I invite you to make the journey deep into the heart of Bavaria. Only 90km from Munich lies Abensberg in the Hallertau, the world's largest hop growing region. Abensberg is home to Kuchlbauer, a small brewery specializing in Hefeweizen style beers. This region is also home to the two oldest known licensed breweries in the world, Weihenstephan (1040) and Weltenburg (1050), and currently has about 600 operating breweries. Despite brewing traditions going back almost a thousand years, Hefeweizen is a fairly new phenomenon in beer. Traditionally, the malt in German beer is barley. The addition of wheat as a malted grain has become increasingly popular over the past sixty years. Kuchlabuer decided to specialize in Hefeweizen early in the twentieth century and has been operating a tour of its facility for about thirty years.

What makes this brewery tour special is that the owner, Leonhard Salleck, has taken it upon himself to make a visual experience out of the tour that combines beer with art, philosophy, literature, and agriculture. Two years ago, they renovated their tour operations and created Bierwelt (World of Beer) laden with animatronic beer gnomes, exhibitions on brewing history, a beer pharmacy, a tower dedicated to beer, and of course beer sampling.

The tour involves winding your way through the brewery grounds, following a curved path of beer bottle bottoms inlaid into the floor of the facility. At various stations, you are presented with information about brewing history, the personal philosophy of the owner, and are encouraged to "see the beauty in life, do good, and recognize truth."

The culmination of this tour is the ascent of the Hundertwasser Tower. Friedensreich von Hundertwasser (1928-2000) is one of the most recognizable artists in the German speaking world and is known for his architectural modifications shunning straight lines and promoting organic irregularities.

The owner was able to convince Hundertwasser to design a tower for the brewery as one of his last projects before his death. After almost a decade of struggling with the local government over the tower height and construction guidelines, the tower opened in 2010 and has become a must see for beer and art enthusiasts in the region.

The tower, originally designed to be seventy meters, now tops out at thirty-five meters. As you climb the tower you find alcoves, symbolic windows, and small rooms to explore. At the top of the tower, the tree of knowledge is represented in the walls of the oval dome. As you descend you are brought into a room and offered one of their six different styles of Hefeweizen, from alcohol free to a Weizendoppelbock that will "send you flying" as they say. (Additional beers may be purchased for 1€)

Video: kuchlbauers-bierwelt.de

How we see the world impacts our use of language and our use of language impacts how we see the world. Cognitive scientists in the vein of Benjamin Whorf regularly investigate the connections to thought and language use, including how visual perception varies across languages. Since I use (authentic) visual media to assist in foreign language acquisition, my research does have a practical side to the normally impenetrable fields of visual cognition and psycholinguistics. I use photographs at the earliest stages of language learning to train the brain not only in the use of new words, but literally how to "see" in the new language. Seeing a language differently embeds that language into a visual cultural context for the learner and makes for more effective recall later.

Let's look at two aspects of the visual world that provide good examples of how the visual impacts language and vary between languages and cultures: Color & Space.

Color

In order to highlight how color perceptions vary among cultures, I like to use the example of how we linguistically categorize certain colors. Let's take the range of colors in what we call "blue" and "red" in English.

When you look at the following colors, typical native English speaking respondents will describe these two colors as existing with the range of colors we call "blue".

Conversely, the following two colors here represent two distinct color categories in English, namely "red" and "pink"

If one looks at other languages, this same categorization scheme is not evident. For example, the blues above are distinct color categories in Russian. Plain or dark blue (синий, siniy) is a distinct color from light blue (голубой, goluboy). Each of these color categories has its own associated meanings, invoking a specific thought for many Russians. In Moscow, there are separate blue lines on the city metro system which helped me finally learn the difference between синий & голубой . Winawer and other at MIT take a close look at this subject in "Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination." (2007) For the red & pink example, there is a correlating opposite in Chinese. The color distinction is not as prevalent as the colors are in the same category linguistically. Red is 红 (hóng) and pink as 粉红, (fÄ›n hóng) or literally "powder red", a linguistic derivation similar to 'light-blue' in English. Where Russian blues are distinct, so are the Reds in English, but in Chinese, they are linguistically related.

The Winawer study takes this a step further. What does it mean for the function of our brain when we categorize what we see in different ways? They show that Russian concepts of blue affect visual performance, particularly on the language users' ability to discriminate between colors.

They state " ... our results suggest that language-specific distortions in perceptual performance arise as a function of the interaction of lower level perceptual processing and higher level knowledge systems (e.g. language)."

This insight/observation points towards a direct connection between the language one speaks and the functionality of the visual cortex and the brain. In other words, the vocabulary you use and how you categorize the world affects the speed at which you brain can recall certain information through your optic nerves. They also hint that left brain hemisphere tasks may be affected by language and visual perception as this is the hemisphere of the brain where language and logical performance is organized. Interestingly enough, this is switched in infants as visual perception is not yet attached to a language center. Apparently, babies see color purely as what they see is not filtered through the lens of language. I am not sure what it means to see a color "purely", but the Color label wheel from Dolores Labs provides an interesting look at color perceptions within the English language.

Space

In addition to color, spatial perception varies among cultures according to researchers. These differences in how we perceive space (eg. size, distance, depth, and direction, etc) lead to corresponding linguistic differences manifested in the words we use to describe our surroundings in different language. This lens of language here affects how we perceive and feel about our surroundings. One might easily imagine how a phrase like "that is a large house", "it is within walking distance", or "it is located off to the right" would vary in meaning between cultures, but there are more subtle and stark differences in how we perceive space differently. The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics has several examples of cultural variances. Researcher Steven C. Levinson has interesting insights and states that in "...many cultures (as suggested by at least a third of the small sample) spatial conception is organized in a fundamentally different way than expected on the basis of familiar western languages."

According to Levinson, a linguistic example can be found in the lack of spatial descriptors as in front of, in back, left of, and right of. Some languages instead use absolute terms or "fixed" cardinal direction such as north, south, upstream, downstream that are irrelevant of the direction of the speaker.

Perhaps it is that certain languages are less ego-centric, linguistically speaking, and focus more on cardinal directions. Apparently, the only universal content in regards to spatial perception in language appears to be the direction 'up' since it is a function of the gravity that we all feel, regardless of our cultural or linguistic background.

Geography, culture, and even technology shape how we view space in our world. In addition to variance among cultures, there is constant change within languages. Additionally, it is not solely a function of this 'lens of language'; it is both a function of our language and our experiences. For example, the exposure to mathematics and science has an impact on how we perceive space.

The following figures represent some classic optical illusions to demonstrate examples of how cultures perceive length differently. In the first image, the question is "which center line is longer?

In the second image, the question is whether the blue line is longer than the red.

In both cases, the lines are the same length, we only perceive them to be different lengths; an optical illusion. Interestingly enough, these optical illusions are only perceptible by members of traditional 'western cultures'. Segall, et al. in "The Influence of Culture on Visual Perception " wrote in 1968 that susceptibility to optical illusion is, indeed, a culturally determined factor. Their experiments conclude that the "European and American samples made significantly more illusions-supported responses than did the non-Western samples."

I use these examples of visual differences between cultures to highlight the point that the visual impacts language, and if you use media to teach a language, you need to use authentic media. Clip art and generic stock photography don't take advantage of the benefits of media in learning. Many language learning software developers use inauthentic images, stock photos, or clip art simply because of cost issues. A full description of the design problems in language learning software can be found in my 2003 article: CALL, commercialism and culture: inherent software design conflicts and their results ReCALL, 2003 - Cambridge Univ Press. In the mean time, I will continue to ponder how what I see affects how I think and how I think in a given language affects how I see. ]]> http://boingboing.net/2010/06/27/seeing-languages-dif.html/feed 50 http://boingboing.net/2010/06/06/tactical-language-le.html http://boingboing.net/2010/06/06/tactical-language-le.html#comments Sun, 06 Jun 2010 09:00:13 +0000 Mike Shaughnessy why the US sends troops abroad, but the fact is that we do send large numbers into a region about which they have little knowledge and almost no cultural connection.]]>

We may ask why the US sends troops abroad, but the fact is that we do send large numbers into a region about which they have little knowledge and almost no cultural connection. We then ask them to interact safely and efficiently with military and civilian natives. These interactions require varying levels of linguistic, cultural, and interpersonal background. As a foreign language educator, I am fascinated by the evolution of the training materials given to US soldiers and how cultural visual knowledge plays and increasingly important role.

Over the past seven years, the military has noticeably changed how it trains soldiers for these vital kinds of cross-cultural interactions. These "changes in visuality" allow an exemplary look at how visual & cultural literacy has seriously impacted language and cultural training.

The first way instructors train is to rely on a simple visual clue for meaning. This is the equivalent of simple translations. The approach image = word = meaning is effective when it comes to teaching soldiers basic life saving skills in the field while trying to increase their visual perception performance. In the case of IED recognition, nuance is not necessary and soldiers react quickly, based on what they see, to avoid this threat. Images of various IED types are presented for soldiers to study with the basic word association of IED = Death. The training materials also feature severed limbs to show the result of these attacks.

In highlighting cases like these we need to keep in mind the importance of the elementary nature of this survival training. Important vocabulary items were usually handed out on so called "smart cards" or laminated sheets for people to study with a limited amount of material on them. An almost complete reliance on visuals proved to be somewhat effective in the arena of threat recognition. When soldiers face the danger of improvised explosive devices, they need to visually recognize the object immediately. Additionally, they need to quickly identify their target in conditions that may not be optimal. Soldiers are increasingly using technology-mediated visual equipment, for example night vision, and must quickly make decisions based on visual clues alone. Beyond the mere threat recognition strategies associated with visual training of soldiers, a problem with 'enhanced' visual perception devices is the avoidance of fratricide as indicated in this 2008 study.

In the Iraqi and Afghani combat zones, however, the initial war was a precursor to the real war, that of the insurgency. The initial fighting gave way to an occupation involving an insurgency coupled with a civilian population that may or may not be hostile. Soldiers were not only expected to make decisions regarding friend or foe, they were expected to engage locals in close quarters with both weapons and words. The military also relied heavily on these visual training modules to equip their soldiers with linguistic and cultural knowledge.

The classic military phrase book method puts the locals in a clear adversarial position. All the phrases introduced center around providing security for the soldiers and keeping them alive. From that starting point, basic cultural knowledge is introduced including local customs, expressions, and items that one might encounter in the field. Here we see the progressions of two separate training cards for soldiers at two different stages. The second card moves towards authentic photos to instruct the soldiers in basic culture in Iraq, as the stick figure drawings were not providing enough useful information.

Cultural training materials developed from mere tools of threat recognition to models of threat prevention. The method of threat prevention is based on understanding the authentic culture of the area in order to engage the locals in a meaningful way. At Fort Irwin, California, at the National Training Center, the military has constructed Iraqi villages in the desert so soldiers can practice their interactions with locals and insurgents and get the authentic feel for life in Iraq as an occupying force. The documentary film Full Battle Rattle (2008) chronicles soldiers' experiences in this virtual arena where they are expected to engage people through culture and language, not merely through the force of their weapons.

This shift in approach has proven to be effective. Cultural training programs are ongoing and exist for several areas. Cross-cultural competence is "something that we want to bring to the department as a critical piece of training that we think needs to be incorporated into our overall training establishment," said Gail H. McGinn, the deputy undersecretary of defense for plans, during an interview with Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service reporters. This cultural training program has now gone electronic through the program "Tactical Language Series," a type of virtual reality gaming environment designed to teach people visual literacy and cultural knowledge for the geographical and linguistic areas in which they will serve. The company that developed the Tactical Language series, Alelo, Inc, states on their web site:

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Program Manager Dr. Ralph Chatham was inspired to start the program after listening to one of the first soldiers who went into Afghanistan in 2002. The captain told how he and his comrades reluctantly rode on tiny ponies into a town, totally relying on their Northern Alliance escorts who only spoke Pashto and some broken Russian and Arabic while the U.S. soldiers only spoke English and some broken Russian and Arabic. When the town's people came out on the streets the soldiers did not know if they were friendly or hostile from their gestures, demeanor and words.

The Tactical Language Series currently has virtual worlds for military personal to learn Iraqi Arabic, Pashto, Dari, and French for North Africa. Here you see examples from the "Tactical Iraqi" October 2009 release. These programs use a hybrid approach to training that employs authentic visuals and mission-based skills. Most importantly, though, cultural competence is taught through virtual engagement with locals. The program teaches soldiers to recognize military insignias of foreign militaries through virtual reality games designed to enhance their visual perception. Most of the training here takes places at a cognitive visual level, so that recall time is enhanced. Soldiers take commands in the local dialect and navigate virtual authentic cities and villages. They learn local customs, gestures, and cultural practices that are meant to help them interact with locals in order to avoid cultural misunderstandings.

This training software resembles the typical first person shooter game many soldiers are familiar with. Unlike a first person shooter game, though, this series does not have the option to pull a gun. In place of weapons one finds culturally-appropriate gestures and an accurate voice recognition system, which allows the learner to interact with virtual Iraqis in Arabic.

The development, implementation, and continued use of this intercultural training approach poses several questions.

What does this teach us about how we learn languages and interact with other cultures? In a short period of time (from an educational-curricular perspective) the military has gone from the old "Hands-up!" phrase book to a complete realization that culture is intrinsically tied to language and that phrases are not enough to engage people. In order to communicate, you must know something about a person. While it may not be a magic bullet for intercultural training, the fundamental design aspects of this educational training tool focus on cultural proficiency and use of the language in an authentic, respectful context.

From the Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) perspective, this training program highlights the fact that images, specifically culturally authentic images are required in this training. When you train absolute beginners, authentic images tie the language to a culturally specific context for use. For too long we have used generic stock photos, clip art, and line drawings for visual clues in multi-media learning environments. Since the greatest source of these images in the US, most of the world's computer based language programs reflect a world view (literally) that shows homes as always having a two car garage, white picket fences, grocery store baggers, and upper middle class citizens. You could say that clip art and stock photos are not representative of any culture. Nevertheless, they remain popular in popular language learning software packages.

In the educational world, we talk of assessment to prove educational effectiveness. In the world of the U.S. Military, assessment of cultural training can be a life and death matter. Therefore it is an interesting example from which we can learn a great deal. Alelo, Inc is developing software for the US Military that is, educationally speaking, pretty advanced and quite effective for elementary learners with little experience in language acquisition. The necessity of that training aside, it is fascinating to see a US military training program that sets out as its premise the need for threat avoidance through cultural understanding and linguistic proficiency. If one looks at the suggested pre-deployment reading list, one will find a great deal about the culture of the area, a shift from the previous approach of phrases and limited cultural information. Since NATO forces will adopt some of these technologies in the near future, specifically the UK and German forces, it is also fascinating to see the US take the lead on language learning.

What is the word for someone who speaks three languages? "Trilingual"
And the word for a speaker of two languages? "Bilingual"
And for one language? "American"

Perhaps the old joke may not be true anymore.

While the lessons of war are often lost on current and future generations of citizens, soldiers, and leaders, I'm hopeful that this method of using authentic media in an effective & prudent manner will be one to reach language educators at all levels of instruction. The media is out there, so let's use it in a better way.]]> http://boingboing.net/2010/06/06/tactical-language-le.html/feed 30 http://boingboing.net/2010/05/26/chramer-gip-die-varw.html http://boingboing.net/2010/05/26/chramer-gip-die-varw.html#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 10:00:00 +0000 Mike Shaughnessy Chramer, gip die varwe mir (Shopkeeper, give me color!) is a line from a drinking song in the Carmina Burana, a medieval collection of songs and poems in Old Latin and Middle High German.]]>

Chramer, gip die varwe mir (Shopkeeper, give me color!) is a line from a drinking song in the Carmina Burana, a medieval collection of songs and poems in Old Latin and Middle High German. The 'color' requested is rouge to redden the face of a young working woman in order to make her more appealing to the boys. This 'red' means life, vitality, strength, and in the Middle Ages being able to make it through the next winter was particularly attractive. Part of my research into Computer Assisted Language learning deals with the effects that colors have on people and how these difference among cultures can be used to assist in language learning. My own passion lies in the German speaking world and in reflection on my own language learning experiences, I started thinking about color difference in German.

My awesome wife Christy recently gave me an imported Bavarian folding table, aka Bierbank, Fest oder Bierzeltgarnitur for our anniversary. Besides being TÜV engineered to carry a load of twelve adults standing and jumping on the table during a bit of German Gaudi fun, the particular brand of Orange struck me. I was reminded of the specific beer garden tables I had seen in Munich on my first trip there.

Upon investigation, the color is labeled "Löwenbräu Orange", or "Traditional Orange" which begs the question, why? Could it be that the orange color was the most readily available in Southern Germany and therefore defined as traditional, or does the normally pale Munich Helles look orange in the summer light of a Biergarten?

This brings me to the issue of how colors vary in the German speaking world and how the language reflects this variance. Having spent a great deal of time in the German speaking world as a student I was always taken by small differences in things that I apparently took for granted. I remember once getting scrambled eggs once and thinking, "Wow, they are orange!" Although the word for "yolk" itself is "Eigelb" (literally egg-yellow), it has a distinct orange tone in my view. I have heard that is due to the feed in Germany or perhaps our yellow yolks are due to the inorganic nature of American egg farming. In any event, I know that many US Americans remark on this and wonder if the yolk is in some way tainted. When we look at foods, the color does matter and in the US and I have heard in the UK, a yellow yolk is the standard. In Germany, they prefer their yolks orange.

So do Germans indeed see the world differently? You can insert your joke of choice now, but there are some distinct variances in how colors and their linguistic labels are different. To stay with food, one finds that there are relatively few foods in English that have 'blue' in word except the obvious Blueberries. Is it that the color itself is an appetite suppressant, or do we label items that border on the red / blue hues more often red than purple or blue?

In Germany, particularly in the south German speaking world, it looks like they don't have this problem as there are several examples of this in blue onions (blaue Zwiebeln), blue cabbage (Blaukraut), and blue grapes (blaue Weintrauben).

It should be noted that these are mostly regional differences in German, as northern Germans, much like the English speaking world, label these 'blue' foods as red. In Northern Germany, the Blaukraut, becomes Rotkohl.

It makes me wonder if our red onions are truly red. Words, impacted by the visual, often vary at the crossroads between colors. This is evident in English as well as in German. If you are interested to find out where 'red' ends and 'blue' begins, check out the Color Label Explorer.

Not everything that is labeled with a color has to do with what you see, however.

"White" beer, otherwise known as Wheat beer, Hefe-Weizen, Weissbier, Witbier, etc. is a fine, delicious example. The term "White" comes from the brewing process when the wort boils to a point when the top foam becomes a particular 'white' color. This is when the brewing takes on another stage, and the beer has 'whitened'. In Berlin, however, there are two varieties of this "Weisse Bier": Red White beer and Green White beer. The color is achieved through Raspberry and Woodruff syrup additions.

These culturally based color perceptions lead to interesting linguistic differences between English and German, two closely related languages. Beyond the visual, there are associated idiomatic expressions that highlight slight perceptual differences such as the English bruised "Black eye" that is in German a "Blue Eye-blaues Auge". To be "blue" in English is to be a bit sad, while in German it means to be intoxicated (blau sein). "Green with envy" is "Yellow with envy -Gelb vor Neid" in German. Perhaps my favorite old-time example is the term the "Black arts" or "die Schwarze Kunst." While in English you may be in league with the devil, in German you are in league with Mr. Gutenberg. The black arts are the act of being a "Gutenberg fanboy" (ein Jünger Gutenbergs) means you are a book printer, presumably covered in the ink of your trade.

Photo: Hryck. / Todd

Pennsylvania is sometimes referred to as "East Utah" in regards to its legendarily restrictive alcohol laws. Where else in the United States were you forced to buy a minimum of 24 beers from a 'Beer Distributor' if you wanted to take a drink home? Until recently, one could buy no beer from grocery stores or gas stations--just bars (and bar prices) or a box of two dozen from the nearest opaque-windowed distributor.

As Pennsylvania loosens up on its laws, some grocery stores are getting into the act. Giant Eagle and Wegmans now sell beer at a couple of Pennsylvania stores, albeit in restrictive "pseudo-bars" housed within the big box. Shop-N-Save is not far behind. They are glad to tell you that they aren't a grocery store, but a bar that is within a grocery store. This semantic dance upsets the beer distributors.

One of the main arguments against sales of beer and wine in a grocery store is that stores are supposedly notoriously lenient and give out alcohol to anyone. The other argument against opening up sales is that selling beer at gas stations promotes drunk driving. To counter the myth of 'leniency,' Giant Eagle and Wegmans have a 100 percent compliance policy that states all customers must scan their ID for every beer purchase. This is not a PA law, but a store policy designed to show due-diligence. But it's a solution that opens up a nasty can of worms in regards to personal privacy.

At Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh, every single customer, without exception, is required to scan their ID in this device, the Z22 CounterTop Id Checker. I asked at the store if they could simply type in my date of birth into the system, and they said no. I raised privacy concerns and was told that "if you want your beer, you scan your ID." Their policy is not to check 100% of IDs, it is to scan 100% of the IDs. Therein lies a problem: there is much more than my date of birth on my ID.

I called the Giant Eagle corporate office and was met with friendly assurance that they only collect and store this information to 'protect themselves' from lawsuits. I requested that they call me back and tell me what information they actually store and have not heard back from them. I think they are afraid to tell me what they keep, so I thought I would look into it myself.

While retailers are clearly not interested in identity theft, I do believe they have not thought through the possible consequences of gathering and retaining such wide-ranging data about their customers.

What could one potentially do with the Z22?

First, the data may be collected and retained. It may be paired with information from the concurrent credit card transaction. The Federal Reserve bank of Boston notes that to avoid identity theft, they recommend:

"Out of the Home - Shopping and Services When you sign a credit card slip, avoid putting your address, telephone number, or driver's license number on it."

But in the situation at hand, you don't write it down at all--you hand it over in a conveniently exportable format. The device is in fact designed to export the data for a variety of purposes.

Bear in mind that the information is time-stamped. There's no reason to think that credit card data is not also time-stamped. Name, number, DOB, billing address ... just enough information to facilitate identity theft should the data not be properly secured. A person with a gripe, someone in financial trouble who knows the value of the information, or an outside data breach would do the trick. If you store the information, it will come out. Remember TJMAXX?

Second, the data could be used for marketing to customers. This is encouraged by the device's manufacturer and easy to do--you can even create your own mailing labels with the system! As you are an existing 'customer,' it doesn't count as spam. 100% ID compliance means you get accurate addresses, too.   

Third, the data would allow retailers to maintain personal notes about people, perhaps by integrating the data into customer service records. While this may help serve customers, especially those with special needs, the potential for abuse is obvious. Do you have known 'trouble makers?" Imagine the fun you can have with 'tagging' your customers.

Fourth, it means employees don't need to use their heads anymore. It encourages 'zero tolerance' thinking, immune to common sense. After all, all they need to do is look at the scanner. It is completely foolproof? Reassigning information to a magnetic strip is impossible, right?

It could be worse: we could have automated wine kiosk robots that take pictures and breathalyze customers too. Since this is a new policy, I hope that these grocery stores reconsider that in 'protecting' themselves, they may expose their customers.  Common sense might say that any person over 30 would not be absolutely required to scan their ID. Then again, common sense is in short supply today. Update: On March 5 I received both an email and a personal call from Giant Eagle. The email stated that Giant Eagle only stores DOB, which is not true, as the caller who is involved with implementation of the scanners stated that there is a whole host of information stored on those machines. The caller was very sympathetic with privacy concerns, admitted that they had a problem, and stated that the company now has plans to remove all of these specific scanners by May.

The caller stated that Giant Eagle is now in talks with IBM to allow the cash registers themselves to scan the ID, perform a rudimentary ID check for age verification, but *not* store information in the system. He stated that the new system will be rolled out in April in Pennsylvania and all of the scanners that store information will be gone by May.

The caller also stated that they are modifying the current ID scanners with PINs so that even in the event of theft, the scanners will not export data. Additionally, he stated that all Giant Eagle would accept a passport as ID without the necessity of scanning.

This is good news as it seems that they have indeed listened, but there is one slight problem.

One of the initial reasons for storing all of this information was to prove 'due diligence.' I was told that the stores specifically store the information in case of lawsuits so that they can prove that the purchaser is above the legal age.

So it seems that they are listening, but the end result remains to be seen. It was a quick response I must admit. The email from the "Social media" representative was misleading, but the caller from corporate seemed informed and understood the privacy concerns.      ]]> http://boingboing.net/2010/03/03/labeling-the-consume.html/feed 64