The beauty and dissatisfaction of that glorious new word !

I had my children watch the Rosa Park’s story. I asked my daughter “What did Rosa Park’s say?” She said “Rosa Parks said that her grandfather taught her that all people were equal. And as long as you had dignity, no matter what race you were no one could take that away from you.”

As I’ve watched CNN coverage of the earthquake in Haiti, I’ve seen several public service announcements for an organization I’d never heard of before: National Language Service Corps.  My interest was piqued by the ad that focused on the varieties of language in the US and how those languages might be used to serve […]

Happy New Year to all!

Forget about ‘tweeting’, ‘friending’ and ‘teachable moments’ in 2010. They’re all on the most recent annual list of banished words. Take a look at what else has fallen out of favor. The 35th annual word banishment list is the brainchild of Lake Superior University. Remember ‘detente’ and ‘at this point […]

So I was talking with my friend, who insisted on calling me “quadrilingual” (she was counting English of course, then Spanish that I took in high school and afterwards quickly forgot, French – I’ll give her that one, and Russian – no way could this be counted as a language which I know, though I […]

To Whom it may concern,

Hello! my name is Robert Kauth and I am currently a undergrad in the French 24 language and technology class at UC Berkeley. One of our topics that we discussed early this year is Texting and how it has effected our use of language.

First off to be honest I have an […]

blogs, youtube, wikipedia

Before taking the French 24 course blogs have had little importance to me, personally. I have created blogs of my own like live journal and an xanga, but they quickly faded as other social networks began to […]

I just had (yet again) a provocative and insightful discussion with a professor about some data I want to analyze. This data comes from an elementary school which has a Spanish “Enrichment” program. This program distinguishes itself from a “bilingual” or a “foreign language” program in that its administrators hope that students acquire an awareness […]

One reason I’ve decided to research language use and identity for my dissertation is because I find that my own identity is constantly in question, both by myself and by others. As an American living in the United States, my linguistic identity should be simple. I should only speak one language, English, and be indifferent […]

Learning a new language at 41 is a humbling experience . . . I struggle to catch the rhythm and grammatical structures, skills that I took for granted while studying in China 20 years ago.   Now I have an intimate understanding of losing “linguistic plasticity,” and I’m jealous of my younger self who merrily writes […]

Since we live in a hurry-up culture, it’s not surprising that we like to find ways to speed up communication – or at least appear to be doing so. But linguistic shortcuts are not an altogether new thing. Some have been around for centuries (at least.), though one seems to me to be, if not […]

I thought it only fitting that I write a few words on FIT about Michael. He meant so much to me, my family, African American people, American people and culture, and the world. I’ve decided not to talk so much from a place of pain as an emotion but rather in terms of it as […]

My father once told me about a mountain in Isfahan, Iran that took about four hours to summit.  As a boy, he would make several trips to this point within any given week.  Once at the top, he  would emote a victorious shout.  Poetry would flow from his lips and he would make several […]

Here’s my video take on life on FIT in May 2009. I used word clouds from blog posts in the May archive (from all the different writers on FIT this month), from the About page, screenshots of videos and images posted on FIT, and images, and then edited them in with my trusty […]

Today was my last day of my first year of graduate study at CAL. I was thinking about how to express in words the emotions that I feel. I think there is a sensation of excitement, and relief, both are qualified by the tension that still lies in my shoulders.  If there is one place […]

I feel that for too long Asian Americans have been taken advantage of without having any say.  To me, this is the most obvious in our media.  Chyng Feng Sun wrote the article Ling Woo in Historical Context: The New Face of Asian American Stereotypes on Television, and in it, the author mentions two far-reaching […]

I was born Shanga Nomusa White.  Everyone called me Nomusa. Nomusa is Zulu for with grace or kindness. I didn’t realize until I was much older that I was named after my father whose name is Musa. Musa is Arabic for Moses. He changed his name when he converted to Islam. I, followed suit.

Well, actually […]

Be sure to check out “FIT in Review: March” if you missed it.

Found in Translation is an open community and we welcome posts from new people!  Not sure how to make a post?  Visit our FAQ.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out Usree’s “April in Review (Early Edition)“:

A monthly roundup […]

So instead of writing a post inspired by a rereading of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, I thought I would have a little more fun with my iMovie, and “vlog” instead of blogging. Here’s a short reflection on habitus through the scripts I have inhabited….and which have inhabited me.

Music: Jacques Dutronc, “Les cactus”

Habitus from […]

Hi folks, check out my video version of life on FIT in April.

Found in Translation: April 2009 from Usree Bhattacharya on Vimeo.