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Languages Conflicts

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The grammars of a language differ than other languages. Every language has its own grammars, but it is not only about grammars. Languages are also different in the way they are structured, their metaphors, and the meaning of words based on every culture. The environment effects the way people communicate. People use their surroundings to express themselves, we reached a level where words are more powerful than what we imagine, they sometimes mean acts. “It addresses the physicality of language in a way that perhaps surprises us.” (Rios, 506).

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Mansour Alnasri #000543474 02/08/2012 College Writing Trudy Stone First Paper Languages Conflict In this world and in this time it is hard to find a person who speaks only one language. Every person of them passes through situations where they face conflict between their native language and the other language that they speak. I read “Translating Translation: Finding the beginning” by Albert Alvaro Rios and I find it really interesting. I feel it touches my mind, he writes about what every person who speaks more than one language thinks about. He writes about different aspects of speaking another language, and more examples of his personal experience. Rios holds the Katharine C. Turner Endowed chair in English at Arizona State University. He is the recipient of many distinguished awards for his writing. Rios starts with general information about himself and how he first noticed this conflict. Then he gets to the main idea and specify more about his experience and provides more examples. He believes that different metaphors, terms, and idioms differ in the meaning between different languages.

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“Moving from one language to another is more than translating words. It’s getting the body ready as well. It’s getting the heart ready along with the mind.” (Rios,506). Here is one of the main point, translating it not only about words, it’s a whole process of translating the words and preparing yourself for it. I always meet people who speak more than one language, we start our discussion in English then suddenly I ask them a question or I say a sentence in their native language. They do not get what I am saying even it is in their native language. I have to repeat it again until they get it. Do you know why? Because they were listening in English. The same situation happened to me a lot. It happens because I am not expecting my partner to speak my native language and says a sentence in it. A professor in advanced communication class told us how thinking in different language could effect our decisions and we have to think in the language that we speak at that time to make a better connection and understand the situation better. Her reason is that languages are related to the environment that we learned that language in. If I start speaking in Arabic I would use examples, idioms, metaphors that are known in Arabic and they are based on history stories and examples that might not be understood in another language. I would also relate anything that I hear to my Arabic environment. The same situation is in English or in any other language. Translating from different languages requires more attention than translating the meaning of the words. As languages differ between countries, manners differ between cultures too. Rios mentions manners as a part of language confilicts, he says because they are different

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between language they create conflict between people. (Rios, 507) I find this point interesting and true. What creates manners? What makes them different? Manners are more culture­related than language­related. Manners are created by cultures. Which are based on the history of that culture and the stories, habits, tradition, and customs that were curried from older generations and taught to the new generations. Every culture sees different acts as prohibited things to do. While the same acts are acceptable in other cultures. The point that Rios is saying is that languages are effected by manners. Rios writes an example about this point, which is the story about the Mexican guy who only spoke Spanish and got arrested for crossing the borders illegally. He was in jail for several days and no one knew about him. He did not say anything because he had manners. In the United States it is acceptable to speak and say what you want even if some people think it is wrong. Translating from one language to another is more than translating words, translators must understand the different manners between cultures and try to come up with translations that speaks the other culture and its language. Manners do matter in different languages. Metaphors are part of every language, and they are different between languages based on the culture and its point of view toward its surroundings. This is one of the points that Rios mentions in his article. Metaphors are sometimes general which is a common language in the world, but sometimes metaphors are difficult to understand because they were built on a story or a history of a specific culture. Two semesters ago, I had to write a research paper for one of my class. In my paper I mentioned a metaphor to support an

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example that I wrote. The metaphor was about a spike and how it starts in in one seed and end up with hundreds of grains. My professor did not understand this metaphor and she guessed that it was from my culture. She was right, we use this metaphor in Arabic and it could not be used in English because it is based on my culture. I had to read more about metaphors in English and end up with a metaphor that has a similar meaning. Metaphors use common terms but sometimes they are built on specific stories that make them hard to understand. To sum up, many people speak more than one language. The majority of them face situations where they get in conflict between their native language and the other language that they speak. Rios states this problem and writes about it. He mentions different points that cause this problem. The first one is in translating from language to another, we should prepare our bodies, mind, and hearts for this process. It is not only about translating words, it is a complete process and that requires more attention. As language effect our decisions, manners effect too. Manners are based on our culture and our history. The last point is about metaphors. They use general sense, but sometime they are based on different cultures which makes them difficult to understand. Languages create conflicts but they could be solved by understanding their backgrounds.

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Rios Helped me to more understand the conflict between languages. I learned how my acts, manners and decisions are effected by my background. One of the most helpful things that Rios writes is about translation. It is how translating between language is more than translating words, it is a whole process of getting the body, mind, and heart ready for it. I also learned more about metaphors and how they say what people feels, and how they sometimes are effected by the culture. Will you take in account Rios’s reason when ever you face a language conflict in the future?

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Work(s) Cited Rios Alberto Alvaro, “Translating translation: Finding the beginning” In Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers, 9th Edition. Ed Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. New York | Boston: Bedford­ St. Martins Press, 2011. 504­508

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