Simple And Simplified Languages

This edited book explores the rising interest in minimal languages - radically simplified languages using cross-translatable words and grammar, fulfilling the widely-recognised need to use language which is clear, accessible and easy to translate. The authors draw on case studies from around the world to demonstrate how early adopters have been putting Minimal English, Minimal Finnish, and other minimal languages into action: in language teaching and learning, 'easy language' projects, agricultural development training, language revitalisation, intercultural education, paediatric assessment, and health messaging. As well as reporting how minimal languages are being put into service, the contributors explore how minimal languages can be adapted, localised and implemented differently for different purposes. Like its predecessor Minimal English for a Global World: Improved Communication Using Fewer Words (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), the book will appeal to students and scholars of applied linguistics, language education and translation studies, as well as to professionals in any field where accessibility and translatability matter. Cliff Goddard is Professor of Linguistics at Griffith University, Australia and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. Much of his research lies at the intersection of language, meaning and culture. He has published widely in descriptive, theoretical and applied semantics, language description and typology, ethnopragmatics and intercultural communication.

This volume presents current research and practices in the field of Easy Language and accessible communication. The publication of this volume was inspired by two international events, namely the International Easy Language Day Conference (IELD), and the panel The Social Role of Language: Translation into Easy and Plain Languages at the IATIS conference. By bringing together findings from different corpus-driven, cognitive and automation approaches in accessible communication research and providing insights into current projects of the emerging field of accessible health communication, the volume captures the dynamic and rapidly evolving nature of the field.

This fascinating book demonstrates how colonial exploitation of the Caribbean led directly to contemporary forms of consumption of the region and its products, and calls for a global ethics of consumer responsibility.

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Uncovering the role of literature, late imperialism, and the rise of new models of internationalism as integral to the invention of Global English, this book focuses on three key figures from the “Vocabulary Control Movement” - C.K. Ogden, Harold Palmer, and Michael West - who competed for market share for their respective language teaching systems - Basic English, the Palmer Method, and the New Method - through battles over word lists and teaching methods in the 1920s and 30s. Drawing on archives from the Carnegie Corporation and considering language teaching in eight global sites, this book analyzes how a series of conferences in New York and London resolved their conflicts and produced a consolidated, international standard form of English. As a postcolonial approach to the development of the field of English Language Teaching, it reveals how these language debates were proxy battles over an idealized global subject: an urban, secular, consumer moving seamlessly between the tribal and global, speaking both mother tongues and an international lingua franca, Global English. Featuring analysis of the primary texts of each of the three key figures in this book as well as close readings of their readers, which featured adaptations of well-known literary texts from writers like Poe, Dickens, Wordsworth, Milton and Wells, it recovers a neglected history of English as it was redefined as an international language through anti-colonial resistance in the peripheries and transatlantic power struggles in the metropole during the interwar period.

This collection of 14 articles look at the issues in theory and application that arise in the use of simplification in language pedagogy. Articles include the following: (1) "Simplification in Pedagogy" (Christopher Brumfit); (2) "Simplification" (H.V. George); (3) "Fossilization as Simplification?" (Larry Selinker); (4) "Modifications that Preserve Language and Content" (Michael H. Long and Steven Ross); (5) "Naturally Simplified Input, Comprehension, and Second Language Acquisition" (Rod Ellis); (6) "What's Simple in Simplified Language?" (Kenneth S. Goodman and David Freeman); (7) "Teaching Casual Conversation: The Issue of Simplification" (Diana Slade and Rod Gardner); (8) "Simply Defining: Constructing a Dictionary of Language Testing" (Alan Davies); (9) "Simplification in Student Writing" (A. Chandrasegaran); (10) "Responding to Task Difficulty: What Is Involved in Adjusting the Relationship Between Learners and Learning Experiences?" (John Honeyfield); (11) "Do Simplified Texts Simplify Language Comprehension for ESL Learners?" (Heather Lotherington-Woloszyn); (12) "Teaching and Learning Simplification Strategies in a Philippine Classroom: A Pilot Study" (Bonifacio P. Sibayan, Ma. Lourdes S. Batista, Andrew Gonzalez); (13) "Measuring Readiness for Simplified Material: A Test of the First 1,000 Words of English" (Paul Nation); (14) "Appendix: Simplification: A Viewpoint in Outline" (Makhan L. Tickoo). (MDM).