Timothy A. Bennett, chair of the foreign languages and literatures department at Wittenberg University, a Lutheran liberal arts college in Ohio, strives toward a new vision for the foreign language department.

Wittenberg’s language department has revised its own intermediate-level language classes — making them more interdisciplinary in nature — and has spread outward across the university in the form of a new “Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum” (CLAC) program. In making these recent changes — with the help of a two-year, $179,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education— Wittenberg’s foreign language faculty were responding both to a charge to “internationalize” the curriculum and to a growing sense that student interests were changing.

Wittenberg threw out the traditional model in which skills —composition and conversation —are the organizing principle. Instead the college teaches language through interdisciplinary study. After one year of college language — the French, German, Russian or Spanish 1 and 2 sequence —students can now elect to take a variety of half-semester, two-credit intermediate-level language courses in topics in history, the environment, film, national identity, and translation, for example.

See: USA Today

Nicky Hayden has shrugged off reports that wrongly claimed he was heavily critical of Casey Stoner’s departure from Ducati to Honda for 2011.

The story was translated as saying Hayden had declared it ‘shameful’ and picked up by several news sources around the world. What Hayden had actually said was it is a ‘shame’ that the 24-year-old Australian had been lured away to HRC next season.

Nicky Hayden thinks that the journalist might be looking to sell a few magazines or that it might have been an error in the translation.

See: Motorcycle News

The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chukwuemeka Wogu, has said a recent report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) that the Igbo language might become extinct in the next 50 years is worrisome and calls for prompt attention.

Mr. Wogu, who represented President Goodluck Jonathan, stated this in an address at the second International Conference on the Extinction of the Igbo language in Owerri, Imo State.

Mr. Wogu blamed parents for downplaying the language and called on stakeholders to look inwards for solutions.

He also called on other Nigerian groups to emulate the efforts of the Igbo to preserve their language.

See: 234Next.com

A Monterey-based interpretation and translation company has won a preliminary injunction against two men accused of taking confidential information to another company. The company filed the suit against two former employees for the company in Buffalo, N.Y.

The suit accuses one of the defendants of recruiting his co-worker away from the company in February of this year, and says that the latter brought trade secrets and customer lists with him. Both men live in Buffalo.

The injunction, signed by federal Judge James Ware in San Jose, prohibits the defendants from using or disseminating information at issue in the suit. The judge also appointed a special master to oversee the case.

See: The Monterey Herald

Attention is already turning to Japan’s bid to host the tournament in 2022, and the Japan Football Association recently announced that star player Keisuke Honda will join teammates Makoto Hasebe and Shunsuke Nakamura as an ‘ambassador’ for the bid.

Japan has just five months left to press its case, as FIFA’s decision on which countries will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups isAttention is already turning to Japan’s bid to host the tournament in 2022, and the Japan Football Association recently announced that star player Keisuke Honda will join teammates Makoto Hasebe and Shunsuke Nakamura as an ‘ambassador’ for the bid.

Japan has just five months left to press its case, as FIFA’s decision on which countries will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups is due on December 2nd.

The bidding system is complicated, with some countries trying for both tournaments to double their chances. Japan faces competition from England, Russia, the U.S., Australia, Qatar and South Korea for the right to host the tournament in 2022, in addition to joint bids from Belgium and the Netherlands, and Portugal and Spain.

With Sony Corp. having touted its 3D TV technology for the South Africa World Cup, Japan plans to amp up the tech angle for 2022. The JFA is promising “8k definition cameras” and “high-sensitivity omni-microphones” at the stadiums to enhance the soccer viewing experience, as well as a “real-time automatic translation system” whereby spectators “will experience seamless communication in and around the stadiums and will not be hampered by language barriers”.

See: The Wall Street Journal due on December 2nd.

The bidding system is complicated, with some countries trying for both tournaments to double their chances. Japan faces competition from England, Russia, the U.S., Australia, Qatar and South Korea for the right to host the tournament in 2022, in addition to joint bids from Belgium and the Netherlands, and Portugal and Spain.

With Sony Corp. having touted its 3D TV technology for the South Africa World Cup, Japan plans to amp up the tech angle for 2022. The JFA is promising “8k definition cameras” and “high-sensitivity omni-microphones” at the stadiums to enhance the soccer viewing experience, as well as a “real-time automatic translation system” whereby spectators “will experience seamless communication in and around the stadiums and will not be hampered by language barriers”.

See: The Wall Street Journal

Semi-official agencies from Taiwan and China signed the landmark trade agreement on June 29, lowering cross-strait customs barriers and trade tariffs. Negotiators signed two copies of the agreement — one in traditional and the other in simplified Chinese characters.

Under WTO regulations, both sides must submit an English copy to the world trade body within a “reasonable period of time.”

“Because Taiwan and China did not sign an English version of the ECFA, we are concerned that our report to the WTO will not have a legal basis,” DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said in the legislature yesterday

The opposition party has raised concerns about some of the translations of certain words that the government would use in the English version, including the name that would be used to designate Taiwan.

Kuan also said that as the agreement lacked an official translation, it remained unclear which version — the Taiwanese translation or the Chinese one — would eventually make its way to the WTO.

Provided the legislature passes the ECFA, the English-language version would have to be reviewed by the WTO to ensure compliance with rules and standards.

See: Taipei Times

Raytheon Co. said Wednesday its BBN Technologies subsidiary has been awarded an additional $6.1 million in funding from a defense project to help troops rapidly translate foreign language text.

Under the contract, Cambridge-based BBN will further refine a prototype translation system developed under previous awards in the program.

The system is designed to be deployed on a laptop computer so that foreign language text images can be automatically converted into English transcripts, without the use of linguists and analysts. Examples include text images on road signs, flyers, photographs and handwritten notes.

See: Bloomberg

Earlier there was a report about how the Flyers and Avalanche were surprise bidders for the services of Ilya Kovalchuk. Not it turns out that, at least half of that report from Russian tabloid Life Sport was just mistakenly translated.

On the website Gazeta.ru. Kovalchuk’s Russia-based agent, Yury Nikolaev, denied he said that the Philadlephia Flyers put in a bid for Kovalchuk.

“I never said this,” Nikolaev is quoted as saying in the in the translated English version of Gazeta.ru.

See: NBC Sports

The Getty Villa’s annual outdoor productions of the classics at the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater are now in their fifth season. In September, the Getty will present a new production of Sophocles’ “Elektra,” directed by Carey Perloff, the artistic director of the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.

This version of “Elektra” features the debut of a translation by the Olivier Award-winning British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, whose plays include “Our Country’s Good” and “The Love of the Nightingale.”

The Getty said Wertenbaker’s translation was specially commissioned for this production and that it preserves the formal structure of the ancient language while at the same time creating a more contemporary feel.

See: Los Angeles Times

Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Thursday gave a call for translating all the literary treasures of Tamil into other Indian and world languages.

Inaugurating the Tamil Internet Conference (TIC) and the seminar of the World Classical Tamil Conference here, Mr. Karunanidhi also said the writings on Tamilology and Tamil race in Greek, French, German and other languages should be translated into Tamil.

Books and documents on Tamilology available in any part of the world should be converted into electronic format and arrangements should be made to provide universal access to the treasures. Emphasizing that Tamil should be used in every field, the Chief Minister said dictionaries of different kinds and encyclopedias of different fields should be produced

See: The Hindu