two things tagged “english”

“Translanguaging” is the act of interleaving elements of two or more languages together to communicate more effectively.

Very common in India. And that article is from a journal that offers EAL news. EAL (English as an Additional Language) is not the same as ESL (English as a Second Language). EAL is favored above ESL among the language pedagogy community:

Why? Because sometimes it is not clear what an individual’s ‘first’ language is (perhaps they grew up speaking one language at home, and a different language at school). And because oftentimes people can speak more than two languages.

EAL is more inclusive and applies to “a wider range of individuals’ contexts”.

[…] some individuals may not have an easily identifiable ‘first’ language. For example, take a person who starts speaking Spanish at home and then starts attending school in English. English could take over as the individual’s ‘dominant’ language, even though Spanish was acquired ‘first.’ Let’s say this person continues to communicate at home in Spanish — you could say Spanish is now their ‘home’ language. Because they’re not getting schooled in Spanish, they might decide to study Spanish formally when they are older. In this case, they would be a ‘heritage language learner’ of Spanish. Lastly, even though English has become the individual’s dominant language, they might still experience some transfer or interference from Spanish — in this case, the individual could benefit from EAL offerings.

Julie Matsubara, “ESL vs EAL: What’s in a name?”, English Language Institute, University of Chicago

Whence “Gubernatorial”?

I’m put off by the word “gubernatorial” whenever I see it. Seems very silly, saccharine, like something a 5-year old mispronounced in 1953 that just stuck because it was so cute 🙄

Nope.

“Because, if you go back to where this word came from, in the original Latin, it’s from the verb, gubernare and gubernator, one who governs,” [Lisa McLendon, professor, University of Kansas School of Journalism] says.

Then, “governor, with the ‘v,’ came into English from French in about the 14th century,” she says. "French had taken the Latin and they swapped the ‘b’ for a ‘v.’ "

English speakers went back to the “b” about 400 years later, but just for gubernatorial. And, there’s the split.

Where Does The Term ‘Gubernatorial’ Come From?, NPR