Editorial.
Absalom, Matthew
I receive two emails each day with a 'word of the day':
one is from the Zingarelli Italian dictionary and the other is from the
Oxford English Dictionary. Often, the words are nothing more than a
curiosity--today, for instance, this was the English offering:
quaquaversal. The Italian entry was concasse and dadolata, both culinary
terms, the first showing a clear French connection. This is one small
strategy I use for keeping my languages fresh and ever-developing. I
will admit, though, that you aren't likely to hear me using
quaquaversal much ... In this issue, a predominant theme is moving
between two languages. Gayathri Haththotuwa-Gamage describes an
intriguing study which looks at attitudes towards learning kanji in
second language learners of Japanese--the findings are unexpected. Ruth
Fielding and Callie Mady focus on bilingualism in two diverse contexts,
Australia and Canada.
Read together these papers form an informative narrative which, as
language teachers, can help us to appreciate better the experiences of
our learners. Finally, Jennifer Baldwin traces a journey through
Australia's, sometimes fraught, linguistic and cultural identity.
What this issue of Babel shows is the intrinsic and inextricable link
between languages and those who use them--this may sound banal, but in a
period of lots of 'talk' about languages in education in
Australia, let's not forget the experiences of the people who
populate our classrooms both teaching and learning.
Now, back to me ... Who knows what two words will arrive in my
inbox tomorrow? Languages always have a surprise in store ...
Buona lettura!
Matthew Absalom
The University of Melbourne
