Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione,
Scienze Politiche e Sociali
CdL Interclasse in Scienze della
Formazione e Saperi Filosofici
a.a. 2015/2016
Prof. Giovanna Gallo
English Workshop
“The Ecology of Languages”
1
The Ecology of Languages
____________________________________________________________________
1. Pre-readingactivities
Haveyoueverthoughtabouthowlanguageshaveevolved?
Whatdoyouknowaboutevolution?Whatisevolution?
Drawamindmapwithotherwordsrelatedtoevolution.
Howmuchdoyoudependonthenaturalenvironment?
How do you as an individual and other members of your community show respect for the
naturalenvironment?
Whatdoes“culture”meantoyou?
Are you sometimes ashamed or reluctant in speaking your dialect? Where do you think
thesefeelingsstemfrom?
Arethereanyritualsorfeastsinyourculturethatarerelatedtonature?
Howarethesefestivalsrelatedtoyourlocalcultureanddialect?
Howaretheycelebrated?
Whydopeopleinyourculturecelebratethesefestivals?
Canyouthinkofotherculturesthatcelebratefestivalsrelatedtonature?
___________________________________________________________________________
2.Workingwiththetitle
Lookatthetitle.Guesswhatthefollowingtextsareabout.
Readthetitle,doyouthinkthearticleisofascientificnature?
Howmanyotherwordscanyouthinkofthatstartwithorhavetheprefix“bio”?Whatare
thesewordsusuallyrelatedto?
Wheredomostscientifictermsderivefrom?
AlmostallscientificdocumentsareinEnglish,whatdoesthisimplyforthosewhowantto
undertakescientificstudies?And,whatsignificancedoesthishaveonotherlanguagesand
cultures?
2
_____________________________________________________________________
Reading
1. Biocultural Diversity
What do you think of if you hear about the “web of life”? More
likely than not, you think of the natural world: the millions of
species of plants and animals that have evolved on Earth,
interconnected with one another and with the ecosystems in
which they live.
But now think again. For millennia, people have been part of
nature and have coevolved with it. Over time, we have adapted
to the natural environment, while drawing material and spiritual
sustenance from it. By interacting closely with one another and
with nature, we have developed thousands of different cultures
and languages—distinctive ways of seeing, knowing, doing, and
speaking. For millennia, local cultures and languages have been
intimately, some say inextricably, linked with the landscapes in
which people have lived generation after generation.
This is the “true” web of life: the interlinked diversity of nature
and culture. We call it “biocultural diversity”—the multi-faceted
expression of the beauty and potential of life. Diversity in both
nature and culture confers vitality and resilience to this planet,
our home, for present and future generations.
Biocultural diversity is a precious gift to cherish and protect—
yet, we are squandering this irreplaceable gift. Global economic,
political, and social forces are rapidly eroding the health of the
world’s ecosystems and cultures, and silencing the voices of the
world’s languages. It is a “converging extinction crisis” of
diversity in all its forms. The very fabric of life in nature and
culture is coming unraveled, leaving our biocultural world
increasingly fragile and the outlook for humans and all other
species increasingly uncertain. We are foolishly cutting the grass
under our own feet.
Indigenous peoples and local communities are affected most
directly by the loss of biocultural diversity, but nobody is
immune. The effort to restore and sustain the diversity of life in
nature and culture is a cause that we all share, no matter who we
are and where and how we live. Life is not expendable.
___________________________________________________________________________
3
2. What are the links between
biological and cultural diversity?
Since the dawn of human history, everywhere on Earth people
have interacted closely with the natural environment as the
source of all sustenance: the source of air, water, food,
medicine, clothing, shelter, and all other material needs, as well
as of physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being.
Through this vital dependence on the environment, over time
human societies have developed detailed local knowledge of
plants, animals, and ecological processes. They have also
developed cultural values and practices that stress respect for
and reciprocity with nature—taking care of the natural
environment that sustains us.
This diversity of local knowledge, values, and practices is
expressed and transmitted in the thousands of different
languages spoken on our planet—7000 different languages, to
be more exact, the vast majority of them spoken by small
indigenous and local communities.
___________________________________________________
Over half the world population speaks only one or another of a handful of languages.
The rest of the population is divided between the estimated remaining 6975
languages. Credit: David Harmon and Jonathan Loh/Terralingua.
___________________________________________________
This is how language, knowledge, and the environment are
intimately, in fact inextricably, interrelated: in each place, the
local environment sustains people; in turn, people sustain the
local environment through the traditional wisdom and practices
embedded in their cultures and their languages.
___________________________________________________
4
Language, Knowledge and Culture are intimately interlinked. Credit:
Terralingua.
___________________________________________________
This interrelationship is still especially apparent in indigenous
and local societies that maintain close material and spiritual ties
with their environments. Traditional ecological knowledge and
practices, accumulated over generations, often make indigenous
peoples and local communities highly skilled and respectful
stewards of the ecosystems in which they live. Indigenous and
local languages store and transmit this knowledge and the
related social behaviors, practices, and innovations.
Languages have evolved built over time through people's
adaptation to the environment.
The local interdependence of language, knowledge, and the
environment translates into strong correlations at the global
level, between the total diversity of human cultures and
languages (that is, cultural and linguistic diversity) and the total
diversity of nature (that is, biodiversity). Maps produced by
Terralingua and others show that there is a strong overlap in the
geographic distribution of biodiversity and linguistic diversity
worldwide.
Areas of high biodiversity also abound in linguistic diversity.
Wherever one finds richness in biodiversity, it is possible to
predict that one will also find a great variety of distinct
languages (and, by implication, a great variety of distinct
cultures).
___________________________________________________
5
Plant Diversity vs. Language Diversity. Rick Stepp/Terralingua.
___________________________________________________
This is what we mean by “the true web of life”: you can’t think
of people as separate from nature, and you can’t think of the
global biosphere as separate from the global network of
languages and cultures that interact so deeply with the
environment.
It’s our fundamental unity in biocultural diversity.
___________________________________________________________________________
3. While-reading activities
Listen to the reading of the text and try to catch the general meaning.
___________________________________________________________________________
Now skim through the text and choose three statements that in your opinion convey
the gist of the texts.
1. _____________________________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________________________
Then read each paragraph more carefully. Focus on the key words that you think are essential to the
comprehension of the paragraph and circle them. Write them in the box provided on the side of the
page.
Remember, it’s not necessary to understand every single word. Try to guess the meaning of those
words that hinder your comprehension from the context first, then look them up in the monolingual
learner’s dictionary.
For each paragraph, use the keywords to write a sentence that best describes what the paragraph is about.
___________________________________________________________________________
6
4. Comprehension Questions
1. What is the “web of life”?
_____________________________________________________________________
2. How is cultural diversity linked to the natural environment?
____________________________________________________________________
3. What forces are destroying the diversity of culture and languages?
___________________________________________________________________
4. Explain this quote: “ We are foolishly cutting the grass under our own feet.”
___________________________________________________________________
5. In which ways do we depend on nature for survival?
___________________________________________________________________
6. What does the pie-chart illustrate?
___________________________________________________________________
7. How are language, knowledge, and the environment interrelated?
___________________________________________________________________
8. Describe the relationship between indigenous peoples and local communities with their environments.
___________________________________________________________________
9. How have languages evolved?
7
___________________________________________________________________
10. How is biodiversity related to linguistic diversity?
___________________________________________________________________
5. Word Building Activity
Write the missing letters to form a word that is a synonym, an antonym or answers the definition of the word or
phrase in italics. If you don’t know the answer, look the word up in a monolingual dictionary.
1. A synonym for has come apart?
u_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
2. A hyphened word that means more than one side?
m_ _ _ _-_ _ _ _ _ _ _
3. A competent person is a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ person.
s_ _ _ _ _ _
4. Something that connects things and people.
w_ _
5. A synonym for delicate or breakable
f_ _ _ _ _ _
6. To get used to something
a_ _ _ _
7. Something that can be sacrificed
e_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
8. A synonym for taking from
d_ _ _ _ _ _
9. A synonym for set inside
e_ _ _ _ _ _ _
10. To waste
s_ _ _ _ _ _ _
___________________________________________________________________________
6. Summary
Use some of the linking words suggested in the appendix to summarize the article by connecting the most
relevant sentences in exercise 3.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
8
___________________________________________________________________________
1. Pre-reading activities
What do you know about the earth’s ecosystems and endangered species?
What is the role of humankind in the preservation of the species?
How does our lifestyle contribute to the depletion of the earth’s resources?
Do you think biodiversity and linguistic diversity are closely linked? If so, how?
Are there many people in your community that still speak the local dialect? What role does your local dialect
have in your life? Should it be part of the school programme?
Can you think of some expressions that are conveyed better when using your local dialect?
What languages are spoken the most in the world? Or studied the most? And why?
2. Working with the Title
What verb tense is used in the title and why? (it implies a change is occurring)
Can you guess at what’s happening?
___________________________________________________________________________
Reading
3. What’s happening with biocultural
diversity?
No doubt you’ve heard that there’s a big problem with the loss of
biodiversity—a loss in the amazing variety of Earth’s plant and
animal species and in the health of the ecosystems that sustain them.
Biologists believe that we’re in the midst of the 6th mass extinction
of life on Earth—the previous one being the episode that led to the
extinction of dinosaurs, about 65 million years ago. Researchers also
point out that this current extinction crisis is the first one to be
entirely of our own making: it’s the mounting pressures caused by
human activities that are leading to the collapse of ecosystems and
the disappearance of thousands and thousands of living species,
every single day.
But do you know that there is another mass extinction going on at
the same time? Just as with species, the world is now undergoing a
massive extinction crisis of human languages and cultures. For the
past several decades, anthropologists and linguists have been
warning us about the tragedy of vanishing cultures and endangered
9
languages, swept away by the rise of a global monoculture and
dominant languages like English, Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese.
Up until very recently, though, we didn’t have any systematic
information about the extent of this crisis. Researchers were relying
on educated guesses, based on scattered reports in the literature
telling us about this or that language on the brink as the last speakers
pass away, or this or that indigenous culture under threat of
assimilation.
Now for the first time the work of Terralingua has provided
quantitative evidence of what’s really happening. Our Index of
Linguistic Diversity (ILD) shows that since 1970 there has been a
20% decline in global linguistic diversity, as measured in terms of
changes in the numbers of native speakers of each of the world’s
languages. That is to say that more and more people are switching
from the small languages to the more dominant ones, and that more
and more of the small languages are not being transmitted to the
younger generations.
____________________________________________________________
Terralingua research shows that the trend in Global Linguistic Diversity has decreased by
20% in the past 35 years. Credit: David Harmon and Jonathan Loh/Terralingua.
____________________________________________________________
What’s more, the trend in the loss of global linguistic diversity
revealed by the ILD closely mirrors the trend in the loss of global
biodiversity for the same period of time, as measured by WWF’s
Living Planet Index. This is another indication that what happens
with diversity in nature goes hand in hand with what happens in
diversity in culture.
____________________________________________________________
10
The decrease in Species Diversity an alarmingly similar rate to that of Language diversity.
Source: Living Planet Index/WWF, Jonathan Loh.
____________________________________________________________
And along with the erosion of linguistic diversity comes the erosion
of the traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) encoded in the
languages. For this reason, we also created our Vitality Index of
Traditional Environmental Knowledge (VITEK), which tracks
changes in the transmission of TEK over time. The VITEK also
helps identify the factors that account for the loss of TEK, such as
the presence of language shift, formal education, habitat degradation,
displacement, and so forth.
Loss of biodiversity. Loss of ecosystem health. Climate change. We
are rapidly losing our critical life-support systems. And now we are
also losing the precious pool of human knowledge and languages
that can tell us so much about how to live sustainably on this
planet—the only home we have. As traditional cultures and
languages decline and natural environments become degraded, our
collective “survival kit” is becoming depleted.
It’s a “converging extinction crisis” of the diversity of life in all its
forms.
___________________________________________________________________________
3. While-reading activities
Listen to the reading of the text and try to catch the gist or general meaning.
Then read each paragraph more carefully and focus on key words that allow you to understand the paragraph
better.
For each paragraph, circle the words you think are essential for understanding the text and try to guess their
meaning from context. Write the key words in the box provided on the side of the page. Remember, it’s not
necessary to understand every word. Use the monolingual learner’s dictionary for help with more difficult words.
For each paragraph, use the keywords to write a sentence that best describes what the paragraph is about.
___________________________________________________________________________
11
4. Comprehension Questions
1. What great “loss” is the ecosystem undergoing?
_____________________________________________________________________
2. How is mankind contributing to the “extinction crisis”?
_____________________________________________________________________
3. What other mass extinction is contemporarily occurring?
_____________________________________________________________________
4. How has the work of Terralingua contributed to a better understanding of the extent of this crisis? What do
their findings indicate?
_____________________________________________________________________
5. What, not so surprising, convergence do their charts show?
_____________________________________________________________________
6. What do TEK and VITEK stand for?
_____________________________________________________________________
7. What alarming conclusions are set forth by Terralingua?
_____________________________________________________________________
5. Word Building Activity
Write the missing letters to form a word that is a synonym, an antonym or answers the definition of the word or
phrase in italics. If you don’t know the answer, look the word up in a monolingual dictionary.
An antonym for gain(n.)
l_ _ _
A synonym for support
s_ _ _ _ _ _
A synonym for well-being
h_ _ _ _ _
Something that is at risk of extinction
e_________
A synonym for middle
m_ _ _
A synonym for spread
s_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
12
An antonym for weak
d_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Something that reflects your image
m_ _ _ _ _ _
A synonym for environment
h_ _ _ _ _ _
___________________________________________________________________________
6. Post-reading activities
Use some of the linking words suggested in the appendix to summarize the article by connecting the sentences
in exercise 3.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
13
___________________________________________________________________________
1. Pre-reading activities
What do we mean by environmentally sustainable development?
What’s happened to our local agricultural heritage?
How has it changed in the last few years?
What has replaced the agricultural economy?
What use has been made of the land originally destined to farming?
What is the outcome of these changes?
What do you know about organic food and how it is grown?
What basic principles are involved in producing organic food? (more “harmonious with nature”, no pesticides,
follows natural cycle and is based on principles such as an understanding of and respect for nature, a traditional
way of farming that has been replaced by more modern, faster and cheaper techniques)
2. Working with the Title: Why are we losing biocultural diversity?
What does the question in the title imply?
Can you guess at possible answers to the question?
___________________________________________________________________________
Reading
4. Why are
diversity?
we
losing
biocultural
As with biological species, human languages and cultures are not
static. They naturally change and evolve over time. All human
cultures are capable of adapting to new circumstances and
creating solutions to new problems. And all human languages are
capable of developing to accommodate new communication
needs.
The point is that, as with biological species, human languages
and cultures need time to change and evolve organically.
Normally, this process happens slowly, often almost
imperceptibly, from one generation to the next, as people find
new ways of responding to new challenges and opportunities, and
new ways of talking about what’s new.
But increasingly, things are not happening this way anymore. The
pace and scale of change have grown exponentially, and so has
14
the intensity of the pressures that global economic, political, and
social forces are placing on the “true web of life”. These forces,
and the changes they are imposing the world over, are far
outpacing the natural ability of natural and cultural systems to
adapt. By promoting a dominant way of life that is entirely
unsustainable, these forces are eroding the vitality and resilience
of the world’s diverse ecosystems, languages, and cultures.
Sweeping global change is dispossessing indigenous peoples and
local communities of their lands, resources, and lifestyles; forcing
them to subsist in highly degraded environments; crushing their
cultural traditions or hampering their ability to maintain them; and
forcing them into linguistic assimilation and abandonment of their
ancestral languages.
People who lose their linguistic and cultural identity lose an
essential element in a social process that commonly teaches
understanding of and respect for nature. The consequences are
profound for both the well-being of people and the health of the
natural environment. Forcing cultural and linguistic conversion on
indigenous peoples and local communities not only violates
human rights; it also undermines the goals of nature conservation.
“Monocultures of the mind” have the same end result as
monocultures in nature: they make our planet more fragile and
vulnerable to both natural disasters and human-made crises. But
the dominant ideology today ignores this reality, and seeks easyto-control uniformity instead of organic unity in diversity.
It’s the global “steamroller effect”.
_____________________________________________________________________
3. While-reading activities
Listen to the reading of the text and try to catch the gist or general meaning.
Then read each paragraph more carefully and focus on key words that allow you to understand the paragraph
better.
For each paragraph, circle the words you think are essential for understanding the text and try to guess their
meaning from context. Write these key words in the box provided on the side of the page. Remember, it’s not
necessary to understand every word. Use the monolingual learner’s dictionary for help with more difficult words.
For each paragraph, use the keywords to write a sentence that best describes what the paragraph is about.
4. Comprehension Questions
What natural process occurs to human cultures and languages over time?
_____________________________________________________________________
How do languages and cultures normally respond to these changes?
_____________________________________________________________________
15
How have the global economic, political, and social forces affected these changes?
_____________________________________________________________________
What difficulty are natural and cultural systems facing due to these changes?
_____________________________________________________________________
How is this unsustainable economy affecting the indigenous peoples and local communities all over the world?
_____________________________________________________________________
Explain the term “monocultures of the mind”.
_____________________________________________________________________
What is today’s dominant ideology and what is its aim?
_____________________________________________________________________
16
___________________________________________________________________________
1. Pre-reading activities
Can you recall any tale told by a grandparent or an older relative about the local
lifestyle in the past? What did they say it was like? (web of interdependence, ancestral
wisdom, “extinction of experience”)
How is the urban lifestyle today different from country lifestyle? (compare and list the
differences)
How often to you visit the countryside and how does it make you feel?
Has your local countryside changed over the years, if so, how?
2. Working with the Title: Why does it matter that we’re losing biocultural
diversity?
How would you answer this question? Discuss the question in pairs, jot down your
ideas then share them with the rest of the class.
How valuable is language to the survival of one’s culture?
We use language to organize our knowledge and experiences, what are the risks we
run if we conform to the use of the English language for everything?
How can we stop our Nation from becoming increasingly Anglo-dominated? Can we
use the language without necessarily adopting the cultural values underlying it?
___________________________________________________________________________
Reading
5. Why does it matter that we’re losing
biocultural diversity?
There are many vital reasons why we should care.
First, we are losing the unique ways of life, languages, and
identities of the world’s diverse peoples. It’s a matter of human
rights. For each one of these peoples, it’s their right to choose
their own path for development while maintaining continuity with
their own past. It’s their right to “walk toward the future in the
footsteps of their ancestors”.
For humanity at large, the loss of cultural and linguistic diversity
represents a drastic reduction of our collective human
17
heritage: a profound diminishment of our understanding of what
it means to be human—of the thousands of different ways in
which we can say, “I am human”. Our horizon as a species
becomes all the narrower for that.
Second, we are losing both the rich biodiversity that supports
humanity and all other species, and the wealth of traditional
knowledge that helps sustain biodiversity. It’s a matter of
survival. In a time of crisis, we not only desperately need healthy
ecosystems. We also desperately need all the voices of the planet
and the ancestral wisdom that they express about living
sustainably on Earth.
More than half of humanity now lives in urban environments,
largely cut off from direct contact with the natural environment
and from awareness of our continued, inescapable
interdependence with it. That’s why so many of us don’t seem to
care. We cannot care for what we are not intimately involved
with, what we don’t intimately know. Some talk of this as the
“extinction of experience” of the natural environment. Others
suggest that many city dwellers, and especially children, are
suffering from “nature deficit disorder”.
That’s why we need biocultural diversity. We need to be
reminded that we’ve become disconnected, and out of balance
with the natural environment. We need to be reminded that there
are other ways of being human that are more harmonious with
nature. We need to hear the lessons of the many voices of
humanity.
Losing biocultural diversity means a major weakening of the
whole fabric of life—the web of interdependence that is
absolutely vital to our common future. It means losing our options
for life on Earth. It’s like losing our life insurance when we need
it most.
It’s a self-destructive path. And we’re ALL affected, no matter
where and how we live. But it’s not too late!
_____________________________________________________________________
3. While-reading activities
Listen to the reading of the text and try to catch the gist or general meaning.
Then read each paragraph more carefully and focus on key words that allow you to
understand the paragraph better.
For each paragraph, circle the words you think are essential for understanding the text
and try to guess their meaning from context. Write the key words in the box provided
on the side of the page. Remember, it’s not necessary to understand every word. Use
the monolingual learner’s dictionary for help with more difficult words.
For each paragraph, use the keywords to write a sentence that best describes what the
paragraph is about.
18
4. Comprehension Questions
Why is the depletion of cultural and linguistic diversity a violation of human rights?
_____________________________________________________________________
How does living in an urban environment make you less aware of our
interdependence with nature?
_____________________________________________________________________
Why, then, do we need biocultural diversity?
_____________________________________________________________________
5.
Word building activity
Write the missing letters to form a synonym, an antonym or answers the definition of
the word or phrase in italics. If you don’t know the answer, look the word up in a
monolingual dictionary.
A synonym for ancestral traditions
h_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Knowledge acquired over the years
w_ _ _ _ _
The opposite of increase
d_ _ _ _ _ _ _
A synonym for change
s_ _ _ _
Taking way of something
d_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
To manage to survive
s_ _ _ _ _ _
Putting a stop, creating impediments
h_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
6. Post-reading activities
Use some of the linking words suggested in the appendix to summarize the article by
connecting the sentences in exercise 3.
19
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Final task
Choose an endangered language/culture in the world and write a report of
no more than 200 words illustrating the situation. The report will be
discussed at the exam.
20