{"id":4515,"date":"2021-02-19T10:38:01","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T10:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/?p=4515"},"modified":"2021-02-22T15:56:15","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T15:56:15","slug":"mother-language-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/2021\/02\/mother-language-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Science communication: You sabi say nobi evri bodi sabi speak did oyibo, Yen nyinaa enka brofo!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recognition of International Mother Language Day, Nigel Paul reflects on the experience of the RECIRCULATE team in addressing the challenge of science communication to stakeholders in their own language.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over recent months RECIRCULATE and its sister-projects have highlighted several \u201cInternational days\u201d relevant to our projects, and there are more to come. 8th March is International Women\u2019s Day, 22nd March is World Water Day, 21st April is World Creativity and Innovation Day and 5th June is World Environment Day. All of these obviously fit with the scope and ambitions of the projects, but I must admit that at first sight I wondered about International Mother Language Day<\/a>, which is this Sunday, 21st February. I could not have been more wrong! Now that I have thought about it, and listened to colleagues from across the project, I realise that this day, and the topic it highlights, is at the heart of delivering our aim of researchers working \u201cwith, in and for their communities\u201d.<\/p>\n

That may well be far more obvious to you than it was to me. That in itself raises an important question- why had I missed such an important point? I suspect that\u2019s down to me being in the lucky position of English- my own mother language- being the globally accepted \u2018language of science\u2019. That certainly makes life easy! Beyond that, if you\u2019ll excuse the self-reflection, I\u2019m horrified with myself for missing this when I\u2019d always thought I was quite aware of the challenges of \u201cscience communication\u201d. What that meant was that I realise that researchers easily forget that few people speak \u2018our language\u2019. Anyone reading a scientific paper realises that we love the technical terms, abbreviations, acronyms and even a particular writing style that applies to our subject. We\u2019ve spent a lot of time learning all that, and we need show our colleagues we can \u2018speak their language\u2019. OK, that may be our colleagues, but for everyone else what we say, or write, risks becoming an alphabet soup of meaningless jargon. That\u2019s hardly news. It\u2019s a point that has been picked up in several other blogs in The FLOW, in the PARTICIPATE webinar on communication<\/a>, and in discussions in the project WhatsApp group. We know the problem, and many are trying to find solutions but have some of us thought about it too narrowly in terms of explaining our research in non-technical English rather than in other languages?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the step that I had missed, but which became obvious once I\u2019d listened to colleagues at our front-line of working \u201cwith, in and for their communities\u201d. Their hands-on experience offer tremendous insights. Sometimes, the key step is \u2018translating\u2019 a scientific concept in to non-technical language, whatever the mother language that\u2019s expressed in. Chris Emokaro from UniBEN<\/a> explains anaerobic digestion in Nigerian pidgin as “Na di yama-yama we comot for cow bele and food wen we nor chop finish, we go take make gas to cook we food<\/strong>\u201d. Chris has both translated the concept- anaerobic digestion becomes \u201cFood waste and cattle rumen content would be digested for use as cooking gas\u201d- and then expressed the concept in pidgin. Kwadwo Ansong Asante from CSIR<\/a>\u2019s Water Research Institute<\/a> takes a similar two-step approach when explaining \u201cWater for Sanitation and Health\u201d to Ga-speaking communities in Accra as \u201cOtinik\u00e2 w\u0254 hi\u025b y\u025b nikasem\u0254 n\u025b\u025bhe ji w\u0254 baaha ma\u014bbii nu nihetse k\u025b falefale feem\u0254<\/strong>\u201d or, in English, \u201cWe are undertaking the project to ensure good drinking water and environmental cleanliness\u201d.<\/p>\n

Patricia Oteng-Darko from CSIR\u2019s Crops Research Institute<\/a> in Kumasi also described a similar \u201cdouble translation\u201d when explaining partial root-zone drying, which becomes “eye irrigation bi a yede nsuo no egu edua no nhini fa baako pe<\/strong>” in Asante Twi. The literal English translation is ‘it is a type of irrigation technology whereby water is applied to only one side of the plants rootzone’. Patricia goes on to note that \u201c\u2026. sometimes we struggle to get the exact word to word translation and may end up using the best words that can carry the ideas and concepts along. There have also been instances where the farmers themselves pitch in the mother language to support our explanations of certain terminologies or concepts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patricia\u2019s colleague Stephen Yeboah also makes clear that translation isn\u2019t simply about the words \u201cIn one of our community engagements, we wanted to explain water table height\u2026.. 30cm was explained as “basafa<\/strong>” a local language meaning “half of your hand\u201d. Like Patricia, Stephen also emphasises that this is a genuine dialogue. \u201c We wanted to get the local name for bees, after identifying the importance of bees in crop production the farmers referred to it as ‘Crop Kunu<\/strong>‘. Kunu in our local dialect means ‘husband\u2019”. As Stephen notes, this link between bees and husbands emerges from the role of men in the home in local communities. That highlights that the challenge here is sometimes translation across cultures, not just across languages, what Stephen refers to the \u201cAfricanization of science\u201d.<\/p>\n

These are clearly profound issues for a project aspiring not just to \u2018do\u2019 research but also communicate it \u201cwith, in and for their communities\u201d. It\u2019s equally clear that there is deep expertise across the project that we can all learn from, within the project and beyond. The recent discussion is the Whatsapp group showed further insights- and real passion- on the topic. It would be great to hear more about your first-hand experience- more blogs very welcome! I can borrow one of Asante\u2019s translations in to Twi: \u201cYe da mo nyinaa ase ene mo nteasee<\/strong>\u201d- thank you all for your co-operation.<\/p>\n

The need to share this experience is clear from the challenge that the Mother Language Day website gives us. It states, \u201cThis year\u2019s observance is a call on policymakers, educators and teachers, parents and families to scale up their commitment to multilingual education, and inclusion\u2026.\u201d Maybe we need to add \u2018researchers\u2019 to that list? That would certainly fit with the overall arching description of the day. \u201cInternational Mother Language Day recognizes that languages and multilingualism can advance inclusion and the Sustainable Development Goals\u2019 focus on leaving no one behind.\u201d Isn\u2019t inclusion just what we mean by research \u201c\u2026. with, in and for their communities\u201d?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RECIRCULATE network members holding up signs with the phrase “Go with the flow” translated into their mother languages.<\/p>\n

Here is a summary of all quotes and their translation in English:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
“You sabi say nobi evri bodi sabi speak did oyibo!”<\/td>\n“Remember, we don’t all speak English!”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
“Yen nyinaa enka brofo!\u201d<\/td>\n“Remember, we don’t all speak English!\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
“Na di yama-yama we comot for cow bele and food wen we nor chop finish, we go take make gas to cook we food”<\/td>\n“Food waste and cattle rumen content would be digested for use as cooking gas”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
“Otinik\u00e2 w\u0254 hi\u025b y\u025b nikasem\u0254 n\u025b\u025bhe ji w\u0254 baaha ma\u014bbii nu nihetse k\u025b falefale feem\u0254\u201d<\/td>\n“We are undertaking the project to ensure good drinking water and environmental cleanliness\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
“Eye irrigation bi a yede nsuo no egu edua no nhini fa baako pe”<\/td>\n“It is a type of irrigation technology whereby water is applied to only one side of the plants rootzone”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
“Ye da mo nyinaa ase ene mo nteasee\u201d<\/td>\n“Thank you all for your co-operation”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
“Moni dey yama-yama, plenti”<\/td>\n\u00a0“There is so much wealth in waste”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
“W\u0254 mli da ny\u025b fee shi”<\/td>\n“We thank you all for your co-operation and understanding”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
“Crop Kunu”<\/td>\n“Bees”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
“Basafa”<\/td>\n“Half of your hand”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nProfessor Nigel Paul<\/strong> is a plant scientist at Lancaster University, UK. He was RECIRCULATE\u2019s first director and moved to become the editor of The Flow<\/strong> as part of winding-down towards retirement. Nigel has a BSc from Reading University, UK and a PhD from University of Lancaster, UK. He has worked in university research, teaching and management for almost 40 years. <\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

All articles in The FLOW<\/strong> are published under a Creative Commons \u2014 Attribution\/No derivatives license,<\/a> for details please read the RECIRCULATE re-publishing guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recognition of International Mother Language Day, Nigel Paul reflects on the experience of the RECIRCULATE team in addressing the challenge of science communication to stakeholders in their own language. Over recent months RECIRCULATE and its sister-projects have highlighted several \u201cInternational days\u201d relevant to our projects, and there are more to come. 8th March is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1370,"featured_media":4535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[44,42,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-flow","category-wp3","category-wp4"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/files\/2021\/02\/Web-header-2.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9hFf1-1aP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4515"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4573,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4515\/revisions\/4573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/recirculate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}