[Air-l] Language on the Internet (was AoIR in Latin-America)

[Nils Zurawski]

Alex,

you just indicated why English speaker indeed 
should learn another language, or why it is not 
such a bad idea, despite the fact that all the 
others do speak some form of English... the 
reasons to learn a language go beyond love or 
curiosity... to speak or understand a language  - 
not the same thing necessarily - also means to 
understand a culture, or is at least a gateway to 
begin to understand... language also transports 
meaning and culture..

"The Internet
is not static, continues to evolve, mostly out of the English-
speaking realm where it's so integrated with the culture, "

if this is true for the Internet, then other 
languages may give a hint on how these adapt to 
this technology, how they see the world etc... 
also we all can communicate with English as a 
lingua franca, we may not understand the other 
rightly..

just a thought....

best
nilz

>The downside of all this for the English-speaking
>world is that it reinforces mono-lingualism and language
>chauvinism. It's admirable to learn a language for love or curiosity,
>but the fact is that most people do it for economic advantage and
>up until recently, English speakers haven't had to.

-- 
Dr. Nils Zurawski
Universität Hamburg
Inst. für kriminologische Sozialforschung
Allende-Platz 1
20146 Hamburg
Germany
tel. +49 (0) 40 42838 6185
fax. +49 (0) 40 42838 2328

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