Okay, okay, I know: I need to chill out about typewriters. But I’m really enjoying the book by Friedrich Kittler that I mentioned last week, Gramaphone, Film, Typewriter. In particular I want to look at this question that Kittler raises many times: how does the way we write affect what we write? (more…)
A Conversation about Discrimination in Tutorials: After the Inservice May 16, 2012
This past Friday Elise N. and I hosted the last inservice of the 2011-2012 academic year, “A Conversation about Discrimination in Tutorials.” Our overall goal was to encourage conversation about our experiences with encountering discriminatory language and attitudes in tutorials, and we were very pleased with the amount of extensive conversation that arose. That said, both Elise and I knew that we would not be able to cover all the territory surrounding discriminatory language/attitudes in tutorials within the hour and a half time limit, and we hope that this inservice sparks further conversation. A series of quotes, questions, readings, and “Looking back; Looking Forward” next steps are available for you to look over in the prezi Elise and I created. The next steps, which were collectively compiled by the inservice participants, were:
- keep doin’ what you’re doin’!
- consider our policies
- flexibility
- talk & respect (like we do)
- consider applying same strategies to these instances of discriminatory language
- continue our conversation
I’ve also included parts of our prezi in the slideshow above. Check it out! Tell us what you think! Keep the conversation going!
The Beauty of being Lost in Translation May 4, 2012
While I was hunting around online looking for poems to collect for National Poetry Month, I came across a fascinating article called “20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World.” Despite the 250,000+ words currently in use in the English language, there are just certain areas where we fall short in having one concise word to describe an emotion, action, or some other experience that seems so common. Reading over the list of selected words in this article, I could relate in some way to every single one. (more…)
“How Language Shapes Thought,” A Review February 17, 2011
Does the language that we speak determine how we think, or even our perceptions of the world? According to Lera Boroditsky, an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Stanford University, there is some strong evidence to suggest that it does. (more…)
UCWbLing 
