Monday, May 18, 2009

How to shout in Japanese

I am all the more eager to read "Deciphering the Rising Sun" when it is released in a few months because it should hopefully set a different perspective away from the peace time meaning of language learning and intercultural relations. When you come to think about it, language learning, that dipping into the otherness, is strongly set basking into a warming glow of goodwill, fun, smiles and fluttering voices cooing like in spring time. That's why you find cool books with titles like "Fun Japanese", but nothing like "How to have a brawl in Japanese". War is a shame and an anomaly. That's why it has been repeated over history time and again somewhere on the planet. Not only war but stressful situations may be met in daily life where the speakers have to make do in foreign languages. There are no books in Japanese about brawls I am aware of except the rare "Dirty Japanese" made acceptable by being ushered in with loads of LOL and sly smiles. Dirty but still fun. Movies may be the single media through which to get accustomed to language interaction situations where not everybody is oozing goodwil. You know, the scene when that man grabs for his sword ... . There are references to stressful, not friendly interpretation situations, "terps" in war being the extreme, maybe. But there are also references to interpreters in mental health settings and judiciary interpreting being a subject gaining momentum, the issue of interpreting in no so nice situations may get slightly more coverage in the future. This being said, interpretation is very much perceived as taking place in gracious or mending settings where smiles are requested and the finding of a win-win solution expected. It's a different story to be part of an incident when you are a direct actor of it or a conduit of communication. It was a different story when learning a language in crash courses was about strategies to win over the enemy. Once peace gets in and the trials are over comes the sunny side of interpretation and the coolness of that over you crave to get the language from. I refer to this in my course on first steps into interpreting, that not all situations are rosy scenes in an Indian movie. But finding content to exemplify my point has never been easy. I don't want to use bits of movies because you know that it is fake. Documentaries could certainly be a source of ordering situations to work with. I need to find some sources soon.

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