes it matters, and this entertainment continues to exist for a single correlative reason: as viewers in the audience, we believe that it matters. But neither of those assertions actually implies that it in itself matters enough to be worth watching, much less valorizing and investing the better part of our nighttime leisure and emotional livelihood in what amounts to noise in a box sustained by corporate profits and the lower instincts of our nameless, faceless, anonymous viewers that are right now sitting away in their nightly armchairs. It is a…
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For the translator in the twenty-first century, one of the most fervently repeated collocations of the times has to be machine and translation, those two suggestive siblings that have gone on to establish their reputations as the acrobats in a traveling circus of technology. As members of the audience, both captivated and unsettled by the performance in the ring and the apparently high-flying stunts of our little siblings, translators have front-row seats that make them the perfect observers of the madness and implicate them in the occasional fatalities. Once the lights have been extinguished in the audience, we might be dazzled, disturbed, cowering, maybe even fearful that one of the…
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In the world of professional translation, it goes without saying that the technological advances of the past few decades and, in particular, those of the rampant additions to the translation market such as ChatGPT and other kinds of artificial intelligence have meant the continuous upheaval of the industry. But this upheaval is nothing new—in fact, these changes should come as no surprise to the more veteran translators on websites and digital watering holes such as ProZ.com, where talk of the industry’s impending doom on its forums has been a viable subject of discussion since the late 1990s. And time and again, the general consensus has been that every panic-stricken pronouncement…
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En aras de abordar este tema de una manera holística y coherente, lo mejor sería que empezara partiendo de una teoría basada en el concepto lingüístico del innatismo, postulado por el lingüista americano e intelectual público Noam Chomsky: con el innatismo, Chomsky describe la existencia de un sistema gramatical innato y universal que posibilita la adquisición de nuestra lengua materna. Esta lengua materna, tal y como existe en un contexto concreto extrínseco a nosotros, funciona como una estructura superficial (que es, de hecho, cómo la denomina Chomsky) que se puede maridar, por decirlo así, con lo que es la estructura profunda de nuestro sistema gramatical universal. Según Chomsky, así aprendemos…
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Si dispone de los recursos económicos suficientes para hacerlo, el hecho de que una mujer decida luchar contra viento y marea para respirar una vez más el aire puro y fresco de la maternidad, no significa que sea patética o desesperada, ni tampoco que la situación tenga que ser triste (como he escuchado ya en algún que otro medio español). Aunque sean disputables y tengan su fundamento, este tipo de juicios a veces me parecen insensibles y hasta crueles cuando se le están echando en cara a una persona ya demasiado mediatizada y con su propia intimidad que proteger. Dicho esto, hay que ir más allá de lo puramente personal.…
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Known the world over as the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages–I assume that all the diligent, methodical precision used to create these levels in the first place has to be applied to the title itself, which is very precise but a pain in the **s to remember–the CEFR is used most commonly in Europe to classify the proficiency of learners of a foreign language. Given that I reside here in the United States, where language learning and proficiency levels in a foreign language seem to have taken the same illogical path to oblivion as the metric system (known but barely used, and even maligned by some), we use…
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En estos tiempos del pleno siglo XXI, puede que el término «conflicto intergeneracional» sea más una perogrullada que una ocurrencia, pero es algo que ha atravesado la historia más reciente de nuestra especie, cautivándonos una y otra vez a lo largo de las generaciones, y ahora parece que ya no se puede evitar. Para dar un ejemplo, si se tomaran en serio las nociones mayoritarias que los seres humanos de cada generación tienden a tener una vez llegada la tercera edad, se llevaría la impresión de que el gran acabose de la humanidad, el gran energúmeno acechando a la especie con sus tonterías e infinitos absurdos, es la juventud contemporánea.…
