My first foray into Classical study

Last Friday 20^th May, for the first time in nearly a year, I presented an academic paper. For the first time ever, it was to a group of postgrads and (half of it) was about Classics… suffice to say I was somewhat nervous about it. Though not as nervous as my colleague Becca, when a well-meaning lecturer asked her what she would be speaking about that evening (not the first time we’ve been mixed up, but such is life with a common first name).

Photo from http://www.centraleasteurope.com/croatia/zadar.htm

Anyway. The context was a Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar, a weekly event in the faculty which sees two people present their research and ideas, usually from two different disciplines within Classics. That evening I was not the first to speak; that honour went to Iva Rukavina from Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, who was speaking about Late Antique, Early Christian architecture in Zadar, in her home country of Croatia. Her analysis of a little-studied region was very interesting, and clearly presented; this was evident in the fact that I gained a lot of knowledge from it despite having no background in archaeology or the history of Dalmatia whatsoever! However there were some very knowledgeable people in the audience, among them Professor Robin Cormack, who interacted well with our trilingual visitor.

  

On the latter point, I felt slightly inferior about the fact that I barely have three languages to present in, and certainly was not presenting in my third language like Iva was!

But I proceeded to talk about current issues in psycholinguistics, such as the interaction between bilingualism and other cognitive processes, both linguistic and non-linguistic, and how these discussions might be used to look at classical bilingualism from a different angle. The study of classical linguistics is a healthy, if small, field, and is continuing to grow (despite being, as one PhD student put it, about 20 years behind mainstream linguistics). There is a strong tradition of historical and comparative linguistics, thanks to the starring roles of Latin and Greek in the Indo-European family tree, but the study of bilingualism has come to the fore only relatively recently, thanks to the “bible” of J.N. Adams (Bilingualism and the Latin language, 2003) and other studies by his contemporaries, such as Simon Swain and Mark Janse.

http://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_cicero.html

In order to link present day study to classical language use, I used Cicero’s letters as an example; obviously the normal problems of having to rely on written texts were an issue, as was a certain reliance on anecdotal evidence and the fact that I was essentially pinching other people’s examples (well-referenced ones, I promise!) Quite a lot of study has already been done on code-switching in his letters, particularly from a sociolinguistic point of view, but I wanted to try out disassociating sociolinguistic intentions from psycholinguistic processes, to see what ideas came up.

  

Here’s one as an example. Swain (2002, p.156) said something which really made me think: “Though Cicero could write literary Greek, this does not mean he thought or spoke Greek regularly”. Firstly it is interesting to point out that whilst Cicero wrote Greek in a literary style, the Greek he used was very much the Greek of his time, Hellenistic Greek with a convincing accent and a wide vocabulary comprising many words, literary and technical, for which his is the first recorded use. Secondly, it is an oft-quoted maxim that when writing in a foreign language, one must think in it in order to produce as natural and as native-like a piece of work as possible. In fact it’s not just popular wisdom; Kobayashi and Rinnert’s 1994 study of English/Japanese bilinguals showed that low-proficiency groups produced better texts (ie. well-constructed with coherent ideas) through translation, high-proficiency groups performed better when composing directly in the L2 (here English) because the texts were less “awkward” and the language was more cohesive. Could this apply to Cicero? I think it is possible, though it was also pointed out that the four skills of language use (reading, writing, listening and speaking) call upon quite different cognitive processes, so the mastery of one does not de facto assume high competence in the others.

That’s a vague overview of the kind of thing I was thinking about, and I was lucky enough to have a very attentive and interesting group of people to interact with once I’d finished; almost everyone had something to contribute, though I think that that is as much due to the way in which linguistics is relevant to all of us as language users (most people there were bi- if not multilingual) as it was due to my talk. I think we all agreed that psycholinguistic theories wouldn't represent a grand new field in the study of classical linguistics, but that they could add an interesting second and complementary dimension to other, more established, ways of looking at language use.

So I’d like to say thank you to everyone who came for creating such a supportive and stimulating environment – I really enjoyed talking about something I’m passionate about in the context of something that they as Classicists are passionate about, and the practice in terms of preparing, presenting and fielding questions was invaluable.

And in the news today:
--President Obama’s first state visit to the UK ends, having been extended by a day due to the latest volcanic eruption in Iceland.
--LSE is the first major UK university to announce fees of less than £9,000 for the academic year 2011-12 (they’ll be charging £8,500, quelle différence…)
--England’s Test match season kicks off against Sri Lanka, hampered by a heavily rain-affected day in Cardiff.

If you're in Cambridge and at a loose end...

...there's a couple of interesting things going on at the moment --

The Big Book event outside Cambridge University Library

 Thursday 19th (tonight!) and Friday 20th May 10am-7pm
Saturday 21st May 10am-5pm

Artist Diana Bell is giving library visitors the opportunity to explore their own imaginations...inside a 2.2 metre high book outside the UL! This book has been travelling the world and has been filled with 57 different languages on the way - an excellent opportunity to literally step inside art and interact with it. Read more here.

and also --

Christ's at War: May-October 2011

My superb fellow trainee Charlotte unveiled her inaugural exhibition last night in Christ's Old Library - a delve through the college's past and an examination of the role played by the College and its members during World War I. You'll be surprised by the forward-thinking actions of the College (and how close it came to the front line...), with buckets of original letters, photographs and other documents excellently displayed in the splendour of the Old Library (with a little war-time addition...but I won't spoil the surprise!)

You've got lots of time to enjoy this one, but it is certainly not to be missed.

Happy culture-vulturing!

Life is worn-out by procrastination and each and every one of us dies with time on our hands.
Vatican saying 14.

Building tools and medieval games as the perfect pedagogical metaphors...

Librarians across the UK seem to be a very active bunch at the moment, and we were lucky enough to entice a couple of the busiest from the University of Northampton to Cambridge on Thursday to talk to us about their work. Hannah Rose and Heather McBryde-Wilding have been working on how to improve the “first-year experience”  - that is, how first years at university are introduced to the working ways of the library and how it can benefit them and their work. As a result they have improved student satisfaction by up to 11%, published their findings and methods here and have been appointed University Teaching Fellows (floppy hats, robes and all) at their institution.

The whole article is well worth a read, and it’s also worth pointing out that their model of “transitional bridging” (p.21 of the article) is being rolled out university-wide, such has been its success in the domain of information literacy. But there were two things in particular that I wanted to focus on:

Scaffolding

One of the reviewers’ criticisms of the researchers’ methodology was that increased contact with the students and more extensive materials was patronising and tantamount to spoon-feeding the students. In response, the researchers found this definition of ‘scaffolding’

Building on instruction. Picture here

"An important aspect of scaffolding instruction is that the scaffolds are temporary. As the learner’s abilities increase the scaffolding provided by the more knowledgeable other is progressively withdrawn. Finally the learner is able to complete the task or master the concepts independently."
Chang et al, 2002 cited in Van der Stuyf 2002, p.2

In short – the learner needs more help at the start because the subject is completely new, then becomes increasingly independent as their knowledge increases. This was reflected in the amount of resources listed in a first-year guide compared with a second-year guide; in the latter, new aspects were introduced but in such a way that the learner can draw on knowledge already gained in first-year to expand upon new information independently. It might seem obvious, but some academics in particular seem to forget how great the transition is between high-school and university, and how much subject-specific knowledge they take for granted, moving onto my second point of interest…

Having “tame academics” onside

Is academia like chess?  On so many levels

Without support from the academics, the librarian’s work is an uphill battle. Incomprehensible reading lists, obscure abbreviations, not to mention a lack of any clarity regarding referencing conventions leave students (and librarians, sometimes) at a complete loss. After all, as Helen Webster of CARET pointed out, teaching someone the rules of chess does not mean they have been spoon-fed all the possible combinations, outcomes and complexities of the game. But when academics do get involved, and even integrate information literacy into their course, the outcome can be drastically different in terms of the confidence of the students and the quality of their work, as Rose and McBryde-Wilding’s research showed. It certainly worked at Sheffield, where the wonderful Penny Simons, rather than giving us a “must-read” bibliography, took an hour out of each module to give us the key to all the medieval French resources you could possibly wish to read. And here is the result of her approach…

I’m in danger of becoming a broken record with my love of collaboration, but this is interesting in particular because it’s academics collaborating with librarians working in tandem with individual learners, pooling all their expertise to create better quality, stressless(ish) work. Good times.

And today's round-up...

--The UK coalition government is warned that it needs to stick to its environmental pledges by Greenpeace and RSPB amongst others

--Manchester City face Stoke City in the FA Cup Final

--Boy band Blue will be representing the UK in tonight's Eurovision competition in Düsseldorf...you're braver than I am if you try to predict the outcome!

"The move to co-working is a move from a culture of me to a culture of we"...

...says Rachel Botsman, author of "What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption."

An example of collaboration at Libraries@Cambridge 2011.
Photo: Annie Johnson

In my last post, I was looking at how increased awareness and use of social media and electronic resources is a vital aspect of collaborative working in academia today. But I was heartened to find, later the same day, an article which flagged up how, no matter how tech-savvy you are, sometimes you just need the personal touch.

There are an increasing number of motivated, interested and interesting people who make their livelihoods online and independently via Twitter, blogs and other resources such as Teuxdeux.com, and in fact it is the founders of this latter site who felt that their lonely working style was beginning to hamper the very thing at the core of their business: creativity. The solution? 26 unconnected, unrelated people hiring a shared office space and continuing their independent projects; surrounded by like-minded people in the physical world just as they are in the virtual world.

I recommend reading the article itself for a bit more detail and some very interesting comments from the people involved, but this struck a chord with me personally on a number of levels. As a languages student I always valued a really encouraging and stimulating atmosphere within my classes, as there's very little point in learning a language if you can't find anyone to converse with. I also engaged in many more group projects in my final undergraduate year than in previous years: although we were all working towards a shared goal, I feel that I personally got a lot more out of my studies that year in terms of theory and interpretation as well as sheer pleasure in learning. This year too, I know I would not have benefited from my Cambridge experience half as much without my excellent colleagues (who encouraged inquiry, new ways of thinking and my own personal development) or my fellow trainees (LibrariesAtCambridge 2011, anyone?)

I recognise that being able to connect quickly and efficiently with people at a distance is important, as is the capacity that the internet has for allowing you to make connections that you may never have dreamt of and which may not have been possible through any other medium. However, we must never lose sight of the fact that we were designed for face-to-face communication, that, as human beings, we are meant to communicate on levels which go deeper than the words we produce. This is reflected not only in a white office space in Brooklyn, but in new libraries and research spaces across the academic spectrum, which are increasingly incorporating group spaces and a variety of working environments within their walls.

John Donne noted in 1624 that "No man is an island" and finally, in 2011, we're once more realising that a screen is a facilitator of, but not a substitute for, face to face interaction with our peers.

And in the news today...
--The British Government announce plans to fine dangerous drivers with
on-the-spot penalties.
--Ticket prices for the London Paralympic Games are announced (they're much
cheaper than the Olympic ones, a bargain price for a good show!)
--Discussions over Syria's entry onto the UN Human Rights Council continue
despite persistent violence in the region.

P.S. I'll be getting some real face-to-face feedback in just over a week, when I'll be talking at the Classics Faculty Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar about "New theories in Psycholinguistics and their application to the study of classical Linguistics". Or something along those lines. Wish me luck!

Information literacy for Postgrads : why the study bubble no longer exists

In our library, we have as much, if not more, contact with postgraduate students as with undergraduates, especially outside the incredibly short Cambridge terms. What has become apparent to me, particularly as postgraduate life looms large personally, is that it is simply not possible to succeed by locking yourself away in the library and occasionally venturing out to find your supervisor. Unavoidably our age is the digital one, and if you're not information literate, it's impossible to comprehend how much you're missing out on. You're deaf to a vast part of your field.

With this in mind, LiT (Librarians in Training) ran a seminar on training postgraduates on Thursday of this week (5th May). The speaker, Jane Secker, is the Learning Technology Librarian at LSE (her job title has just changed but I can't remember what to!) and runs courses on digital and information literacy specifically aimed at staff and postgrads ("digital literacy" is apparently the preferred term at LSE, though it wasn't entirely clear why...is it because digital sounds more techy? This is not the place for a discussion on onomastics, however...)

The talk flagged up the theory behind such courses, which are based upon SCONUL's increasingly renowned 7 pillars model of information literacy, and particularly the innovative way that LSE are presenting the courses: that is, as a full module with a home page and resources on LSE's Moodle VLE, six 2 hour sessions and a suitably baffling alphanumeric course code (the snappily-titled MI512). The course was not credit-bearing, but rather than seeing it as a sap on their limited time, postgraduates from across the institution flocked to it, to the extent that feedback showed "word of mouth" to be one of the most effective ways of marketing the course.

The content ranged from the most basic academic uses of IT such as literature searching, to some of the more obscure uses of electronic resources, such as online social bookmarking. As the undercover postgrad-to-be at the session, it was incredibly useful to see the kind of things I will need to get involved in and how best to go about this. It would have been interesting to see more of the more practical side of the LSE course for use in the short term, such as the kinds of resources and exercises contained within the course. The debate about digital vs information literacy also baffled me a bit because as far as I could see, the definition for one could work equally well as the definition for the other. But on the whole the talk really got me thinking about how I could better enable the Classics postgrads to effectively research and communicate with their peers in the short term, and improve my prospects in the longer term.

Finally, as a reminder for myself when I read these posts back, here's some context of what's happening in the world today:
-- The British people rejected the Alternative Vote system, with about 69% of voters saying "no".
-- The Scottish National Party enjoys its first day of majority governance and announces its plans for a referendum on Scottish independence towards the end of its term.
-- Golfer Seve Ballesteros died of cancer aged 54

First brave step...

Hello there,

It's a horrible rainy Saturday morning in Cambridge and the morning library shift is incredibly quiet...so much so, that I decided to finally pull my finger out and set this blog up. I am not only motivated by the weather, but also by the number of interesting things that have come my way recently - I can only hope that you might also find them, or bits of them, quite interesting too.

As a quick catch-up on my background, I am the current Graduate Trainee Librarian at the Classical Faculty Library, University of Cambridge. I have been in the post for 8 months now (longer than it feels...) having completed my BA in French and Linguistics at the University of Sheffield in June 2010. Linguistics and languages are my particular passion, which is why it is wonderful to be working in a discipline where they come into use so frequently, and whose library clientèle come from a range of different linguistic groups.

I have also found that the library profession is filled with incredibly motivated and passionate people who have so far put me to shame with their mastery and constantly developing use of Web 2.0 tools and the like. So, Cambridge Librarians, add another one to your ever-expanding list, because I'm going to do my best to share what I can in terms of my knowledge and experiences and hopefully reap quite a bit more as an active participant than I ever did as a lurker.

I shall end this post here, as the subject of my first "proper" post deserves to be dealt with in its own right, and not as the tail-end of a slightly awkward and self-conscious first foray into the blogosphere...

"I'll be doing my best / and I'll see you soon / In a telescope lens / and when all you want is friends / I'll see you soon" 
Coldplay -- See you soon