Beyond Words - Language Blog
Recent Blog Posts
O Rio? 4 Places in the Americas Named By Mistake
August 17, 2016
Rio de Janeiro’s time in the global spotlight is nearly over. Rio, one of Brazil’s jewels — world heritage site, protected by Christ the Redeemer, so named for its grand river that … wait, what? Yes, its explorers mistook its harbor for a river mouth, and their mistake is now […]
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Shemps, MacGuffins, and Alan Smithee: 10 Movie Terms You’ve Just Got to Read About
August 10, 2016
What happens when you combine lush greenery, a low cost of doing business, and a bevy of targeted tax incentives? You get a booming film industry that made a statewide economic impact of $6 billion in 2015, for one. It’s official: Georgia has become the 3rd-largest U.S. state for making […]
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Linguist Reveals How We Totes Abbreve
August 4, 2016
As a linguist I can attest to how rewarding it is to be the first to research a topic, and how ridic fun it is for my barely-concealed inner nerd to describe internet speech and slang with formal terminology. Lauren Spradlin, a graduate student at CUNY, managed to do both […]
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Brexit Won’t Force English Out of the EU
July 19, 2016
Amid the flurry of activity in the weeks after Brexit, with markets panicking and the major UK political parties facing monumental power changes, it was surprising and refreshing to see a translation and interpretation topic rise briefly to the top of the news cycle. Media outlets all over were wondering: […]
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8 Unique Careers for Translators and Interpreters
June 14, 2016
Over the course of their training and work experience, language professionals amass an almost superhuman array of skills. Translators and interpreters, in particular, learn to apply their bilingual knowledge in a way that makes them invaluable to the healthcare, legal, and government sectors. They serve as translators, simultaneous and consecutive […]
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6 Major Moments in Translation and Interpretation History
May 12, 2016
From the Tower of Babel to the Age of the Internet, translators and interpreters have had a seat at the table in every major event in history. And yet, by virtue of the very role they play in enabling other parties to communicate, these language professionals seldom occupy the same […]
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Can Untranslatable Words Make Us Happier?
May 4, 2016
The idea of untranslatability is captivating for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the chance to try on another culture’s way of experiencing the world. As the popular anecdote goes, how does an Eskimo or Inuit look at snow, when there are dozens of words to […]
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Paths to Success in Medical Interpretation: An Interview with Professional Interpreter and Breaking Boundaries in Healthcare Instructor, Stephanie Wiley
April 5, 2016
Stephanie Wiley is a professional interpreter and instructor for the Breaking Boundaries in Healthcare® course. Stephanie was kind to sit down with us and share some of her insight on medical interpretation and tips to being a successful medical interpreter. How did you first become interested in medical interpretation? I […]
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7 Questions to a Linguist: William Labov and the False Idols of Language
March 11, 2016
In today’s 7 Questions to a Linguist, we hear from a towering figure in the field of linguistics, Dr. William Labov. Labov’s scholarly work over the past 50 years has garnered him the moniker “father of sociolinguistics”, and it is with a rigorous quantitative approach to the study of language […]
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7 Questions to a Linguist: Bernard Comrie Explores World Languages to Answer the Unanswerable
March 8, 2016
In today’s 7 Questions to a Linguist, we look at the juncture of human history and language development with Dr. Bernard Comrie. Dr. Comrie served 17 years as the head of the Department of Linguistics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and currently holds the position of Distinguished […]
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