Shayne
ubication
NOUN
rare
- The fact or condition of occupying a certain place or position; the place in which a person or thing is; location. (Oxford Dictionary)
The Rampton (2013) article on style and learning a second language late in life does a good job at disguising discussion of complicated linguistics such as phonological variants (spoiled carrots example on p.374), segmental phonology (p.372) and place of articulation (p.375). [MS1] The reader is introduced to Mandeep, a 28 year old Punjabi learning English in London. Additionally, the article’s discussion of Punjabi accent and the various accents of London do well at exposing the reader to the potential of style in English. While this article takes a heavy phonological approach to style, my understanding of style centers around a particular use of Spanish lexicon in English.
At an EFL class in Lasalle, Montreal, a student, who will be called Jose, immigrated to Montreal from Mexico in his early 30s. He was learning English and French at the same time and often confounded the two languages, but I found it odd that he purposefully added a Spanish word in an English sentence. Below is an example about how he used the word “ubicate” to denounce where he lived.
Now, me, being a neo-lithic English instructor, promptly corrected him and said “no, you live there.” His reply was: “ah yes, yes I always make that mistake”. But, is it really a mistake? My point is that adult learners’ language repertoires can be heavily entangled in their L1, especially at the age of 30. This entanglement contributes to their style. For my part, I thought the use of this word was strange, so I decided to make an intervention. It was only later on, in graduate school, that I discovered the value in non-conformist language. For my part, this is how I understand ‘styling’.
The ubicate example fits most of the academic description offered in Rampton (2013) which defines stylization as a “reflexive communicative action in which speakers produce specially marked and often exaggerated representations of linguistic varieties that lie outside their habitual repertoire’’ (p.361). Was it used verbally? Yes. Is it an exaggerated representation of linguistic variety? Yes, it is considered rare to use ubicate in English. Does it lie outside of the habitual repertoire? Surely.
If I could go back in time, I would tell Jose that his use of the word “ubicated” is an interesting stylistic choice of language and that it is fine to use it outside of the restraints of prescriptivist English. Not every word has a perfect translation. Languages develop in diverse ways and this certainly would not be the only example of Spanish words creeping their way into English vernaculars. So, Jose, please keep using ubicate and overall, be yourself!
Oxford Dictionary. (2019). Ubication. Retrieved from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ubication
Rampton, B. (2013). Styling in a language learned later in life. The Modern Language Journal, 97(2), 360– 382.
Totally agreed that at times correction comes down to what individual teachers think is ‘normal’ and if certain words fall within their own communicative repertoires. Do you ever bring up register or frequency when correcting? In that sense maybe the teacher’s role is to inform and then give students agency as to how they would like to phrase something.
James M.
As a teacher of a language that is not my mother tongue, this conversation makes me anxious! There are so many situations in which I cannot rely on grammar rules and I only have that “this-sounds-weird” feeling. But is it really wrong?? And my ability to distinguish the “normal” from the not so common(?) is certainly not as reliable as that of a native speaker. However, if I know that what the student wrote/said is a direct translation of their first language (which I can clearly see when they are Brazilians), I usually tell them that there is a more “natural” way of saying what they were trying to say.
(Shane, I went to comment on Yunjie’s post and I saw your comment telling her to go see your own post and now I’m here. Well played! xD )
Ana
“Ubication” & “ubicate” are wonderful words, and deserve to be spread around a bit more! Thanks for this Shayne. I hope that as I get older I am relaxing a bit about other people’s (especially learners’) non-standard uses of English…and I hope that the French-L1 interlocutors in my life are relaxing a bit about my own and other learners’ non-standard uses of French (the only L2 in which I am really fluent and comfortable). We all need to relax a bit…Ana shouldn’t have to feel anxious!