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The Sound of a Foreign Word Caused Debate on US Campus

时间:2021-01-19 01:33:08

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Last August, The University of Southern California, known as USC, became involved in a dispute over language that appeared widely in U.S. and Chinese news stories.

It started with a white communications professor talking about small words or sounds that people use while speaking to signal pauses.

Because of the coronavirus health crisis, Gregory Patton was teaching the class online in a video conference. This fact may have added to the problem.

Patton advised his business school students that they should keep the pauses, but should avoid these "filler" sounds.

"Um" and "er" are examples of these sounds in English.

In the Mandarin1 Chinese language, Patton said, the word people often use to fill space between thoughts is "that." The word is pronounced "ne-ga," which sounds like an English word that is offensive to Black people. It is known as "the N-word" and is used to make Black people feel less than human.

Many students were surprised to hear the sound come from a professor.

Some Black students were upset and sent a letter to the school expressing their displeasure. They said the professor should have warned them that he was about to say a word that sounded like a bad word in English.

Patton, however, said he had used the example in classes before without complaint, so he did not think about warning students.

Tom Bartlett wrote a story about the incident for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

He said the complaints led to Patton being removed from the class for the rest of the term. Patton, however, was not dismissed by the school. He is still teaching at the university today.

Bartlett said one of the main issues to come out of the incident was Patton's desire to protect his reputation. He wanted to be sure the school would support him.

"He felt as if his reputation had been harmed by the fact that this became public, and the fact that he was being accused by some students of using a racist2 term."

Bartlett said a group of Chinese students wrote a letter supporting Patton.

"And they were bothered by the idea that a common word in Mandarin would be seen as by others, as, you know, potentially racist even though we know it was correctly pronounced by the professor. It became a big story in China in some ways, kind of a bigger story even than it was in the United States."

Since the class was online, it was recorded. When people saw the video of the class, they were not sure why the professor's class became a problem.

Guilherme Guerreiro is a journalism3 student at USC. He wrote about the story for The Annenberg School of Journalism's website. Guerreiro is originally from Brazil and English is his second language. He said it is important to remember that the story came after months of racial justice protests in the United States.

"It came out of the like the Black Lives Matter protests and all that...this story happened around August, like early mid-August, and the protests and had been going on, you know, June, July, et cetera, et cetera, so it came into the wake of that."

Guerreiro said "the country was at very critical point, a very delicate point," because of the summer of protests.

Bartlett was one of the first reporters to speak with Patton after the incident. He said the professor was worried that he might not be able to continue teaching students in the business school at USC. He apologized to students who were offended. Patton also said he would change his class so he would not use a sound that might make future students uncomfortable.

Reactions from newspapers to comedy

Some commentators4 thought the reaction by the students was extreme. Newspapers around the U.S., from Los Angeles to New York City wrote about it. The incident even became part of a late-night talk show.

Ronny Chieng is a comedian5 who appears on the Comedy Central program "The Daily Show." He speaks Mandarin.

In September, he spoke6 with the host of the program, Trevor Noah. Part of the show was called "Did That USC Professor Actually Say the N-Word?"

In the segment, the two comedians7 seemed to consider the objection by the students hard to understand and acted like they were upset with each other. Noah, who is Black, and was born in South Africa, even proposed that the Mandarin language, which has been spoken for thousands of years, should not have the word.

Harder to communicate by video call

After an investigation8, the university found that Patton had not meant to offend anyone and did not break any rules.

Patton told Bartlett, the writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, that he did not think the story would have turned out the same way if students had been taking the class in person.

Patton said he would have heard immediately from concerned students during the class instead of after he had completed the video class for the day.

Bartlett said: "He would have been able to see the reaction of certain students, and notice that they were uncomfortable, and perhaps followed up with them, they would have had an opportunity after the class perhaps to come up and talk to him..."

Bartlett added that, when communicating by video "it's harder in a Zoom9 environment to read the room, to, you know, be able to sort of sense what people are, how people are reacting."

While some may see the student group's reaction as extreme, both Bartlett and Guerreiro said there was value in USC's efforts.

Guerreiro said the school has learned about being more careful with language. "There are some grievances10 of the community with the university," he said, adding that USC has made efforts to answer student demands. "They are still changing things. They're still doing work. They created certain offices..." he noted11.

Bartlett said the story from USC fits into a higher education discussion about whether professors and students should have the freedom to discuss difficult issues in their classes.

"There's a tension often between wanting to listen and take seriously the concerns of students. And then at the same time, say, you know, there may be things that are mentioned in the classroom that may challenge what you believe, may seem to be offensive, may bring up ideas that are, that might make you uncomfortable."

He added that, he thought, at the center of this case involving USC's Patton "was just a misunderstanding, really, that then got elevated to something else."

Bartlett said there are cases where universities need to consider what they teach. But this does not seem to be one of them.

"In other cases, there are, you know, some real substantive12 disagreements about what's appropriate, and what is going to potentially upset certain students and sort of cross the line and what is, you know, just a normal part of the education process. And I think that's an ongoing13 discussion."


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1 Mandarin TorzdX     
n.中国官话,国语,满清官吏;adj.华丽辞藻的
参考例句:
  • Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
  • Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。
2 racist GSRxZ     
n.种族主义者,种族主义分子
参考例句:
  • a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
  • His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。
3 journalism kpZzu8     
n.新闻工作,报业
参考例句:
  • He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师,可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
  • He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。
4 commentators 14bfe5fe312768eb5df7698676f7837c     
n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 );时事评论员;注释者;实况广播员
参考例句:
  • Sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 体育解说员翻来覆去说着同样的词语,真叫人腻烦。
  • Television sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 电视体育解说员说来说去就是那么几句话,令人厌烦。 来自《简明英汉词典》
5 comedian jWfyW     
n.喜剧演员;滑稽演员
参考例句:
  • The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
  • The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。
6 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
7 comedians efcac24154f4452751c4385767145187     
n.喜剧演员,丑角( comedian的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • The voice was rich, lordly, Harvardish, like all the boring radio comedians'imitations. 声音浑厚、威严,俨然是哈佛出身的气派,就跟无线电里所有的滑稽演员叫人已经听腻的模仿完全一样。 来自辞典例句
  • He distracted them by joking and imitating movie and radio comedians. 他用开玩笑的方法或者模仿电影及广播中的滑稽演员来对付他们。 来自辞典例句
8 investigation MRKzq     
n.调查,调查研究
参考例句:
  • In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
  • He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。
9 zoom VenzWT     
n.急速上升;v.突然扩大,急速上升
参考例句:
  • The airplane's zoom carried it above the clouds.飞机的陡直上升使它飞到云层之上。
  • I live near an airport and the zoom of passing planes can be heard night and day.我住在一个飞机场附近,昼夜都能听到飞机飞过的嗡嗡声。
10 grievances 3c61e53d74bee3976a6674a59acef792     
n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 );苦衷;不满;牢骚
参考例句:
  • The trade union leader spoke about the grievances of the workers. 工会领袖述说工人们的苦情。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • He gave air to his grievances. 他申诉了他的冤情。 来自《简明英汉词典》
11 noted 5n4zXc     
adj.著名的,知名的
参考例句:
  • The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
  • Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。
12 substantive qszws     
adj.表示实在的;本质的、实质性的;独立的;n.实词,实名词;独立存在的实体
参考例句:
  • They plan to meet again in Rome very soon to begin substantive negotiations.他们计划不久在罗马再次会晤以开始实质性的谈判。
  • A president needs substantive advice,but he also requires emotional succor. 一个总统需要实质性的建议,但也需要感情上的支持。
13 ongoing 6RvzT     
adj.进行中的,前进的
参考例句:
  • The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
  • The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

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