Tag: Off-Script

• What if Animals did the Talking?

  April 6, 2017 10:38 pm Comments Off on What if Animals did the Talking?

  Following a long day at uni, an exhausting shift at Maccas and hours of mindless moves at Moose you stumble home to your room. Stupefied by the ethanol, you scramble for the lamp’s switch to extinguish the darkness. The light slightly dazzles your eyes, but you persist in untying your laces. With one last heave, the boots flip off, and you collapse into bed. Again you fumble for the light switch, but this time a brown creature darts in your periphery. It’s a Huntsman spider.
  Nearly everyone in Australia has been welcomed home by a large furry critter such as the Huntsman at one time or another. Experience dictates that they choose to pounce on their victim in the most unsuspecting of moments. Instinct usually overtakes our mostly logical thought processes, and we transition into ‘fight or flight’ gear.
  Both of these actions prove to be a disservice to humanity. Finding a Huntsman in your bedroom feels like an invasion or intrusion from something alien. But really, this is a paradox: our man-made buildings, factories, technologies and vehicles are the alien objects, towering over the Huntsman and dictating arbitrary rules of humanity.
  Every time we are ‘interrupted’ by a surprise animal encounter, we should urge ourselves to stop, listen and question our attitudes.
  Because, what if we were the victims in the room?
  We would learn to listen
  In an alternate reality where Huntsman spiders could communicate with humans, we might end up listening to them – and they might have a lot to say to us. If we could speak with the humble Huntsman, we would inevitably develop a greater relationship and sympathy with them and other animals. Imagine if we knew why this particular Huntsman has chosen to shelter inside, and what life changes it had been going through. By listening we would gain a wealth of knowledge about the ecosystems we are part of but are rarely forced to engage with directly.
  We would realise that we are truly interdependent
  In this hypothetical world, we might be reminded more often of the vitality and importance of their place in society: that plants and animal behaviour within ecosystems are essential to life on earth. Bees might remind us that their pollination is responsible for one out of every three bites of food we eat; bats might remind us that they control pests biologically; and frogs might remind us that their presence is a bio-indicator of the health of ecosystems. We would be thankful that elephants can predict earthquakes and tsunamis, and that ants can detect when it will rain. These reminders could prove vital to furthering our understanding that animal, ecology and human livelihoods are all dependent on each other’s sustainability.
  We would remember to reduce our footprint
  In a world where animals could speak, what would their resounding message be? I suspect it would be a call to reduce our emissions and to focus on conserving their ecosystems. They’d remind us that starving polar bears are beginning to migrate to urban areas to find food; 99 percent of threatened species are at risk of extinction; and that koalas are more vulnerable to Australia’s fires and floods than we are. They’d train us to be perceptive of the environment and its behavior, and ultimately to be wary of our carbon footprint.
  So, next time a Huntsman spider spooks you, let the experience serve as a lesson or reminder of your ecosystem’s vigour and vitality. Such unsuspecting visits from the animal world, be it from a Huntsman or a swooping magpie, are symbolic of our need to focus on the environment and the preservation of our local ecosystems. In fact, new research has found that climate change could increase the number, size and speed of spiders in the future. Maybe the alternate reality isn’t so far away.

  Heloise Duce

• A Slice of the Pie

  10:29 pm Comments Off on A Slice of the Pie

  The economy is a big pie. Yum. All of us play a role in baking this pie. Some more than others, but we’re all involved in some shape or form.
  Economists have held the term ‘growing the pie’ close to their hearts for the past few decades. The pie is sliced up in different ways, and some get more than others. Advocates for this arrangement believe that, provided this big pie keeps growing, everyone’s portion of pie will continue to increase.  
  Well, this pie has been growing. We’ve seen consistent improvements in gross domestic product and productivity, but the vast majority of us haven’t been receiving the increase in portion size that we were promised this would growth produce. Our portions have, in fact, decreased.
  Income inequality is prevalent in almost every Western country – the US is a prime example. From 1948 through to 1973, the US saw productivity and average hourly worker compensation increase by roughly 96.7 percent and 91.3 percent respectively. This seems fair enough. Since then, productivity has slightly dipped to 74.4 percent between 1973 – 2013, but hourly worker compensation has struggled to keep and is currently increasing at a rate of 9.2 percent. This is significant. We’re still producing more and more at higher efficiencies, but we – or at least the majority of us –  haven’t been ‘reaping the rewards’, so to speak.
  Income inequality has continued to increase. Wealth begets wealth, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to break this trend.
  There are many hypotheses that attempt to account for our increasingly smaller portions. Some credit the current state of world trade in a rapidly globalising world economy. The explanation here is that hourly compensation in the West was forced down as manual labour jobs leaked out of the West and into the East – meaning the demand for skilled service-based labour spiked in turn. Those with superior educational qualifications began to command significantly higher wages while manual labourers endured major lay-offs and wage decreases.
  Others believe the push towards ‘small government’ that consumed the West during the 80s and 90s is responsible. The deregulation of public infrastructure and utilities, tax cuts, and a sticky minimum wage has likely been a factor in driving inequality. The trickling we were promised never occurred, and the rich pooled their money. Collective action amongst workers was demonised in the media and by governments across the West, resulting in low union membership to industry ratios over the past 2 – 3 decades. This has affected the ability for workers to enter genuine bargaining arrangements, leading to falling wages and diminishing workers’ rights.
  At the end of the day, it is difficult to pinpoint where our pie is going wrong. Whatever the reason may be, it seems obvious that our pie is quite dysfunctional. This represents the flaw in using the pie as a measure of prosperity. An economy is complex. It cannot be boiled down to a single number or statistic. Economic growth does not somehow spontaneously divide its rewards equitably across the population. One thing, however, is certainly clear: our pie needs some work.

  Liam Osawa

• Things Thought in Showers Rarely Happen the Way You Want

  10:25 pm Comments Off on Things Thought in Showers Rarely Happen the Way You Want

  We all have that moment. You are standing there, next to someone you care about and you need to tell them something. But it’s hard. Because you don’t know how to. But not even that. You have rehearsed it so many times – you have run the conversation through your head more often than you’ve heard someone laugh that day. Or maybe you just haven’t been listening. Because you’ve been distracted. So, it’s not that you don’t know how to say it. It’s that you don’t know how to start.
  My life has been littered with conversations such as this one, and they have never turned out the way I expected them to. Because despite how hard I try, the other person just doesn’t know the lines of the play I have so precisely composed. Right down to the dramatic pauses.
  This is a poem about that.
  Breathe in. Ready. Waiting. Everything is so heightened. So clear.
  There they are. Standing. So unprepared.
  How are they to know what is coming?
  The air is expectant. Or maybe that is just your heart.
  Stopped.
  Silent.
  Un-beating.
  Pregnant with fear.
  You open your mouth and –
  You are thinking, beneath the shower head
  Droplets of water and soapiness drip down your body
  The hot hot water burns
  It focuses you.
  You turn your head to God and feel a face full of poorly pressured watery steam
  It will be right
  You know how it will happen
  You will be both standing there, chatting, careless
  A laugh will escape them
  And the words will float out of your mouth, smooth, soft, calm
  A blanket of warmth will fill you
  You will be free
  ‘I think I met someone.’
  They will turn, surprise on their face
  And then a slowly creeping smile with cross their face like daylight
  ‘There is this boy that I know’
  ‘They are nice and kind and sweet. And I just wanted to tell you. Because you mean so much to me’
  You can see it in their face. A heart. Their heart. Ready. Open. Forgiving.
  ‘I’m so happy for you’
  It’s perfect.
  You were so high-strung, so ready for flashes of red and black and purple but now you feel so light
  You open your mouth and –
  Nothing escapes you.
  Not yet.
  They are laughing.
  You can’t.
  Not yet.
  Your mouth slowly shuts, the lips pressing together in the agony of the inability to begin.
  They look at you.
  They smile.
  You smile back.
  There is that light in their eyes.
  It’s so bright.
  It blinds you, so much that you can’t remember what you wanted to say.
  That’s a lie.
  You know exactly the lines that you desire to usher.
  But they refuse to trot to the cadences of your voice.
  Finally, it happens
  This instant is as perfect as it is ever going to be
  It must be now
  Your body feels a sense of urgency that your words do not convey as they awkwardly and cautiously stumble from your lips
  ‘So…’
  ‘There is this boy’
  Shock floods into their body
  Reaching their open eyes and wider mouth, their whole being rises at the intake of breath
  They gasped
  ‘I think. I think I like him’
  Tears fall down their cheeks
  Loose raindrops on a porcelain face
  Too soon. Too soon. Too soon.
  Raindrops on the car window
  But you aren’t safe and warm inside
  And suddenly, everything is drowning in static and screaming and nothingness as your heart spirals
  You open your eyes
  Not like that.
  It won’t happen like that.
  You throw your sheet of scribbled on paper in the bin
  Start again.
  It will be perfect.
  The script must be perfect.
  But it never is.

  Mahalia Crawshaw

• Foreign Film Fights: Sub vs Dub

  10:16 pm Comments Off on Foreign Film Fights: Sub vs Dub

  Slip of the Lip
  Caroline is in her third year of a Bachelor of Languages, and is now well and truly drawn into the fascinating world that is linguistics – the science of language. A Slip of the Lip is her way of sharing interesting linguistic research in an engaging, digestible way.

  Welcome to today’s big Foreign Film Fight: Sub vs Dub! In one corner, we have Sam Subtitle. Her movies feature writing across the bottom of the screen translated into the audience’s language, while the foreign language audio stays in place. In the other corner, we have Aditi Dub, whose movies go straight to the bones of it by scrapping the audio completely and starting again with voices speaking the audience’s language. The crowd tonight is full of foreign-language learners and film aficionados. They’re getting quite wild – let’s interview some spectators and get the low-down.
  Reporter: This is Shawn, he’s here supporting Sam Subtitle. Shawn, why do you think Sam Subtitle is going to win tonight?
  Shawn: Subtitles are by far the superior foreign-language viewing approach. With Dub you can never tell what it is the actors are really saying, and the actors’ lips never line up with their words! It’s barbaric!
  Reporter: Thanks for that Shawn, best of luck. Over here we have Tino, who’s here supporting Aditi Dub. Tino, why do you think Dub’s going to win?
  Tino: Ah mate, Dub is where it’s at. Subtitles block part of the screen, and you have to spend all this effort just reading. No-one watches movies so they can read – that’s what books are for!
  Reporter: Thanks, Tino. I suspect whatever outcome we have tonight, the fans will stay loyal. Research has shown that people prefer whichever it is they’re more used to. But it’s not about the fans, it’s about glory. Time to get down to business.
  Round One: Which conveys the meaning better?
  In reality, neither form can hope to completely capture the original meaning of the dialogue. Not only do they have to contend with the usual troubles of translation, but they also have a very limited time in which to do it.
  Subtitles usually follow what is referred to as the ‘six-second rule’: a subtitle of 64 characters, or approximately 13 words, is displayed on-screen for six seconds. No more than that is allowed, and any less is shown for a proportionate amount of time – so approximately two words are displayed per second, as people tend to speak at a similar rate.
  Humans are usually able to read faster than they can comprehend speech, so reading the whole subtitle in time is not a problem. What is a problem is that the subtitles can only be shown for the time it takes the person to finish their utterance, otherwise the subtitles will fall behind the dialogue. To overcome this, they must be condensed. For example, according to Koolstra et al. in their 30-page article The Pros and Cons of Dubbing and Subtitling – yes, people actually get paid to research this – Dutch subtitles leave out about 30 percent of the English dialogue they translate from.
  On the other hand, dubbing requires the relevant phrase of speech to begin and end at the same time as the actors’ lips, although how closely the intermediate speech needs to match the lip movements is dependent on the audience and language of translation. This, however, does not pose a significant limitation on time, as most languages are quite similar when it comes to length of expression. And so, round one goes to Dub!
  Round Two: Who is less distracting?
  While dubbing naturally entails the annoying out-of-sync lips, subtitles prevent the viewer from absorbing as much of the imagery that they otherwise would. Apart from this, there is little difference in the distraction caused to viewers between subtitles and dubbing. Jackson Harris et al. have found that there is no disparity between subtitles and dubbing when it comes to registering and remembering the emotions of the characters. In addition to this, Wissmath et al. have reported that there is no significant discrepancy in the level of investment in the storyline that either method conjured in the audience. Round two: Tie!
  Round Three: Who helps you learn?
  It is indisputable that the benefits of subtitles far outweigh those of dubbing when it comes to this.
  For learners of a foreign language, having the chance to hear their target language whilst reading the translation is a far better learning opportunity than just watching a movie in their own language. Additionally, Koolstra et al. assert that ‘watching subtitled television programmes leads over time to better reading skills in children.’ Round three: Sub!
  Round Four: Who costs less?
  This one is a brutally short round: Aditi Dub costs ten to fifteen times more than Sam Subtitle! And with that, round four goes to Sam Subtitle!
  So there you have it. It was a close call but Sam Subtitle has come out on top. Who do you think should have won? Did you agree with the ref? Be sure to let us know what you think and thank you for joining us on Foreign Film Fights!

  Caroline Hendy

• Our Other Platypus

  March 27, 2017 9:09 am Comments Off on Our Other Platypus

  Image: Nolan White
  Most Australians are comfortable with the knowledge of our native marsupials they acquire around primary school age. Most Australians could comfortably name a species or two of kangaroo and wallaby. Most would be able to recall a time when a possum became a nuisance. And at a pinch, some may be able to distinguish monotremes from marsupials.
  But if you ask an Australian about rodents, the response you are likely to get is some form of ‘yuck’. Rodent usually equals introduced critters with a penchant for growing into plague proportions and spreading infection. It is true, we have five species of introduced rodents: House Mouse, Black Rat, Brown Rat, Pacific Rat, and (fun fact) the Five-lined Palm Squirrel, a zoo escapee species established in Perth. Chances are, however, that you would be surprised if I told you we have nearly 50 species of native rodents – more than 50 if you count the extinct critters. For instance, the Spinifex Hopping Mouse lives in elaborate burrow systems in close family groups, and is an incredibly sophisticated desert specialist species. And for an extinct example, the White-footed Rabbit-rat – ‘gnar-ruck’ to the Eora people – was a kitten-sized, squirrel-like Conilurus species which used its semi-prehensile black and white tail to craft grass nests in among the eucalypts from Adelaide to Sydney. All 47 extant species are uniquely adapted to their Australian ecosystem homes, and contribute to the ecosystem functioning and biodiversity of this wide brown land.
  I recently shared a piece on Facebook about the Rakali, the largest species of native rodent. This post was met with two comments. The first read, ‘one of Australia’s most underrated mammals.’ Thumbs up, totally agree. The second said something to the extent of, ‘this is disgusting, I can barely type this response because I don’t want to look at it.’ Wot?
  Well, my friends, it’s time to buckle up, because I am about to challenge the latter sentiment with some non-alternative facts.
  The Rakali (also known as ‘water-rat’) is a top aquatic predator, akin to an otter, which deftly hunts for fish, amphibians, crustaceans, and occasionally land mammals. They are gorgeously well adapted to their environment with webbed feet, sensitive whiskers for detecting prey and a water-resistant coat in golden-orange and charcoal coloration with a white-tipped tail.
  This lovely coat meant that the Rakali was hunted towards the point of extinction for their pelts, particularly in the 1930s when importation of overseas furs was banned. In 1943, the Rakali was protected from hunting. Human activities, however, continue to have a detrimental impact on the Rakali. Many drown in yabby and crayfish traps, and others are actively killed by fishermen who perceive the Rakali as a pest that will steal their bait or catch. Anecdotally, they have been known to steal pet food from suburban backyards, as well as fish and chip scraps from lake edges. Misinformed local beach and lake goers try to injure Rakali, falsely thinking they are righteously removing a rat from the area.
  Rakali are seen fairly regularly in Lake Burley Griffin, particularly at the eastern inlet of the Molonglo River, as well as in Lake Ginninderra. I can recall one particular half-moon Friday night, eating a Yarra kebab on the edge of the lake, with a Rakali spreading ripples across the pensive surface, as it leisurely paddled through reflections of street lights above.
  Despite the manufactured and degraded water quality of our water systems, Rakali continue to persist in the Canberra region. The introduced Common Carp makes up an estimated 90 percent of the fish biomass in some regions of the Murray-Darling Basin. Carp have many impacts on their environment – reducing water visibility, promoting algal blooms, contributing to erosion and spreading diseases – but they also impacts predators like Rakali and Platypus by competitively feeding on invertebrates . Additionally, Carp reduce native fish numbers, but this effect is poorly understood.
  Not very much is known about the Rakali, as they are a shy, solitary species. In an ABC news interview, Dr Melody Serena from the Australian Platypus Conservancy said, ‘we are relying heavily on feedback from the public about whether water rats have disappeared from their local area … They are charming little animals and ecologically very important.’ As a top predator, the Rakali controls aquatic populations – in particular crustaceans like yabbies – which in high numbers would threaten the structural integrity of mud banks with their burrowing. Professor Peter Banks from the University of Sydney is currently investigating how Rakali supress the invasive Black Rat population by outcompeting the feral species. Incredibly, the Rakali is also known to eat Cane Toads by flipping them onto their belly to avoid contact with the toxic glands.
  So, keep an eye out around Canberra’s lakes next time you go for a jog, cycle, early morning adventure or late night snack run. You might just see the cryptically gorgeous Rakali ottering about.
  If you see the Rakali, please send a detailed description and location information to the Australian Platypus Conservancy at platypus.apc@westnet.com.au or check out their Facebook page, Australian Platypus Conservancy (Official).

  Shoshana Rapley

• For Whom the Curtain Calls

  March 23, 2017 4:39 pm Comments Off on For Whom the Curtain Calls

  Hundreds upon hundreds of my mildly intoxicated peers cheer as I, and the rest of my hall’s Big Night Out Band, stride on stage – ready to seize the glory of an almost-not-quite podium finish. The mostly-anonymous crowd listen as I pluck the microphone from its stand and give the band the introduction it deserves. As far as I can tell no one can see what is bubbling just beneath the surface. I’m a musician, and I suffer from panic attacks.
  My vision is blurred, and my whole body is numb as if I’m constantly hitting a rather unsavoury turn of the limbic rollercoaster. The lights are hot on my face, and the noise is disorientating. I’m on the cusp of fainting and, as the noise dies down, my heart fills with an unknown and unfettered sense of dread. My stomach flips. I want to scream. I want to run. I want to cry. I look to the crowd, each occupant wearing a judge’s wig and holding a clipboard. They’ve come to see a show and, like a lion prancing and roaring for its tamer, that is what I aim to give – one way or the other.
  It’s always like this. No matter how often I perform or how well I prepare — every time I perform in any sense of the word I have a panic attack. Although some are more severe than others, they’re inevitable. To be honest, I was scared to even write all of this down and publicly come to terms with what I go through on a regular basis. But thankfully, I’ve developed a way of dealing with the urgently lachrymose anxiety that means I am able to perform. There’s a sort of cognitive dissonance I’ve trained myself to apply seconds before walking on stage. I push all of those feelings to a corner of my mind, assuring myself they will be dealt with later, and distract myself by concentrating on a certain riff or acting like a badass Alex Turner type. Anything to occupy the more dangerous corners and crevasses of my consciousness. When it’s all done and dusted, I can walk off stage and deal with the emotions I’ve been nursing throughout the show, when all eyes are on someone else. It’s not healthy, and that fifteen or twenty minutes after the show is hell, but I still do it. Because the worst thing is that despite these obstructions, I love to perform.
  Channelling my idols and borrowing different moves or flourishes, in my mind, excuses me from embarrassment — like hey, I didn’t think of this, blame Bowie if you don’t like it. By interpreting and reconveying these little bits and pieces of musical history, I’m doing something that is unique and that I can be proud of. But it’s still a bit like eating a Tammaco from that old episode of The Simpsons. It seems like every bite is disgusting, but I can never get enough. The thrill of performing is more exciting than anything else I’ve ever tried, jumped off or ingested, and it makes me proud to know that I can do something like this. It can be done.
  I thought that this is the kind of thing I would have wanted to read five or six years ago — a time in my life where even talking to more than three or four people at once would make me feel like my heart was slowly inflating, threatening to pop at any moment. It was also the time I realised that these episodes made it incredibly unlikely I would ever be able to fulfil my dream of performing music in any sense. To have known that there are people like me out there, that love what they fear and do it anyway, would have made sense of so much in my life. It’s possible if you’re willing to take the plunge. I’m proud of what I can do and what the task requires of me. All it takes is the courage to accept the audience’s invitation, to have the pluck to prove that you are as exceptional as you believe you can be. Everyone has hurdles to overcome in the pursuit of their passion; it’s just a matter of building the nerve.

  Anonymous

• Two Tongues One Classroom

  March 21, 2017 12:06 pm Comments Off on Two Tongues One Classroom

  In Persian class, I began to read out a sentence. I was a few words in when I was stopped and corrected.
  As I listened to the correction, I wondered where I had made the error. Was it in my pronunciation? My reading skills?
  No, it was in my dialect. ‘That’s what they say in Afghanistan,’ I was told before the sentence was repeated as it would be in Iran.
  When I first enrolled in my Persian major – inspired in part by a half-forgotten history with the language – it had never crossed my mind that ‘what they say in Afghanistan’ could be a hindrance to my learning or participation in class. After all, my understanding had been that Persian, a language shared across the borders of several countries including Iran and Afghanistan, would naturally exist as a set of dialects – as do many other languages.
  My experiences didn’t translate to this same understanding in class. Realising this led me to the broader question of whether there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to speak a particular language or to teach it.
  Dari is the dialect of Persian spoken in Afghanistan, while Farsi is the name of its Iranian variant – known in English as Afghan Persian and Iranian Persian respectively. While discrepancies in vocabulary and pronunciation are present, there are no technical changes to syntax or grammatical structure. Dari and Farsi, similarly to cases in other languages around the world, exist as different registers of the same language.
  Despite the similarities, their differences have been perpetuated over time through the politicisation of language – a phenomenon common across many historical and social contexts. Take for example Hindi and Urdu, two grammatically identical languages that became factors inextricable to the religious animosity that eventually culminated in the partition of India and Pakistan. Though existing within a considerably calmer political climate, the relationship between Dari and Farsi has attached to it similar notions of national identity – their distinction is a means of asserting Afghanistan’s distinction from Iran, particularly from the 1960s onwards.
  But this is a concept that extends well beyond Dari, or Hindi. They are simple examples showcasing how language often evolves into an issue of national pride or a means of pushing particular political agendas within their respective societies. The resulting drive for linguistic purism contributes to the polarisation of communities. In the process, dialect differences become imbued with class and prejudice, which are subsequently ingrained in the way language is spoken and observed in affected communities. Essentially, the distinctions between otherwise mutually intelligible dialects often speak more about the politics of class than of pronunciation and grammar, and this, in turn raises significant questions regarding the way in which language is taught.
  Most notably, should all dialects of a language be taught? It’s often argued that this is impractical, so we turn to teaching a standard and most official, though not necessarily more ‘correct’ form of the language – as is the case with ‘Modern Standard Arabic’ (MSA). Bypassing this impracticality in the classroom intends to offer one ‘standardised’ language, but this opens up a whole host of questions of its own. Who determines the methods of standardising language? To what extent can we shut out natural dialect variations in teaching such ‘standardised’ variants? After all, in practice, there is no truly normative way in which language is spoken. Dialects exist naturally by the diversity of human populations – they are intricately shaped by the geography, politics, history and social class of their speakers. Such variations in speech are best understood as residing on a continuum – the range of differences between dialects can be extensive, mirroring regionalisms and borrowings from other language families. Thus, it is important for language teachers to be aware of the diversity of dialects, and to be conscious of their own prejudices in pushing a ‘standard’ or ‘correct’ way of speaking it.
  Some answers to these questions lie in addressing how, as was my experience, linguistically embedded prejudices are perpetuated when appreciation for dialect is overlooked in the push for standardisation. We should seek a better understanding of how this behaviour results in poor exposure to, and even erasure of the diverse cultures and narratives attached to such communities. And most importantly, we should accept that the way language is currently taught can be insensitive to historical legacies of power imbalances. It has the power to the othering of communities based on how they speak, often in relation to dialects of a shared language.
  While there may be no single clear solution to these issues, discussing them encourages us, in turn, to acknowledge that the first step we should collectively take is to rethink how we teach languages. Or rather, how we regulate its teaching. This first step, I hope, will lead us in the direction of a more inclusive teaching environment in the future. One in which learning a language means engaging with it in all its diversity and complexity, and teaching it means to celebrate this.

  Nigarish Haider