Text Translation: Pidgin Practices

I used my text-translation activity in class last week and decided I should blog about it, given I did the same for my Twitter exercise. For my rhetorical analysis essay, my students read one of three pre-selected essays (Richard Dawkins’ and Jerry Coyne’s essay “One Side Can Be Wrong,” Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” or Angelina Grimké’s “A Speech in Pennsylvania Hall”). I divided my class into groups based on which of the three essays they chose to read, further subdividing them into groups of two and three.

In preparation for the activity, I selected a number of passages from each essay that posed interesting problems for translation: the use of quotes, multi-syllabic jargon, enormous sentences, complex punctuation, etc. Then, I assigned groups a passage from the essay they read for their rhetorical analysis essay. The task was to, as a group, translate the passage from prose into a text message. I even allowed them to take out their cell phones for assistance (to avoid genre/composition tool disconnect issues).

After the groups translated the prose into text at the top of a sheet of paper, I collected the sheets and gave them to a group that was unfamiliar with the essay. The groups then were tasked with translating the text message back into prose without the contextual knowledge of the essay. This second translation was done on the same sheet of paper just below the first.

I was pleased with the amount of variation in texting practices. The results were extremely diverse. Some students ignored all punctuation, others included all punctuation but clipped consonants or vowels from words, and others still translated nearly verbatim the original. Then, when the groups were done, I read the original passage aloud and projected the two translations on the Elmo for the class to discuss.

Translation procedure was impacted by the type of cell phones people used: phones with more accessible keyboards (where punctuation isn’t seven transition screens away) yielded closer translations to the original. And while texting practices varied, nearly every student could understand others’ text message translations. It was like a pidgin English was forming through the medium of text messages.

Below I’ve copied one example from the exercise:

From “One Side Can Be Wrong”:
“It sounds so reasonable, doesn’t it? Such a modest proposal. Why not teach ‘both sides’ and let the children decide for themselves? As President Bush said, ‘You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.’ At first hearing, everything about the phrase ‘both sides’ warms the hearts of educators like ourselves” (Dawkins and Coyne 70).

Prose-to-Text Translation:
“its resonbl rght? Sch modst prpsl. Y nt teach Both n lt da kids dcide 4 demself? Bush say – ppl shuld b xposed 2 dif ? – 1st time hearin warms <3 o teachas lik me.”

Text-to-Prose Translation:
“It’s reasonable, right? Such modest proposal. Why not teach both and let the children decide for themselves? President Bush says people should be exposed to different questions – first time hearing warms hearts of teachers like me.”

Works Cited:
Dawkins, Richard and Jerry Coyne. “One Side Can Be Wrong.” Seagull Reader: Essays 2nd Edition, Ed. Joseph Kelly, W.W. Norton: New York.