Chris Chang-Bacon

I got my first lesson in vocal inflection from my college theatre director: “Chris, your voice is going up at the end of each sentence. It makes you sound younger than the character you’re playing. Make your voice go down to sound older.”

I had never noticed that about my voice, but I soon realized I was indeed a devotee of what has now become known as upspeak, as exemplified by Taylor Mali, as he calls out this quality among his high school students:

“In case you hadn’t realized,” Mali declares, “it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you’re talking about… Invisible question marks and parenthetical ya know’s?… have been attaching themselves to the end of our sentences, even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions.”

Having worked to shed this quality in my own voice, I had largely forgotten about the issue. But NPR’s Fresh Air brought me back to the topic this week – with the added realization that the only people who still seem to get called out on this feature are, like, ya know, women. Continue reading “‘Annoying’ Upspeak, or Policing Women’s Voices?” →

Language

Law Voided by Missing Comma

July 14, 2015 Chris Chang-Bacon

Yes indeed folks – perfect punctuation is profitable.

Not only can it explain a murderous panda at a restaurant, as the old “Eats shoots and leaves” joke goes, but a similar lapse in comma decorum might even get you out of a parking ticket.

According to the Associated Press, an Ohio woman brought her parking ticket to an appeals court in West Jefferson Village, complaining that she was ticketed for parking her vehicle longer than 24 hours. She pointed that, as written, the law lists the types of vehicles subject to this rule as “any motor vehicle camper, trailer, farm implement and/or non-motorized vehicle.”

Since the woman’s car is a motor vehicle and not, as the law states (sans-comma), a motor vehicle camper, the appeals court had no choice but to throw out the woman’s ticket.

The law, I’m sure, will be swiftly revised. But in the meantime, watch out for those comma ommissions, and happy free parking to all West Jefferson-ians!

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English

Math or Maths? The Definitive Answer

July 2, 2015 Chris Chang-Bacon

I say tomato; you say to-mah-to is all well and good, but when I say math and you say maths, it’s going to come to blows.

So why is it that Americans tend to call it math while those from the U.K. insist it’s maths?

The main argument, according to Dr. Lynne Murphy, an American linguist living in the UK, is that both words are abbreviations for mathematics, which is plural… or is it?

In an interview with Numberphile, Murphy stated that the problem with that argument is that mathematics isn’t plural.

“We don’t say, ‘there are two mathematics that I need to look at.’ And when you make maths or mathematics agree with a verb you make it agree with a singular verb and not a plural one. You don’t say ‘mathematics are interesting’ you say ‘maths is interesting’… so there’s plenty of linguistic evidence that it’s singular.” Continue reading “Math or Maths? The Definitive Answer” →

Academic Advice

Year One, Done

June 25, 2015 Chris Chang-Bacon

Well there you have it. The final papers are in. The last classes are closed. And this theoretical phenomenon called a summer break has arrived (more on that later).

Four (or five? or six?) more years of this doctoral thing? Why not? But in the meantime, here are the top lessons I’ve learned in the first year of my doctoral program:

1. Admit What You Don’t Know

It’s ok not to know everything. This is true for life in general, but I was glad to find that it still holds true in a field where knowing things is the main form of capital.

So when a colleague throws out a name or obscure theory, you could still nod along like you know what they’re talking about, then dash to wikipedia later. But there’s no need. Almost everyone, academic or otherwise, loves sharing their knowledge. Just say “Oh, I haven’t read much XYZ, tell me more” and they’ll gladly give you a briefing, then totally forget about it. Continue reading “Year One, Done” →

Language, Politics

When is a Terrorist Not Called a Terrorist?

June 19, 2015June 19, 2015 Chris Chang-Bacon

“I just think he was one of these whacked out kids. I don’t think it’s anything broader than that… It’s about a young man who is obviously twisted.”

“This man, in my view, should be designated as a potential enemy combatant and we should be allowed to question him for intelligence gathering purposes to find out about future attacks and terrorist organizations that… he has knowledge of. ”

As Judd Legum of Think Progress pointed out, both quotes come from the same U.S. senator in reaction to the perpetrators of two separate national tragedies.

Both perpetrators were American citizens. Both were barely beyond their teenage years. One, however, is immediately labeled a terrorist. The other, “just one of these whacked out kids.”

One of the quotes refers to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of the Boston Marathon Bombing, and the other to Dylann Roof, the A.M.E. Church gunman in Charleston. But off course, no one needs to tell you which quote is which. Continue reading “When is a Terrorist Not Called a Terrorist?” →

Diversity, Language

Map of World’s Largest Languages

June 11, 2015June 11, 2015 Chris Chang-Bacon

Ever wonder who would win a heavy weight championship between world languages?

Well here you have it. Alberto Lucas López designed a language map proportioned by number of native speakers. Turns out, of the world’s 7,102 known languages, more than half of us speak only 23 of them.

But there’s even more to the map than meets the eye. Each color also represents a region of the world.

World Language Regions

Interestingly, had López colored the map by languages’ region of origin, we’d be left with a much less colorful map: Every language listed comes from Europe, Asia, or the Middle East. On a map of language origin, the entire continents of North America, South America, Africa, and Australia wouldn’t even appear. Continue reading “Map of World’s Largest Languages” →

English, Literature

Don’t Know Much About Poetry

June 4, 2015June 4, 2015 Chris Chang-Bacon

Of all my shameful English teacher confessions—skipping over Shakespeare, celebrating “non-standard” grammar, and letting students curse in narrative essays (but only twice; make em’ count)—I’m most embarrassed by the fact that, honestly, I’m not that into poetry.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s the hardest genre to write (in academia, economy of words is not our strong suit). But for some reason, to me, a lot of poems sound like they’re working too hard to sound like their genre. It’s odd, but sometimes poems just sound too much like poems.

Which is why I admire Tony Hoagland. I’m not literary enough to put my finger on it, but his poems don’t sound like they’re trying to be poems—they just are.

Recently, in a conversation about the many useful words that simply don’t exist in English, I remembered this particular gem of Hoagland’s.

There Is No Word
BY TONY HOAGLAND

There isn’t a word for walking out of the grocery store
with a gallon jug of milk in a plastic sack
that should have been bagged in double layers

—so that before you are even out the door
you feel the weight of the jug dragging
the bag down, stretching the thin

plastic handles longer and longer
and you know it’s only a matter of time until
bottom suddenly splits. Continue reading “Don’t Know Much About Poetry” →

Technology

Why Technology is No Quick “Fix” for Education

May 26, 2015May 28, 2015 Chris Chang-Bacon

Many speak of technology’s potential to “fix” education. But if it can, the question is–why hasn’t it yet?

The tools for a digital revolution are there, and have been for quite some time. Twenty years ago, the possibility of a TV set in every classroom was supposed to utterly transform education, unite the world, and even replace teachers. (As children of the 90’s will attest, nothing made you happier than walking into the classroom and seeing that beautiful TV cart—Bill Nye and no homework!). And this was all before near-ubiquitous internet, Skype, and online courses put the world at our fingertips.

So why has there been so little, actual change? Last week, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Kentaro Toyama discussed what calls technology’s Law of Amplification: In his experience, technology’s impact has a built-in limit: how well a system functions already. According to Toyama, “While technology helps education where it’s already doing well, technology does little for mediocre educational systems; and in dysfunctional schools, it can cause outright harm.”

Take the example of open online courses, available free of charge to Continue reading “Why Technology is No Quick “Fix” for Education” →

Academic Advice, Policy

Why Don’t Policymakers Read Research? Actually, They Do: An Interview

May 19, 2015May 21, 2015 Chris Chang-Bacon

“Why don’t policymakers read educational research?”

This is a question I hear a lot in academic circles. In fact, bemoaning this fact on Twitter led me to a fabulous conversation with Shree Chauhan—who told me that, in her experience working with policymakers, they do read educational research and want to read more, and that we in academia could make that much easier to do.

Chauhan (see full bio below) is an education entrepreneur who also manages education and health policy for a national civil rights organization. She has worked in the federal education policy arena for nearly a decade and was kind enough to answer some questions for me based on her experiences. Our conversation, summarized below, highlighted the need to bridge gaps between the worlds of academia, policy, and advocacy organizations.

1. How do we get policymakers to read academic research?

Chauhan points out that, as well all know, policymakers are busy, busy, busy, so the more concisely we can sum up our work, the better.

“In a congressional office, any staff member is dealing with 7 or 8 issues, with education being one of 10 big things that are weedy and difficult. Research is usually written using jargon-filled language that many people don’t understand. If you bring in a 40 to 50 page paper, most may not be able to consume it. So go deep with your research and know exactly what you’re doing, but be able to break it down in a page… even find a good graphic designer to actually make it visually appealing and easy to understand.”

2. What kind of research do policymakers find most convincing and useful?

I’d assumed folks on Capitol Hill would prefer something with lots of of numbers, graphs, and data. While Chauhan affirms that numbers are important, she urges us not to forget the human side of politics as well: Continue reading “Why Don’t Policymakers Read Research? Actually, They Do: An Interview” →

Academic Advice, Writing

Give it All in Writing: Love and Courage

May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 Chris Chang-Bacon

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

Ironically, I found this beautiful quote from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life in my “Things to Blog About Later” folder, which I’ve considered relabeling, “Where Good Ideas Go to Die”; Honestly, I almost never open it. And on the rare occasion I do, I’ve forgotten what had moved me about the idea in the first place or where I wanted to go with the topic. Like Dillard said, I open my safe and find ashes.

It reminds me of an old Sunday School skit where the main character finds a box of “love” and she proudly parades it around stage. Other characters, down on their luck, pass by and ask if she will share, but worried about depleting her limited supply, she apologetically declines. Continue reading “Give it All in Writing: Love and Courage” →