This Post Is Much Too Long, But ... Wiki This Fall?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merseburg_Incantations
The picture to the left contains at least two chants, one to release prisoners and one to heal an injury on an animal.

I'm thinking of having students in my fall course, "Medieval and Early Modern Studies in German," do a Wiki. I'm going to speak with Melissa, our lab director, about it. I'm also going to provide a sample entry, and the students can work together to create new entries. Here is the draft I'm working on, and it IS long.

Wiki World: Texas Students Interpret Medieval and Early Modern German Literature, as Read by Scholars of Various Periods and Texts in David E. Wellberry’s Edited A NEW HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE, Beginning in September, 2009
(Thus wrote some writers such titles in the early modern period in German….)

I want students to attempt to “live” visually and intellectually, if not viscerally in those times, seeing how ideas/ideologies/values/beliefs were the same and different from theirs or others’ today. I want them to be interested and make their own writing interesting.

744. The Charm of Charms: "The Merseburg Charms," or "die Merseburger Zaubersprüche"

Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich. “The Charm of Charms,” in David E. Wellerby, ed., A New History of German Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 1-7.

“Bishop Boniface founds a monastery at Fulda, where – nearly two centuries later – magical formulae in Old High German are recorded on an empty codex page” (p. 1).

Fulda is located in the center of present-day Germany. In 744 the English (missionary) Boniface founded a monastery, and from this central location the Christianization of the area known today as “Germany” happened. (“Germany” is in quotes, because a nation state called Germany simply did not exist back then. But the term refers, roughly, to what we call Germany today – very roughly.) This is the context of the “Merseburg Charms” which were written down on a blank part of a codex about 200 years later, in the tenth century. We do not know why the monk wrote them down on a Christian codex, (it contained texts for the Mass, but it is probably – and here I agree wholeheartedly with Gumbrecht – because the Germanic people were slow to relinquish their old religious beliefs. (Consider how difficult it would be for your family to, over several generations, change religions when your family was happy with its original religion!) (Here is a picture of a codex found on the web.)

I had known that Charlemagne (“Karl der Große” in German) had used political strategy and military force in Christianizing “Germany" (actually his empire included present-day France, Germany, Switzerland, northern Italy, and parts of Austria), but I had not made the connection consciously (though now obvious to me) that missionaries and monasteries were instrumental in Christianizing “Germany.”

So to the charms themselves. They are quite interesting for me, because I remember reading about them in graduate school. I know I read about them in undergraduate school as well, but I don’t know whether they made an impression or not, because I couldn’t read the German very well, in which they were explained. I cannot help but think that they are similar to what I call “incantations” in some religions today. I think, for example, of the Protestant ministers who heal people, or of a specific story about my Catholic mother. Now, I know many of the Protestant “healers” may well be fakes, but I wonder if there are some who actually believe in what they do, and whose “healed parishioners” feel better, at least psychologically, and at least for a period of time. I never really used to believe any of it, but then my mother had a psychological “healing” experience.

My mother, who lived alone with her mother, was devastated by my grandmother’s death. Grandma was 89 when she died, and Mom would have been 66. For two years my mother had a very difficult time of it, became a much more devout Catholic, and became a follower of the Virgin Mary. I had not known that the Catholic Church also had charismatic types, but it did. At some point two years after Grandma died, my mother went to a meeting or service in which the priest was doing “laying on of the hands.” My mother reported that the priest laid his hands of healing on her, and just like I remember seeing in the Protestant services, she fell back and was laid on the floor. She reported that it was a feeling of healing, that when she was on the floor she could not move, she knew what was going on around her, and she felt a state of well-being, even a calm euphoria as I would name her description of what she described. Now, I believe my mother. Her interpretation was that God healed her psychologically, for when she walked back into her apartment afterwards, it was the first time in two years that she did not cry. My interpretation is that the mind is an amazing thing, that the mind and body are not so separate as we make them, that emotional happenings produce chemical effects, and that for a while my mom’s chemistry was indeed altered. And it is true that after that she did much better in life, psychologically speaking.

Although I interpret what happened to my mother differently from the way she interpreted it, nevertheless I believe, as I said, that something physical actually happened to my mother. There are many different ways of reaching altered states, in different religions or secular spaces. The people of the Kalahari dance(d) until exhausted and see/saw spirits. Some people take/took LSD for an altered state. Some people meditate and reach an altered state. It is said that some people use physical pain to reach altered states. They all interpret those states according to their religious and secular beliefs. And there are some present-day people who believe in miracles, although they would NEVER call them “magic.” But what is the difference, except that our culture defines miracles as something positive that our religion does, while magic is something negative that other religions do, or that is of the devil, or that really does not exist?

Now I’m not saying that healing actually took place when the Merseburg charms were spoken. But I wonder if they were accompanied by actual medicine, or splints, or some other means the people of the time had to heal. I could be totally wrong, but I wonder. I know when a friend of mine was in the hospital, religious co-workers came to the hospital and asked it they might pray with us. They held our hands, and the husband said a prayer aloud. This, to me, is quite similar: prayer AND medicine. So I wonder.

Now to the text of the charms themselves, and this one in particular. I’ve attempted a truer rendering of the original manuscript. Gumbrecht’s version below is what scholars call “normalized.” Note that a ‘w’ was literally a ‘double u.’ I’ve also attempted to think of the contemporary German words that might correspond, even if meaning has changed over the centuries.

Phol rndr(ende) uuodan uuorun ziholza duwarz
(duwart) demobalderes uolon sin uuoz birenkit /
thubiguolen zinhtgut * sunna eraswister
thubiguolen friia uolla eraswister thu
thubiguolen uuodan mhe?(sohe) uuola conda
sosebenrenki sose?????(sose bluotrenki) sose lidi
renki ben zibena bluot zi?bluoda?
lid zigeliden sosegelimmdasin *

Below I’ve put the normalized version, together with contemporary German words and the English possibilities below my rendering of the original, so that you can see make some comparisons yourself:

Phol rndr(ende) uuodan uuorun ziholza duwarz
Phol ende Wuoadan vuorun zi holza.
Phol und Wodan fuhren zu Holze
Phol and Wodan went(by horse) to the woods

(duwart) demobalderes uolon sin uuoz birenkit /
du wart demo Balderes volon sin vuoz birenkit.
Da war dem Fohlen Balderes sein Fuss verrenkt.
At this/then Balder’s foal’s foot was dislocated.

thubiguolen zinhtgut * sunna eraswister
thus bigul en Sinthgunt, Sunna era swister;
da beschwör es Sinthgunt, Sunna ihre Schwester;
Thus conjured it Sinthgunt, Sunna her sister;
(I wonder if ‘beguile’ is in any way related to ‘bigul’?)

thubiguolen friia uolla eraswister thu
thus bigul en Friia, Volla era swister;
da beschwör es Friia, Volla ihre Schwester;
Thus conjured it Friia, Volla her sister;

thubiguolen uuodan mhe?(sohe) uuola conda
thus bigul en Wuodan, so he wola conda:
da beschwör es Wodan, so er wohl konnte:
Thus conjured it Wodan, so well he could (as well he could):

sosebenrenki sose?????(sose bluotrenki) sose lidi
sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki, sose likirenki:
so wie Bein verrenkt, so wie Blut verrenkt, so wie Glied verrenkt:
So like leg dislocated, so like blood dislocated, so like limb dislocated:

renki ben zibena bluot zi?bluoda?
ben zi bena, bluot zi bluoda,
Bein zu Bein, Blut zu Blut,
Leg to leg, blood to blood,

lid zigeliden sosegelimmdasin *
lid zi geliden, sose gelimida sin.
Glied zu Glied, so wie geleimt sein/seien?
Limb to limb, so like (it) were/was glued.

Gumbrecht maintains that the charms had a threefold nature within an alliterative unity. Hm: trinity in unity, three in one, ancient ideas, pre-Christian ideas, Christian ideas! I wonder if there is any link there. I don’t know. Anyway, his interpretation is that the charms had to have a past conjured up into the present, for a future healing, and the unity is the alliteration that was used in the verses. In other words, alliteration unified the text.

I also think there is some wonderful assonance in the verses: the ‘o’ sound and the ‘uo’ sound are in many of the words, especially in the first part, the first five lines, and when spoken aloud produce a sonorous sound, talking about the gods, perhaps the sounds of the gods? (Just my speculation.) Justaposed to them are the “renkit” and “renki” sounds of dislocation, sounding to me like ‘rent,’ as in ‘rent asunder,’ meaning broken into pieces. In both the second part describing injuries and at the end during the healing you have three different vowel sounds, ‘eh’ in ‘ben,’ ‘uo’ in ‘bluot,’ and ‘ee’ in ‘lid,’ etc. I’m not sure what that could mean. (Webster's has a dictionary definition of assonance.)

Gumbrecht states that in line six there is a caesura, but looking at the original text I wonder. Perhaps one could write the three types of dislocation one after the other on separate lines, even a caesura between each, giving them all equal weight, instead of writing them in one line. In the original they are simply all together on one line and just a small part of the next.
Possible:
Sose benrenki
Sose bluotrenki
Sose lidirenki
Currently printed:
Sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki, sose lidirenki:
In the original:
Sosebenrenki sosebluotrenki sose lidi
renki
One must also be careful when looking at the printed text of the charms, because scholars have placed spaces and punctuation where they did not occur in the original. Now, I know scholars place the spaces, because evidently there were indeed caesuras in poetry of the time, but the punctuation is their interpretation, and I’m not saying it is wrong, I’m only saying one must also be careful.

All the repetition (“poetry”) also makes the words sound more “magical,” if one will.

Why are they called the Merseburg Charms? Gumbrecht states that they “are named after the town of Merseburg, near Halle in Saxony, whose cathedral flourished in the 11th century and which still owns today the codex containing the two charms” (2). But why do they call them charms? The word ‘charms,’ also meaning ‘spells,’ in the public’s imagination, invokes ideas of paganism and, for many people, negative connotations. Yet for these Germanic peoples they were anything but “paganistic” (although they were pagans, they did not perceive of themselves as negative), and they were not negative at all. So what word fits better? Evidently people believed in the power of these sounds and words used together, so they were a kind of conjuring, but is there anything comparable in the Christian religion today that would make us understand the positive connotations of the ancients’ ideas better? Certainly baptism is a kind of “conjuring,” because it wipes away Original Sin and it allows one to go to Heaven. In the Catholic Church, as far as I know, taking Holy Communion is not considered symbolic. The priest has the power to ACTUALLY change the host and wine into Christ’s body and blood through his words. And people also believe in the healing of various Protestant ministers. They say such things as “In the name of our Lord BE HEALED.” So in my opinion those are “incantations,” too, and are very similar to the Merseburg texts. What, then, should they be called? The Fulda-Merseburg Healing Poems? I’m not sure. The Fulda-Merseburg Healing Liturgy? I don’t think that would be very accurate either. Maybe they are the Fulda-Merseburg Healing Prayers. But they are more than a prayer, they are a healing chant or incantation. (I give up!) What might the Germanic people have called them? Magic spells? But those two words would have had very different meanings from what they do today. It is very difficult to “translate” culture from one time to another, especially religion, for we have such a negative view of others’ religions and such a positive view of our own, especially if we are monotheistic. (My God is the one true God. All the other gods are false – or worse, demons.)

Finally, I was really surprised to see that there are contemporary bands who sing, adapt, or refer to the Merseburg charms! One of them is In Extremo, a medieval metal and folk metal band!! On German youtube (http://de.youtube.com) you can find their musical rendition of the Fulda-Merseberg Healing Chant/Incantation that we’ve been discussing here, as well as video showings of their other music. It’s amazing what one can find on the web! Their wikipedia entry, their myspace site, are also accessible, as are other examples of their music on youtube.

There is also another group who pioneered medieval folk rock, Ougenweide, who first put the Merseburg spell, or blessing, "Eiris sazun idisi," to liberate prisoners, to music in recent times. You can also hear their rendering on German youtube.

Finally, Gumbrecht discusses another incantation, a house blessing in Latin and Old High German, the Zürcher Haussegen (Zurich House Blessing), which, by the way, one cannot find online:
“How good, wight (devil), that you know that your name is wight, / that you can neither know nor speak chnospinci (also devil)” (7).
According to Gumbrecht, the devil will never be able to learn the word ‘chnospinci,’ because it is magical, complex, and “the evil spirit will never be able to learn it—and thus will never regain power over himself” (7) or the house! Today I believe priests (maybe ministers, too?) come to people’s houses when they’ve just moved in and bless them.

According to Gumbrecht “[i]n modern times, the German charms are as thoroughly forgotten as the Germanic culture which began to recede by the 8th century, as if it could no longer hold onto the Christian present, into a past that appears much more remote to us than Greek and Roman antiquity” (7). (When this was written, then published in 2004, youtube was not as available as it is today, and perhaps In extremo and other bands were not yet singing the charms. Certainly, the charms have to be known by some German fans today.) On the other hand, he sees a relationship to the more modern world, because Western poetry suggests “a relationship of immediate tangibility to the things of the world” (7).

Coda. After finishing this post, I put the following words into the search engine: "be healed," and I came across a site that says you can be healed, and there is even a healing prayer, which seems from the context and explanation of it, a healing incantation:

Sample Healing Prayer

Jesus is Lord. God raised Him from the dead, victorious over satan, sin, and sickness. There is healing in the Name of Jesus. So, sickness and disease, I command you to leave my body now, in the Name of Jesus. Leave me alone satan. Jesus is my Lord. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I receive healing for my body, and I declare in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am now well. I believe I receive my healing, in the Name of Jesus. http://www.belivers.org/tr111.htm, accessed February 21, 2009

One could even make the stretch and say that Gumbrecht's interpretation of the threefold nature of the charm, i.e. a statement of a situation in the past in which God (the gods) was a part, then the healing incantation, and then the future outcome that is desired, is partially played out here in this healing prayer created by a Christian, although the healing that is to occur is to occur within the next second -- now. Is this too far a stretch?

(Note for fall: It took me 4-1/2 hours to re-read Gumbrecht's article, to write and link the above post. It would have taken me longer to add pictures, music of the times, etc. I had also read the article several times in the past, and of course I have background knowledge about the incantations that I brought to this task. I figure that students working together can do this, but working alone would have to take too much time, because I want them to read, write, access information, sound, video, print, etc. from the web, and write. In addition, I want them to read other texts that come from the same era. So I'm considering taking just one essay a week, having students "milk it to death," and then perhaps at mid-semester and semester's end, do a full wiki post themselves, by themselves, to demonstrate that they can read these complex essays in the book, access information online in a way that is fairly academically acceptable, and write about what they find. The wiki I wrote is somewhat informal, and I'll allow them to do that as well, I suppose, as long as they learn the difference between formal and informal writing. I just think that a more informal wiki will be of more interest to German students, or students of medieval and German literature, who come after them and read their writings. I'll also allow them to agree and disagree with each other and provide reasons why.)

Peaceful Anarchists

I am so jazzed! Amy et al.'s Medieval and Early Modern Studies minor, the new certificate in French, German, Russian (information forthcoming), and now a new colleague in French this fall (more information forthcoming). WOW!!!!

I also need to share the blog of a fourth semester student with you. I'm not sure of her background in German, and her German is not perfect, but it is understandable. What is really great is the way she combines pictures, links to video, print, and the visual, together with critical contemporary issues to her own blog, demonstrating passion, the relationship of word, thought, content, and issue. She links to some wonderful videos for excellent listening. This is the kind of blog I hope to push more students to do. I don't know what you think of it, but I just had to share it anyway. She calls herself "die ruhige Anarchistin," or "the peaceful anarchist!" I love it! I'm going to share some of the better blogs with all students on Wed. (they have access to each other's blogs anyway), to show them what can be done. Now, she is more tech savvy than most, so that is also a future goal -- help the students become more tech savvy so that they can do more connecting of word, issue, thought, visual, sound, video, etc., etc. I especially enjoyed her entry on guerilla gardening, with all its links to articles, videos, and pictures. The ironic, satirical post on vegans is also quite interesting.

This is the kind of connected, webbed world about which my colleague Pete Smith speaks. We live in a world of webbed connections, a sensory world that contains words and print, too! What better way than this to virtually transport our students into the language and culture they are studying! With the hope that they carry this activity and understanding forward when they leave us and when they leave German for a work environment that employs all sorts of people. Arlington, Texas, for example, has an independent school district that teaches students from 140 languages!!!

I hope you enjoy the blog.

May we all be peaceful anarchists!


Lana

Working with an Idea: Der Lindwurmbrunnen in Klagenfurt

There is a fountain in the market square in Klagenfurt, Austria: der Lindwurmbrunnen in Klagenfurt, the lindworm fountain, consisting of a lindworm, or wingless bipedal dragon, out of whose mouth the water flows. There are links and references to it everywhere on the web. In the images section of google, you an find a picture of a Wurm, of a Lindwurm, of a Brunnen, and of the Lindwurmbrunnen. On German youtube, you can find the Klagenfurt lindworm with a modern-day funny twist to it. It is called "Lindwurm Forever."

If you want to find out about Klagenfurt, you can see it on a map, in pictures, in a panorama shot, lots of times on youtube (a Sunday a.m. bike ride or a student's reminiscences of a year spent studying there). Webcams are available as well.

What would be the benefit in having students take a concept -- a word or phrase or film title or book title from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein -- and creating a wiki about it? Or a webpage? With his or her reflections on it? I think I'll find out in the next months. Here are my reflections on one concept, born from a decade of thought about these dragons:

Thoughts on the Lindwurm and its Brunnen

Water flows from the mouth of the lindworm in Klagenfurt. Located on the market square, it presides over the city from its center point. The lindworm is the snake, the dragon, the bipedal dragon, as it so aptly says in the Wikipedia definition. Such a dragon is one of the traces left over from ancient times, just like St. George and the Dragon, from ancient times when the dragon meant something different from what it does today. I am reminded once again of the fight between the pre-Christian and Christian religions for the hearts of the people. The dragon, the snake, the lindworm have become synonymous with the devil and his demons, with evil and its personification – something to be slain with the sword, just as St. George does. Is that where it all started? With good over evil? Or does it, like other ancient symbols, refer to a time and/or place where the dragon is/was good, or a mixture of good and evil? Does it go back to Adam and Eve, or does it go further back, to the pre-biblical finds of 2500 B.C.E., when a woman and a tree and a snake were carved on various pieces in various places of the present-day Middle East? Does it go back to a time when the dragon guarded the golden apples of the Goddess Hera in Greek mythology? Does it go back to even earlier times – times of the Minoan Snake Goddes, or even earlier? I suspect that the dragon that must be killed is the old religion that must be stamped out, in order that the newer religion may flourish. But that old dragon is still around, in the churches of Europe – yes, St. George can be found there killing his dragon, in the snake under Mary’s feet, in the folktales from the forests and mountains, in the statues at the center of a market square in the center of a town in Austria. … And did it used to be a revered snake? The giver and taker of life? Just as today’s Christians revere their God, the giver and taker of life? A good question. Where to find the answers? And the lindworm’s water that flows from its mouth: a symbol of the waters of life? Or a mere coincidence? I don’t know.

And what about Klagenfurt, Austria and its relationship to the Lindwurm? As I traveled around Italy, especially, I noticed that the dragon was a motif inside and outside of churches. I saw a dragon in Venice near the water's edge, as well as in churches in Genoa, where St. George was on the job. They seem to be most prevalent in the Catholic parts of Europe I've visited -- in the more ancient parts, speaking from a perspective of the spread of new religions. The Catholic Church is older than the Protestant and had to incorporate more of the ancient beliefs, either by accepting them or setting themselves up against them. These dragons are not so visible (if at all?) in the areas of later ideologies, the Protestant/Lutheran areas, and certainly you won't find them (at all?) in the United States, where the Protestants are the dominant force. Klagenfurt is in Austria, a predominantly Catholic country, and it is not far from Italy, the seat of the Catholic Church. So what does this mean? I think the European dragon, i.e. nuances of ancient European religions, is not alive in the U.S. St. George succeeded, although ... new religions have been springing up that embrace (a new interpretation of?) the old ways. ... The saga continues.

Of course, there have been dragons all over the place in folklore and mythology, in all of Europe. Even St. Patrick was killing them. And many of the Greek heroes were slaying dragons. But did they come from a group (Zeus) who were in conflict with another group (represented by Hera)? What is the origin of it all? For certainly serpents were and are symbols of healing.

Pushing my thinking on Valentine's Day

What I want to know is why I keep changing, why I always have new preps, or if not new ones, I constantly do more than tweak those I've taught before. Why don't I just hone what I've done in the past, as some do? Well, I guess I know the answer. I'm always learning something, always rethinking the situation, always excited about new possibilities, always evolving or trying to evolve. Just like with this idea of connectivism on the web that my colleague Pete Smith has been talking about -- how to have students make it a practice in the classes to do this connectiivism thing – take a topic, a sentence, a text, and mine it for words and phrases that one can plug into an English or German search engine, a web map with photos and youtube links, an image search engine, a youtube search engine, with the goal of getting them so accustomed to it that they might -- they just might -- continue when they leave us! At least give them some tools to use in the future. If we do that in some of the first and second year courses, then have them do a translation certificate, well, they would certainly have some good tools to use in the future -- plus an understanding of the interesting complexity of languaculture. Indeed, my next goal is to spend a week or two having students research a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LANGUAGE and see if they can apply principles they've been learning in German to accessing ideas in a completely new language.

I'm also thinking that I want to expand on this culture sentence thing -- maybe refine it, make students more active in pursuing the underlying history, images, words connected to a sentence or thought. I'm seriously considering a wiki for fall -- maybe all classes I teach contributing to it. We'll see.

Anyway, have a great Valentine's Day!

Back from Palm Springs

I’m finally back, after a month away and a month coming to terms with a new semester and a revamp of my syllabi. As our program is small, I’m teaching an extra course that didn’t “make,” so that our upper level students will have a chance to take multiple courses. So I’m teaching a first year, a second year, a third year, and a fourth year course! But I’ve streamlined the one that didn’t make and had to be reclassified, as we say here, a composition and culture course, by making it a hybrid course. Students meet with me once a week, and during the other two hours that they would normally meet with me, they write. I think that is a good compromise, don’t you? That way I don’t have to meet for four a.m. class hours three times a week. It gives me a break, and I don’t really think they are suffering that much. The few who wish are able to come see me during the other two class hours, as I hold office hours then. Anyway, enough of my very boring news.

But what I AM excited about is the renewed enthusiasm I have for teaching. It happens every semester. (Isn’t that a take-off on the movie title “It happens every spring”?) And I’m excited about writing again. I’ve given myself permission NOT to publish, which has freed me to write and publish in new ways. At the moment I’m moving over from peer-reviewed publishing in second language pedagogy and applied linguistics to editor-reviewed publishing in methods – small how-to articles. It’s not prestigious, it won’t get me marks towards full professor, but – it is a venue for things I want to say, things that are pertinent to today’s profession, and things that actually are grounded in my reading and thinking about discourse analysis, applied linguistics, etc., etc. – AND the audience is a group of 5,000 Texas high school and college language teachers. (As Texas and California go, so goes the nation!) If I make a habit of this, it could be a way to have a conversation with people who have the power to choose textbooks and who educate the students that we see in our college classrooms. This kind of writing comes easily to me, and it comes quickly. For it is the culmination of hours of thinking and writing – and conversations held -- that I do in an ongoing way and have done for 25 years. There is not just one way to write and reach the world, correct?

Thank God she’s not last again!

She had wanted to know how to skate backwards since childhood. Ever since the days of skates that you attached to your shoes, she had envied the girls who got to wear those pretty skating skirts at the roller rink, do their arabesques on one foot, and skate backwards. It was the romance of the beauty of it all: lovely skaters in lovely costumes, and it was the feeling of freedom -- gliding across the floor, that made her love skating and watch it, in the form of ice skating and ice dancing, whenever the Olympics were on TV.

So now at the age of 48 she decided it was time. In the midst of wanting to assert her own sense of identity and individuality again, she began roller skating and roller skating lessons. It was fun. Just gliding along the floor was fun. It was fun watching the kids, mostly girls, dream of being Peggy Fleming on roller skates. It was fun learning to skate backwards and doing so around the whole rink during warm-up. She even learned more than she had envisioned: the airplane, the scorpion, and a small jump or two.

After a while her coach encouraged her to enter the competitions. Silly. What for? She hadn’t intended to compete. But then she began thinking about it, how it might be fun, being there with all the hoopla, watching the kids and their mothers, and trying it out herself. So she began learning figures. Figures didn’t appeal to her too much, but she knew they were the first step, and dance skating would come after that. So she practiced, and before she knew it, it was the big day. She, along with all the ten-something-year-olds and their mothers, went down to the convention center for the competition.

The girls were excited. They got to wear make-up and all those beautiful, grown-up-looking skating costumes. And if they didn’t fall, they had fun and were happy playing at trying to be the best.

When it was time to do the figures, she got in line with the other little girls and the one other adult who had also dared to enter the competition. When her turn came, she did her figures, and she did them better than she had ever done them before. Then they waited for the posting of the results.

Once the rating sheets were hung on the wall, everyone went over, and they all stood there looking for their names or the names of their children. And there she saw her ranking: not just last, eighteen out of eighteen, but way below the skater who was seventeen on the list! She had done her very best. She had done better, she felt, than ever before, and yet she was not only the worst, but much worse than anyone who was competing! She thought, if she as an adult felt bad, how must the girls and boys feel when they were the worst? She stood there for a while, watching the mothers and the children looking for their rankings.

After the crowd had dwindled, she saw a lone mother come over to look at the figures rankings, searching for her daughter’s name. The mother’s finger worked its way down the list of names until she found the one she was seeking, number seventeen out of eighteen. And then an exclamation burst from her lips: “Thank God she’s not last again.”

The day was done. They packed their bags. The hall got quiet as everyone filed out. And as she, the 48-year-old figures competitor, climbed into her car, turned on the ignition, and began driving away, a smile slowly crept over her face.

Reading, Teaching German, and the Web

Teaching German, Spring 2009

The Web and Language Learning
The world has indeed changed. What is it that all German students, regardless of level, can take with them into the “wider world” when they leave our courses? What is it that they can continue to do if so inclined? One skill that should help them continue their use of German is the ability to read “intelligently,” especially the skill to read the web: to know what sites are reliable and for what, and to know how to glean meaning from texts. In addition, if they are interested in keeping their language competence in German fresh, reading for pleasure will help them do so.

Issues about Online Translation Tools
I know many faculty members are against the use of online translating websites, and certainly they often provide terrible translations. However, if students understand exactly what online translation tools can and cannot do, they can learn to use them wisely. It is similar to the calculator. When that came out, people were against using it, because it was feared that people would no longer be able to do math in their heads. That fear has been realized, to some degree. However, I would not be without my calculator nowadays when I balance my checkbook. (Yes, I’m one of that very small minority of people who uses checks and aggravates the people standing in line behind them!)

The Positive Aspects of Online Translation Tools
After having sat in on my colleague’s translation course, where he used translation memory and translating tools that are used in companies to provide the raw data for huge numbers of words that must be translated as accurately and quickly as possible, after seeing how students can be scaffolded to create culturally sensitive, polished English translations of texts translated from the second to the first language, I am convinced that even the poor translating tools accessible to all can be used to help further language acquisition instead of simply allowing students to cheat. They can provide the raw data, like dictionaries do, for students to use as they attempt to glean meaning from difficult texts. As I have seen in my colleague’s class, such raw data is only the beginning, for students have to grapple with textual meaning, culture-specific meanings in certain words, phrases, and texts, in order to fully understand a text.

So next semester I plan to begin by demonstrating to students, by way of examples, just what the online tools can do, and what they cannot do, how one has to be aware of where they go wrong and how they can change the meaning of a sentence or even the implications of a whole text. I want to show them the difference between dictionary based translators, as I believe babelfish is, and data-based translators, as I believe the google translator is. I’ll show them when a translator is doing a good job, and when it is “sending the wrong meaning.” I’ll demonstrate that they will have to learn how to be the “arbiter of meaning,” so to speak, how to know when the translator is right on, when it is not. And that will require them to analyze the original text in some depth.

We can teach them how to navigate the web. We can teach them that cultural meaning is hard to translate. We can teach them to beware of literal translations. We can teach them to use context, their logic, and their background knowledge to know when a translation is going wrong, doesn’t make sense, is not coherent. For example, if the translation tool translates ‘Lager’ as ‘camp’ when the context dictates ‘Lager’ as referring to beer, then students need to learn to watch the context for clues as to which word is conveying utterly in appropriate meaning.

Google Images: What They Can Do for Foreign Language Students
I also want students to understand the help that google images in German can provide, given that students learn to be aware of the source of the pictures (i.e., do they come from German-speaking sources?). Especially concrete nouns and verbs, but even other words or word phrases can produce 1) visual images, and 2) verbal and visual context. Sometimes a picture, or 20 pictures, are worth a thousand words, for they provide students with a visual image of how that particular object or idea is conceived of in the L2 culture. Students who process language more visually may be benefited, too. I have also noticed that the words underneath the picture are usually within a context of a phrase or sentence, so that interested students can see how they are used as well. I want to alert students to this potentiality of images. For example, the word ‘Lindwurmbrunnen’ was an important concept in a paragraph about the city of Klagenfurt, Austria, in a text students were asked to read recently. If you look up ‘Lindwurmbrunnen’ in google.de images (Bilder), you’ll find a number of pictures of it. You’ll also find phrases like “Lindwurmbrunnen in Klagenfurt” or “Klagenfurt - Der Lindwurmbrunnen.” Even words like ‘love’ (‘Liebe’) have visual representations on the web. Words like ‘honesty,’ while producing pictures, are more difficult to comprehend; however, with an online dictionary like Leo, the word can be understood, and students who are interested can see how the word is used in picture and text. Verbs like ‘laufen’ (‘to run’) are fairly concrete and easy to depict, while words like ‘verstehen’ (‘to understand’/’understanding’) need both the dictionary and the visual uses.

Using the Web to Understand Key Cultural Concepts
Students should also be taught how to use the web to decipher key words, phrases, and concepts. For example the German word ‘Heimat’ cannot be easily translated into English. According to Leo it means ‘country,’ ‘home,’ ‘homeland,’ ‘home country,’ ‘native country,’ or ‘home depot!’ However, even a quick scan of Wikipedia shows there is much more to the concept (translation follows):

Heimat kann eine Gegend oder Landschaft meinen, aber auch sich auf Dorf, Stadt, Land, Nation, Vaterland, Sprache oder Religion beziehen. Heimat bezeichnet somit keinen konkreten Ort (Heimstätte), sondern Identifikation. Es ist die Gesamtheit der Lebensumstände, in denen ein Mensch aufwächst. Auf sie wird seine Psyche geprägt, ihnen "ist er gewachsen". Als Gegenüber der Fremde wird Heimat im utopischen Sinne auch als der erst noch herzustellende Ort in einer Welt jenseits der Entfremdung verstanden, dies gilt insbesondere für Erfahrungen des Exils.

I used the google translator as the raw data, but polished the translation as best I could:
Home can be a region or landscape, but it can also refer to the concept of village, city, state, nation, homeland, language or religion. It does not denote a specific place (homestead), but rather an identification with something. It is the totality of the circumstances in which a person grows up. A person’s psyche is “stamped” with it, is shaped by it. It happens to him or her: “it grows him/her.” S/he is grown by it. A person is acted upon by it. As compared to that which is strange or foreign, the word ‘Heimat’ is understood in a utopian sense as that quietly constitutive place in a world beyond alienation. This especially applies to experiences of exile.

GOOGLE translation which I used as the raw data to form my own: Home can be a region or my landscape, but also to the village, city, state, nation, homeland, language or religion relate. Denotes home thus no specific place (home), but identification. It is the totality of the circumstances in which a person grows up. It is his psyche characterized them ", he is grown." As compared to the stranger in the home is also as a utopian sense of still herzustellende place in a world beyond the alienation understood, especially those experiences of exile.

(One can also see here why the translator only provides the raw data, and the reader must search further to understand the nuanced meaning of the definition.)

Help with Languages Not Even Studied!
If students understand how these online translators work, then they will be trained in the their even with languages they have not studied, languages such as Spanish for example, and they will know the caveats and what to look for as they are trying to glean meaning from texts in languages other than their native language. As the internet draws us closer to each other, we may indeed want to read a text in a language we do not know. If we know how to use the tools wisely, they can be an aid to us. If we know that cultural meaning is harder to translate, we’ll be more careful when trying to understand a text in another language.

Background Reading in the Native Language
I also want students to understand the value of background knowledge when attempting to read in another language. As scholars have said, if one knows the language and has background knowledge, then that is the ideal. One has many tools to help create meaning from language. If one has one, but not the other, i.e. language proficiency but not background knowledge or background knowledge but not proficiency, one can rely on what one has to compensate for the lack of the other. However, when both are missing, one has a great deal of difficulty. Our students can help compensate by getting some background knowledge in their own language about a topic and then attempting to understand L2 texts. This is another reason why it is good for students to explore their interests. Not only will they be more interested, but chances are they have more background knowledge in many of these areas of interest. In the past we were not allowed to read in our native language about whatever we were studying in the L2. I know from experience that such an approach severely limited my understanding of L2 literary texts, for I had neither the sophisticated language competence nor the cultural background knowledge needed for comprehending these texts in any depth. Later on I learned how to use English translations, articles about the texts, as well as the texts themselves to understand them as texts and within their sociocultural and historical context.

The Importance of Understanding How to Read the Web in General
Students are somewhat savvy about reading the web. They know that Wikipedia cannot be relied on 100%, for example. I want to help them navigate between fact and opinion, argument and description, exposition and narration. That will help them when writing, as well as when reading, if they are explicitly made aware of it all.

For Further Reading of My Own
Finally, I want to carefully read Swaffar, Byrnes, and Arens’s 1991 Reading for Meaning. It will help me be even better at teaching my students a “skill for life,” whether reading German, English, hard copy, the web, or some language they have never even studied!