Interview No. 3: Words, words, words - and a few more

My mother has often affectionately described my sister as 'afraid of having a spare moment'.

Erika is also a person who packs a lot into life. Teaching, studying, mothering, exercising, and the preparation of gustative delights are just some of the components that make up a typical day for her.

She is presently engaged in doctoral studies in linguistics, and kindly agreed to take a short break between teaching and cooking dinner to answer a few questions.

Erika urged me to exercise freedom in the editing of the responses, but I'm far too lazy for that.

Celebrating Design: You're a person who has a serious love for language. You are competent teaching German and Bahasa Indonesia, and you're presently working towards a doctoral degree in linguistics. What is it about language that keeps drawing you in deeper and deeper?

Erika: I suppose I am a “language oriented” person. I find all that stuff about learning styles/brain types really interesting, and over the years I have come to understand a few things about myself though teaching it to students. I am quite logical-sequentially oriented, extremely language oriented, quite linear in my thinking (although some may not think so!). In the end I think it is part of my make-up.

I have always been interested in language and what makes it “tick”. Traditional linguistics, the type most people think of when they think of grammar (eg nouns, verbs, prepositional phrases etc) has always held a fascination for me, and then I discovered Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) which actually looks at how language works in use and is a descriptive and paradigmatic theory which is derived from actual contextual language use rather than a proscriptive set of “rules” based on the grammar of Latin.

Studying and using SFL really excites me, because it makes the choices people make in their language use both visible and able to be theorised, which in turn gives us an insight into how we use language to enact social relationships.

As an educator and a Christian, and a person concerned with social justice, this is really important to me, because if we can make language use explicit, we can explain it and teach it, and help people to improve their literacy abilities in all sorts of ways.

CD: Your father was a native German speaker. What influence did his personality and heritage have on your decision to pursue linguistics with the passion you have?

E: Quite a large one. It started off just as a focus on language learning, not as “linguistics” as such. Dad was the reason I started learning German at “German school” from 9-12 on a Saturday morning from the age of 8 till the age of 16. Not that he pushed me into it in any way, I just wanted to learn the other language he could speak and “maintain my heritage” so to speak.

I studied Indonesian basically because my mother made me. When I was choosing my electives in high school I wanted to study German, art and home science, to which my mother replied “I can teach you to cook, you can do Indonesian”. She had noticed that I seemed to enjoy and do well at Indonesian when we did the year 7 “taster” course and so encouraged me in the direction in which she saw my talents lie.

Later on at University I studied a bit of Welsh in Celtic Studies and that’s where I found out about Linguistics as my Welsh teacher kept banging on about bilabial plosives and dental fricatives. Linguistics 101 in the third year of my BA got me firmly hooked, and when I discovered SFL in my MA in Applied Linguistics I was on a downhill slope toward the inevitable PhD studies!

CD: What has your study of several foreign languages and your work in linguistics taught you about the links between a language and the culture out of which it arises?

E: Where do I start? Language is a semiotic system, so it evolves to a point where it is useful for expressing the meanings that people find important. Of course, it is not the only semiotic system (you have pictures, music, etc.), but it is a very important one for humans. As such, it is almost impossible to separate language and culture. You could say that language can give you a very good idea about what is important to the culture (e.g. Eskimo words for snow). And the systems of language also tell you a great deal about the culture from which it arises. What is really interesting to look at is what you can’t say in a language.

CD: There's a passion for continued learning that drives you. How does being a student affect the way you teach?

E: Well it certainly gives me a good reply when my students complain about getting homework (“You guys have no idea how easy you have it …”). I know what it is like to learn, and to write and to struggle through new ideas and to feel out of your depth. I know what it is to be under pressure from deadlines. I know more about how they feel than they realise!!!

It means I am good at teaching reading skills, writing skills, creative thinking, problem solving, time management skills (I’m the organisation queen!!!), study skills, and I am quite confident outside my direct field (Languages).

Unfortunately, being a “lifelong learner” also has its disadvantages – being almost physically incapable of not giving something 100% and always trying to do my best, it irritates me beyond all reason when intelligent students prefer not to use what they have been given and prefer instead to “bludge”. I can’t understand how someone can not try their best, or how people can be so lazy. I also have a problem with how generation Y seems to be so mentally undisciplined – the majority of them seem incapable of memorising anything anymore (sorry!).

CD: It's often said that people who love the languages tend to possess musical or mathematical abilities. How has an understanding of languages assisted you in other areas of life?

E: Interesting question. I’m not particularly mathematical, although I suspect that was more of a psychological thing at school and that if I went back to it now I’d probably be ok. I am a bit musical – I used to play flute, have had some singing lessons in the past (although I’m very shy about it – don’t ask me to sing!!!) and did learn keyboard for a while, but nothing particularly spectacular.

I suppose the one thing I could say about my talent for language is the fact that I have always found academic pursuits pleasurable. I read well and I write well – I have never had a problem with essay writing or anything like that. I also read a lot for pleasure – sinking into a good fantasy series is one of my greatest pleasures, and I have a good vocabulary too, I suppose.

It has also affected my “Christian Life” (I am beginning to hate that term as it implies that Christianity is separate from the rest of my life, but that’s a whole other interview). I have had the opportunity to study the Bible in a more-or-less academic way through Moore College’s Preliminary Theological Certificate, which I really enjoyed (someday I will do the further 8 subjects and get the full certificate!). Understanding languages is also good for travel!

CD: We live in a world saturated by words, yet we often find ourselves generating at least as much confusion as sense with those words. Are there some basic pedagogical and linguistic principles which might contribute to our words conveying meaning with greater accuracy and effectiveness?

E: Oh dear – this question would take about 100,000 words to answer adequately (the approximate length of my thesis – I currently have about a third of those words!). My research is all about making the language choices people make more explicitly visible and linked to the theory about language that I subscribe to (SFL).

Basically, a lot of the choices we make in our language use everyday are systematic and meaningful, but we do it intuitively. The one golden rule is probably “Think before you speak/write/gesture”. The other thing is, within SFL, language is understood to have 3 simultaneous metafunctions - the ideational (i.e. language is about stuff – the who did what to whom bizzo), the textual (how we organise the text, information flow) and the interpersonal (how we enact relationships through text).

I believe that we need to look more to the interpersonal nature of all our texts (whether spoken, written or otherwise) if we are to communicate more accurately and effectively. That is basically what my research is about, in the context of senior high school writing, but it would serve us well to consider what interpersonal communication is going on every time we use language. What attitudes are we (mostly) unconsciously communicating about the person we are speaking/writing/gesturing to, ourselves, the subject matter we are discussing and so forth?