Questões de Concurso

      In many parts of the world colonial hegemony has resulted in the dominance of the coloniser's language at the expense of native languages. The suppression of indigenous languages is intricately connected with mental health problems. Indigenous youth with less knowledge of their native language are six times more likely to have suicidal ideation than those with greater language knowledge. Language suppression impairs self-identity, wellbeing, self-esteem, and empowerment.

       Just as language extinction can affect mental health, so can reinstating a language. Aboriginal youth who are capable of speaking their native language are less likely to consume alcohol or use illicit substances at risky amounts, and are less likely to be exposed to violence. Moreover, knowledge of indigenous languages is associated with a decrease in youth suicide by 50% a year.

       The digital recording of indigenous languages might be useful for documentation, restoration, promotion, and education. Sufficient fund allocation is required to recover and store the alphabets of indigenous languages. Separate indigenous language educational institutes, in which researchers and mental health professionals can work in cooperation, are also extremely necessary. These concerted efforts might help result in the renewal of a given indigenous language and potentially reduce mental health problems.

Omar Faruk and Simon Rosenbaum. The mental health consequences of indigenous language loss. In: The Lancet Psychiatry. Internet:<www.thelancet.com>   (adapted).  

         When it comes to the vocabulary of languages, is it true, as some suppose, that the vocabularies of so-called primitive languages are too small and inadequate to account for the nuances of the physical and social universes of their speakers? The answer is somewhat complicated. Because the vocabulary of a language serves only the members of the society who speak it, the question to be asked should be: Is a particular vocabulary sufficient to serve the sociocultural needs of those who use the language? When put like this, it follows that the language associated with a relatively simple culture would have a smaller vocabulary than the language of a complex society. Why, for example, should the Inuit people (often known by the pejorative term “Eskimo”) have words for chlorofluoromethane, dune buggy, or tae kwon do when these substances, objects, and concepts play no part in their culture? By the same token, however, the language of a tribal society would have elaborate lexical domains for prominent aspects of the culture although these do not exist in complex societies. The Agta of the Philippines, for example, are reported to have no fewer than thirty-one verbs referring to types of fishing, while in Munich, the terminology for the local varieties of beer is quite extensive, according to strength, color, fizziness, aging, and clarity, the full list exceeding seventy terms.

        However, even though no language spoken today may be labeled primitive, this does not mean that all languages do all things in the same way, or are equally influential in the modern transnational world. The linguistic anthropologist Dell Hymes claims that languages are not functionally equivalent because the role of speech varies from one society to the next. According to Hymes, though all languages “are potentially equal and hence capable of adaptation to the needs of a complex industrial civilization”, only certain languages have actually done so (Hymes 1961:77). These languages are more successful than others not because they are structurally more advanced, but because they happen to be associated with societies in which language is the basis of literature, education, science, and commerce.

Zdenek SALZMANN, James M. STANLAW and Nobuko ADACHI. Language, culture, and society: an introduction to linguistic anthropology. Boulder (CO): Westview Press, 2012. p. 6-7 (adapted).  

     Artificial intelligence still has difficulties processing requests in one language, without the additional complications of translation. Michael Housman, chief data science officer at RapportBoost.AI, explained that the ideal scenario for machine learning and artificial intelligence is something with fixed rules and a clear-cut measure of success or failure. He named chess as an obvious example. This happened faster than anyone anticipated because of the game’s very clear rules and limited set of moves. Housman elaborated, “Language is almost the opposite of that. There aren’t as clearly-cut and defined rules.”

      I asked Dr. Jorge Majfud, Associate Professor of Spanish, at Jacksonville University, to explain why consistently accurate language translation has thus far eluded AI. He replied, “The problem is that considering the ‘entire’ sentence is still not enough.” He noted that sarcasm and irony only make sense within this widened context. Similarly, idioms can be problematic for automated translations.

       Dr. Majfud warned, “We should be aware of the fragility of their ‘interpretation.’ Because to translate is basically to interpret, not just an idea but a feeling. Human feelings and ideas that only humans can understand — and sometimes not even we, humans, understand other humans.” He noted that cultures, gender, and even age can pose barriers to this understanding and also contended that an over-reliance on technology is leading to our cultural and political decline. Dr. Majfud mentioned that Argentinean writer Julio Cortázar used to refer to dictionaries as “cemeteries”. He suggested that automatic translators could be called “zombies”.

David Pring-Mill. Why Hasn’t AI Mastered Language Translation? Internet:<singularityhub.com>  (adapted).