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To the best of my knowledge, the use of inflection to which you're referring is just as much a class and cultural marker as any other regional or social dialect marking. It isn't "incorrect" any more than some regions' uses of double modals ("shouldn't oughta..." for example) or the dropping of the copula in African American Vernacular English ("She nice") for labeling consistent attributes - a linguistic technique used in many, many languages. The "up-talking" you mentioned has been studied as a class variation, and while I've never heard of it being traced to non-profits in particular, it [i]does[/i] figure prominently in the speech of middle- to upper middle-class women from the northeast under the age of 35. It is often seen as a tag to indicate an unwillingness to appear dominant over the speaker's interlocuter.

If this linguistic marker makes you uncomfortable because you don't know whether or not you're being asked a question, you might want to try expressing that in clear and gentle terms the next time you talk with someone who uses it. Communication goes both ways, and if you don't understand them, I'm sure they'd want to know that. Let your needs be clear, and then your frustration may be eased.

All the best.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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This is a problem with the way language is taught worldwide - not just Mandarin to English speakers. Perhaps because language is something that we all have in common, in the sense that we all have at least [i]one[/i] language that is fundamental to our own communication and ways of thinking, we assume that we know how that language "works" and can teach it to others. For years, college graduates from the U.S. banked on the economic power of their native language and went overseas to "teach," with no pedagogical experience or training to speak of.

Just because you speak a language doesn't mean you can teach it well, or that you are aware of the kinds of things that go into learning a language from the students' perspective - it's a discipline that deserves professionals, just like anything else.

Note - I am not suggesting that untrained teachers cannot be successful - some are naturals, to be sure, but I believe that students will, on the whole, benefit from professional instruction and from classrooms and curricula designed by dedicated instructors with backgrounds in language acquisition, cultural transmission and sensitivity, and other elements of language pedagogy.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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Thanks for posting this information, Richard. I'm happy to hear about options for further practice and study for adults.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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I'm also a language teacher and learner - my husband and I just returned from spending a year in Sichuan where I was on a teaching grant at a university, and he was interning at a hospital furthering his studies in Chinese medicine.

My Mandarin isn't great, but it's strong enough that I was able to interpret for tai ji quan classes and navigate most conversations. I also studied reading and writing Chinese characters, which was where I was able to gain the most insight into Chinese culture - many of the aesthetic and symbolic elements that were destroyed or abandoned during the Cultural Revolution are still extant in the formation of characters, and I found them rich and amazing sources of subliminal cultural detail.

http://viewfromtheteahouse.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/the-chinese-puzzle/

As far as whether learning languages will prevent wars, I think the real point that underlies language learning is the willingness to accept another cultural reality as significant, legitimate, and worth investing in. All of these things are required attitudes for successful language learning, and (contrary to scottmil's point) [i]do[/i] involve a great deal of sensitization to otherness and of cultural transmission. This sensitivity can foster the kind of broad-mindedness and more thoughtful tolerance that can prevent war-like circumstances from arising in the first place.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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