Page 13 - ELG1801 Jan Issue 453

NEWS
NEWS
LOWER CULTURE SHOCK RESEARCH NIBS

FOR SELF-MOTIVATED TEL AVIV BATS PICK UP

INTERNATIONAL ‘SCOTTISH’ ACCENTS
Young bats can learn their mother ‘tongue’ and
another specific ‘dialect’ by listening to the bat
STUDENTS crowd around them, a study conducted at Tel
Aviv University has found.
The research offers an insight into the
By Claudia Civinini shock, the researchers found evolutionary origins of language acquisition
The motivation behind an that self-motivation to study skills, which may not be as uniquely human as
international student’s decision abroad was the best predictor of we thought, researchers say.
to study abroad can predict low shock and high subjective ‘The ability to learn vocalisations from others
whether they will make the most wellbeing. is extremely important for speech acquisition
of their experience, a new study Students who decided to in humans, but it’s believed to be rare among
has found. study abroad because of their animals,’ Dr Yossi Yovel said.
And, researcher say, institutions own personal drives, interests or The researchers raised 14 bat pups with their
can help students develop self- curiosity showed more resilience mothers in three artificial colonies, exposing
motivation. than others who were guided by each colony to a recording of a specific subset of
Most people feel disorientated other types of motivation – family bat vocalisations (a ‘dialect’) for a year.
when immersed in an unfamiliar or peer pressure, for example. Even though the pups could communicate
cultural environment – that’s Despite the limitations of with their mother, they also acquired the dialect
culture shock. the study – the authors think a they heard through the recording as if they had
But while some show more longitudinal study could shed acquired it from their surrounding roost mates.
resilience and eventually adapt, more light on how motivation And these two bat languages weren’t similar at
for others culture shock can affect influences cultural adaptation all – Dr Yovel compared the difference between
emotional wellbeing, prevent over time – the results could them to that which exists between a London
adaptation and ultimately have valuable implications accent and a Scottish accent.
jeopardise the whole experience. for international education ‘The pups heard their mothers’ “London”
It turns out it’s all down to professionals. dialect, but also heard the “Scottish” dialect
the right type of motivation. For example, counselling mimicked by many dozens of “Scottish” bats. The
To understand what causes services could implement pups eventually adopted a dialect that was more
international students to react strategies to help students similar to the local “Scottish” dialect than to the
differently to culture shock, a develop greater autonomy in “London” accent of their mothers,’ he explained.
team of researchers from China, their choices.
Russia and the US sampled This would especially help
responses from 131 international students from cultures where A LINGUIST AND A
students enrolled at university family pressure is greater. BIOLOGIST WALK INTO A
in the US. They looked at Even a simple suggestion like:
personality traits, length of stay in ‘I know what it feels to study BAR…
the US, language proficiency, how abroad to please your father, Along with climate change deniers, Twitter likes to
happy they felt and motivation but let’s talk about what might poke fun at language change deniers.
for studying abroad. be in it for you instead’ could By reading Shakespeare, it is immediately clear
When they contrasted these help students identify a better that the English language has indeed changed
variables with students’ self- rationale for their actions, the a lot over the centuries. But how do languages
reported experience of culture researchers explain. change? Are there selective pressures – social
pressures, for example – guiding its evolution, or is
it all just a question of chance? An unlikely team
composed of two biologists and two linguists has
been investigating the issue at the University of
Pennsylvania. Working on the Corpus of Historical
American English, which comprises texts from
1810 to 2009, they found that random chance can
play a big role, especially with changes related to
rare words. And when selective forces are at play
instead, they may not work as we thought. Verbs
ABC TV, Ronny Chieng: International Student ‘quitted’ was caused by an overall increase in the
are not commonly undergoing regularisation: for
example the use of ‘quit’ instead of the regular
use of rhyming irregulars such as ‘hit’ and ‘split’.
This work, published in Nature, is opening
the doors for a better understanding of language
evolution.
‘By looking at the analogies between social
science and biology, this work is pushing toward
sides stand to gain,’ said one of the authors.

editorial@elgazette.com a unification between the two fields. I think both 13