Data Sampling - Revised for final

Link to thread I am using as my data sample: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=26764&PN=1

My question is: how do people perceive language? Does this have an impact on how they learn it? As I look at the HTLAL forums, I want to know what they think. The stated mission of the site is located on the homepage, claiming that Micheloud will provide (a) a guide to choosing which language to learn; (b) a detailed, hands-on guide to teaching yourself a foreign language (note the general language here); (c) reviews of books about language learning (interestingly, he is not at all interested in providing access to other language-learning websites); and (d) answers to frequently asked questions about language. These claims seem to bear out fairly well – I will examine them in more depth in a later post. However, the forum seems to add yet another mission to the site: it provides a space for language learners and enthusiasts to come together to talk about language – learning it, defending it, saving it, and generally celebrating it. Here I am looking at a thread that crosses a bit of (a) with the forum’s goal, successfully carrying out Micheloud’s mission.

 Learning a language is one of the most common ways individuals think to improve themselves – whether to get a better job, to sound more cultured, or to travel more confidently. So what happens when the language they learn turns into a detriment to their image? On this forum, they try to puzzle out why. A senior member, LebensForm, created a thread called “Ever criticized for learning German?” in the subforum titled “Specific Languages” to address the negative attitudes she perceived toward her target language. Started on May 19, 2011, it generated 66 messages over 6 months. Out of the 44 users who posted to the forums, only 9 users posted more than once. LebensForm posted 11 times, keeping her presence alive in the forum, but most of the other users seemed content to voice their opinions and move on. LebensForm’s last two posts seemed to be geared toward (first) ending the conversation and (second) changing the subject, but the users continued on restating what had already been said in various ways. The general tone of the thread was positive toward LebensForm and negative toward her detractors. The users continually brought up three particular perceptions that seem to color their own detractors’ opinions: the sound of the language (as “harsh” or “beautiful”; historical connotations linked with the language; and the practicality of the language. Some users’ comments went into multiple categories, as their comments touched on several categories.

Sound

Biologically, phonemes from different languages require different shapings of the mouth and valued pitches are different. The sound of a language will color a person’s perception of the culture; this seems to be particularly true of German, as it was mentioned 16 times. Keilan, one of the first posters, illustrated the problem as follows:

“I usually ask them if they think German sounds like this, and then proceed to say "nach" with the most exaggerated gross throaty noise I can make. NaCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCh.” (Keilan)

The 4 other users who commented on others’ perception of the sound of German said similar things to this; the other 11 users went on the defensive, telling how beautiful it was, that they either liked the harshness of the language or didn’t hear it as harsh, and presenting examples of literature that was “guaranteed” to change listeners’ minds. I would be curious to see how successful that technique actually was; it seems as if it would only work on those who hadn’t really heard German at all before and were parroting stereotypes.

Historical Connotations

19 comments were made about the history of German. They fell broadly into two camps: four users who mentioned that they were learning German to preserve their own heritage, and 15 regarding the negative history tied to Germany. I will focus on the negative history comments here. Most of these comments came in midway through the conversation, and most of them centered around Nazis (the other comments took notice of general, undefined ignorance on the part of their detractors). After the first few comments of this nature, Witproduct noted the fulfillment of Godwin’s Law [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if_pr.html] – an observation made by attorney Mike Godwin in 1990 that if an Internet conversation goes on long enough, no matter the subject matter, someone will compare a point made in said conversation to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis. Godwin was trying to point out the danger of overusing a meme to the point of its power diminishing.

Though the comparisons here were entirely topical, Witproduct’s comment is valuable in pointing out the elephant in the room and trying to figure out just how important it really was. When one user suggested that everyone should just “get over the Nazi crap,” he was quickly chastised and the issue was reframed to make the point that, though what happened in the past is still important, there should be no correlation between the language and those who happened to use it as they did terrible things.

Practicality

18 comments were made on the practicality of learning the language; four users stated that they had been told how difficult the language was (most of those users responded with a remark regarding either the general beauty of the language or their preference for it). The other fourteen posted variations on the theme that Germany is an “economic powerhouse” (Remster), and therefore they were either required to learn it in school (and generally ended up liking it) or they wanted to learn it to better their chances at a job or general communication. Most noted that the importance of German varied from region to region, with it being far less highly regarded in the United States, where “you're surrounded by miles and miles of English” (Remster [Netherlands]).  

Conclusion

Learning a language, even if there are practical aspects involved, seems to be a very personal thing; one user stated that learning a language is a "love story" (JLA): it shouldn't have to be defended or justified - it should just be learned for the joy of learning. Though most users restricted their comments to stating what others didn't like about their language, those who stated real reasons for learning German generally stated similar comments to that of JLA. This community, at least, seems to perceive language as a privilege, as a hobby, and generally as a part of their identity. 

A fun side note: in her original post on this thread, LebensForm asks, “…what do you say when people in your real lives give you a bad time about wanting to learn a particular language?” (my emphasis). It’s a curiosity that she considers this forum not to be a part of her real life – perhaps this is what allows her to ask these questions and air her frustrations about negative reactions to her target language.

My Digital Literacies Context

EDIT NOTICE: I have significantly changed the content of this post since its original upload.

Upon further examination of the proz.com website, it did not seem to be a good fit for my interests. The forum focuses more on the day-to-day problems of a translator – which I will likely never be. The caricature form is still incredibly interesting to me, and I have heard that it is very active and informative, but my membership has not yet been approved. As I wait and hope that this will change soon, I am forced to move on. As I could not find any forums directly related to visual thinking as a strategy (despite plenty of resources), I switched my search to language once again. As I had looked through proz.com, I realized that what I was truly interested in was language itself – how it works, why it works, and how to play with it. While translations are one way to play with it, I wanted something broader. This led me to a Google search that led me to how-to-learn-any-language.com (HTLAL).

HTLAL is a website created for people who wish to teach themselves other languages. Created by Francois Micheloud, a self-described language enthusiast, the website houses several different resources that inform individuals of the options available for learning languages. The most robust and arguably most useful resource on the site is a forum where participants are encouraged to talk about how they learned another language, what languages are most valuable to learn, and how language works in general. The forum is divided into four main sections to accommodate all of these interests: Practical Language Learning, Non-English Discussion Rooms, Around Languages, and Resources. The users are identified in each post by

·         Their username

·         Their picture, if they choose to upload one

·         What level of –glot they are (monoglot, diglot, triglot, etc.)

·         Their stated home country

·         How many days ago they joined the site

·         How many posts they’ve written, and how many posts they have voted on (as to whether or not it was useful)

·         The names of the languages they know and that they are currently studying.

They vary in age and profession; while there is no way to be sure of accurate information on the web, the majority of users I have looked at seem to be at least young adults and the reasons for learning the languages have implied professions from student to translator to hobbyist to security guard. Their unifying factors are that they have agreed on English as their main language of communication on the forum and that they are interested to some degree in learning more languages/more about language. I am excited to see how such a diverse population comes together to approach language - what they consider it to be, what links they find between languages, and why they consider it important to be multilingual.

As I explore this site further, I notice that it is far more usable on the forum side than the references and resources side. Entering the website, the main page is arranged as such:

The page itself has only a few lines to fill the space while the edges are almost overcrowded with information. The links running down the right side represent links to some of the more interesting places on the site, followed by a few sponsored links. It took me a few visits not to dismiss all of them as advertisements, as I usually expect random images with links underneath (especially in such a location, so cut off from the rest of the information on the page) to be just that.

The information on this side of the website is very interesting – Francois Micheloud (the creator of the website) has written about the multiple-language learning process in great detail, from his own success story to tips and tricks on learning a language, to profiles of the languages themselves. Though he does not cite other experts, he does generally qualify his statements as being true in his experience, and asks others to write in with their own experiences to broaden the scope of the site. Though this exhortation is repeated in several areas, there is very little evidence of his audience actually writing to him. These sections include links to all sorts of valuable language-learning tools, from flashcard blanks to foreign-language radio stations to some of the better language-learning materials currently available; unfortunately, some of the links have broken since Micheloud’s last update of this side of the site in 2009. There is also a section with audio recordings of the various languages, but I cannot find a way to it through the site’s architecture – I have to rely on Google to reach that particular page of the site.

When I looked at this site initially, I made a beeline for the forums; their main page looks like this:

I started getting to the site through this page; it took several visits to realize that there was no direct route back to the other side of the site – no home button, an icon in the upper-left-hand corner that acts clickable but does nothing. I finally realized that I could click on the “About” link in the top menu, and that page would have a button directing me back home; I quickly figured out what the web address was at that point in order to reach that side more expeditiously (though I didn’t use it much – the forums have so much interesting information that it can be hard to remember the static, one-sided information on the rest of the site).

What will be analyzed

As stated above, the forums are the most vibrant, active section of the site. There is simply no reason to miss the rest of the site, and so I do not. As the forums see so much activity (174,000 posts and 12,000 site members currently), it is easy to find an active thread to look at. In a few random searches of the forum, the thread analyzed in my first data sample was one of the most interesting threads I found – curious in content and fairly robust in posting history.

I hope to participate as a potential language learner - I can't think of many if any professions where it is not an asset to know more than one language; being multilingual can be especially helpful in the classroom or in speech-language pathology. I know a smattering of several other languages and would be interested in seeing how these particular languages are viewed, used, and learned on the forum. EDIT: while I signed up as a member and still hope to use this site more as a learner in the future, I found that being an observer seemed to work for this particular analysis.

Language is a vital part of culture; Knoblauch calls it one of the most important aspects thereof. It is constantly changing as people learn to communicate in their own little groups, bridge language barriers, and bridge technological barriers. This forum purports to discuss many tips and tricks people have learned to cope with learning to bridge one kind of communication barrier and therefore should be an interesting addition to the study of digital literacies.