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I love meaty craft posts, don't you? Especially when the author takes the time to deeply explain a technique that I am struggling with in my own writing. As awareness is rising among many authors for the need to write characters that represent the diversity of reality, I'm sure that I am not alone. Author Christine Kohler joins us today with her fabulous analysis of when and how to incorporate dialect and foreign words into our stories. Thank you, Christine!

Weaving Foreign Words Seamlessly into English Language Text by Christine Kohler

Imagine you open a book and one character's dialogue is in a foreign language that you do not read. What would you do with the book? Probably close it and not read the story. I know I would, because it would frustrate me not to understand one side of the conversation.

from Vendorsi.com

Now imagine you open a book and one character's dialogue is peppered with foreign words that you don't understand. You sort of pick up the gist. But you're still not real sure what the character is saying. At best, you're turning to the glossary in the back of the book. At worst, you're looking up the foreign words online. Depending on how heavy the foreign words are, or how confused you get about what the character is saying and what is going on in the story plot, it is very likely you still might give up and put the book down.

Best case scenario, imagine you start reading a book and one character's dialogue is peppered with foreign words that you don't know; however, the foreign words are in context of actions and thoughts (interior monologue) and narrative that give clues and even rephrase the words in English. The story moves you through the foreign words in a way that you understand without having to look them up in an outside source or glossary. That's what I'm going to show writers how to do in this article.

Writing Resources:
First, though, it is difficult to discuss writing foreign words without talking about voice and dialect. I recommend you read on my blog Read Like a Writer the article "11 Tips on Writing Authentic Dialect."

Writing foreign language dialogue for a character is more than just using foreign words. In Developing a Written Voice (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1993), Dona Hickey, a professor at University of Richmond, names five stylistic features that transfer voice from the air to the page: (Hickey, P. 23)

1. Sentence patterns
2. Sentence length
3. Word choice
4. Word placement
5. Punctuation

Dialect based on POV:
Dialect in narrative voice should be very light. It can be heavier in dialogue. In general, the older the character the heavier the dialect and foreign language. This is because the older character is more likely to be a first-generation immigrant to the United States, and may have less education in a US school.

My novel NO SURRENDER SOLDIER is written in two different dialect point-of-views--a 15-year-old Chamorro, Kiko, and a Japanese soldier, Seto, who has been hiding in the jungle for 28 years after WWII ended. The story takes place on Guam in 1972, during the Vietnam War. The Chamorros and Guamanians speak Pidgin English. The Japanese soldier speaks Japanese and very little English.

I made a stylistic decision to put all of Seto's first-person dialogue and interior monologue in italics since he is speaking and thinking in the Japanese language. The narrative in Seto's chapters is in third person and not italicized.

Terms of Endearment:
One thing I believe writers should do when writing about a specific culture is to use the proper terms of address, especially for family members. I had a little problem in that in Chamorro the word "Nana" means mother, whereas, in the United States mainland "Nana" means grandmother. I got the idea to include a page before the prologue with "Chamorro terms of address" from Linda Sue Park's Korean WWII novel WHEN MY NAME WAS KEOKO. Neither of our historical novels include glossaries in the back of the book, which shows the actual foreign words are not abundant. However, many books do have foreign word glossaries in the back.

Example: Words in Context:
Let's return to that best case scenario where foreign words are in context of actions and thoughts (interior monologue) and narrative that give clues and even rephrase the words in English.

Here is an example in the prologue (P. 6) of NO SURRENDER SOLDIER (Merit Press, 2014):

… Besides, if things did not go well in battle, Seto knew what his superiors required of him. To die honorably, and go the way of the cherry blossoms. He looked at the bayonet on the end of his rifle and swallowed hard against what felt like a peach pit stuck in his throat. He had pledged to die in battle for Emperor Hiro Hito. But could he commit hara-kiri like a true samurai?

Notice in the paragraph above that I never added a separate sentence or clause that defines hara-kiri. It's not necessary to even use the word suicide, or to describe in gruesome detail how samurai committed seppuku, disembowelment. It's enough for the reader to know that hara-kiri will lead to Seto's death.

from Pixshark.com

Also take note in that paragraph the saying, "To die honorably, and go the way of the cherry blossoms." I use this wording "go the way of the cherry blossoms" quite a few times throughout the story. I made a stylistic decision to make Seto's language poetic more than adhering to how a Japanese speaker might sound. As many Asian languages do not have articles like in the English language, I tried to leave articles out where it enhanced the poetic dialect.

Example: Words Requiring Direct Translation:
Some foreign words require a direct translation for the reader to understand. Here are two different passages in NO SURRENDER SOLDIER where I handled the translations in different ways. The first passage (P. 13) in Chapter 1 is Kiko's mother waiting on two Japanese tourists. Grandfather (Tatan) had just offended them:

Nana scurried toward the counter and apologized to the Japanese girls, while bowing her head and shoulders repeatedly. “I am so sorry. Dozo. My apologies. Dozo.” She gave the girl change.

In the passage above it is clear that the Japanese word "dozo" means "sorry" and "my apologies." This passage also reveals that Nana speaks Japanese (at least a little; later the reader learns students were taught the language in school during WWII), and that she knows Japanese customs such as bowing. Earlier in this chapter Nana would not bow, even though it would have been a polite courtesy to her Japanese customers vacationing on Guam.

The reason all of these parts are so important as a whole is because creating a character of a different culture and language is deeper and wider than just giving the character an ethnic or foreign name and throwing in a few foreign words.

Example: Direct Translation Set Off by Em Dashes:
This next passage (p. 20) in Chapter 2 is from Seto's point of view. I rarely use this technique of a direct translation set off by em dashes, but in this case I did not want to lose the continuity and flow of the action, or the internal monologue showing his emotions and reactions. At the same time, I felt that many readers would not know what kamikaze means. I would caution against using this em dash technique except in a pinch when it fits. (Like a pinch of pepper! Or, pepper in a pinch.)

Deception and trap, indeed, Seto had thought at the time. Ha! Japan could not lose with its kamikaze—divine wind—Buddha’s blessings, and the divine Emperor himself ordering the war. Time dragged on. Shellfire ceased. Bullet sniping silenced. Seto became disheartened; Japan must have lost the war.

Read Widely From Well-Written Novels:
As for how heavy or light to make the Pidgin English dialect, Newbery-winning Richard Peck advised me to read Graham Salisbury, who also writes Pacific Islander literature. Peck said, read well-written books in the place and era you are writing and model the masters. I would add, read how dialect is written in books within the past five years. In particular, I found Blue Skin of the Sea by Salisbury helpful. I've also critiqued with a Hispanic writer and so studied Pam Munoz Ryan's novels.

Besides reading other children's lit books with foreign language peppered within English language text, I recommend reading literature from authors in the language of your characters. For example, to create the tone and cadence of Seto’s voice in NO SURRENDER SOLDIER, I read gothic poetry from Akinari, an 18th century Japanese poet.

Finally -- Don't Confuse Your Reader!:
In conclusion, I leave you with these reminders: Story first. Clarity is imperative. If the reader stumbles over words repeatedly he will throw the book down unfinished. It is better to include no foreign words in your story at all than to frustrate English-only readers.

However, if you can pepper foreign words in skillfully, and make the general meaning understandable within context, then foreign words are one more tool in a writer's arsenal to capture authenticity in voice, dialect, and culture.

About the Author:

Christine Kohler is a graduate of the University of Hawaii, then lived in Japan and Guam, the setting for her debut novel NO SURRENDER SOLDIER, Merit Press (Adams Media/ F+W Media), 2014. She worked as a foreign correspondent for the Pacific Daily News and Gannett Wire Service, covering the West Pacific. She later worked as an editor and copy editor for the San Antonio Express-News, a Hearst daily. Besides being a journalist, Kohler worked as a media specialist in PR and marketing, middle and high school teacher, and writing instructor for the Institute of Children's Literature (ICL). She has 17 children's books published. Kohler now lives in Texas.

The American Library Association nominated NO SURRENDER SOLDIER as a Quick Pick for reluctant readers. NO SURRENDER SOLDIER was also awarded a bronze medal by the Military Writers Society of America.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

About the Book:

A young man, an old soldier , and a terrible injustice. Should the punishment be death?

Growing up on Guam in 1972, fifteen-year-old Kiko is beset by worries: He’s never kissed a girl, and he thinks it’s possible he never will. The popular guys get all the attention, but the worst part is that Kiko has serious problems at home. His older brother is missing in Vietnam; his grandfather is losing it to dementia; he just learned that his mother was raped in World War II by a Japanese soldier.

It all comes together when he discovers an old man, a Japanese soldier, hiding in the jungle behind his house. It’s not the same man who raped his mother, but, in his rage, Kiko cares only about protecting his family and avenging his mom – no matter what it takes. And so, a shy, peaceable boy begins to plan a murder. But how far will Kiko go to prove to himself that he’s a man?

Based on a historical incident, No Surrender Soldier is the story of a boy grappling with ancient questions of courage and manhood before he can move on.

Amazon | Indiebound | Goodreads


-- posted by Susan Sipal, @HP4Writers

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All language-learners face the difficulties of regional variations or dialects. Usually, it takes the form of an odd word or turn of phrase or a peculiar pronunciation. For most languages, incomprehension is only momentary, and the similarity — what linguists often refer to as the mutual intelligibility — between the standard language taught to foreigners and the regional speech pattern is maintained. For a language such as French, only the most extreme cases of dialectical differences, such as between Parisian and Québécois or Cajun, pose considerable difficulties for both learners and native speakers of dialects close to the standard. For other languages, however, differences between dialects are so great as to make most dialects other than the standard totally incomprehensible to learners. Arabic is one such language.

The problem that faces most learners of Arabic is that the written language is radically different from the various dialects spoken throughout the Arab world. Such differences appear in a variety of forms: pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and tenses of verbs. The result is that even the most advanced learner of standard Arabic (or ‘the standard’) might find herself completely at sea on the streets of Beirut, while it is also conceivable for a student to complete a year of immersion in Cairo and not be able to understand a text written in the standard language.

The most diligent and ambitious of Arabic students, therefore, is required to learn both the standard and a regional variant in order to cover all the social situations in which they might use the language. This, however, will not solve their dilemma in its entirety: Moroccan Arabic is foreign to Levantines, while Iraqi can be quite a puzzle for Egyptians. Even the mastery of a regional variant along with the standard will only ease the learner’s task in part of the Arab World, while making it no easier in other regions. This phenomenon, in which a number of quasi- or poorly-intelligible dialects are used by speakers of a particular language depending on the situation in which they find themselves, is known as diglossia.

A many-headed beast

The source, or rather sources, of diglossia in the Arab world are both manifold and contentious. In part, regional differences come about from contact between Arabic speakers and non-Arabic speakers. Moroccan Arabic, for example, borrows from Berber, while Levantine dialects (spoken in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Jordan) have Aramaic elements in them. The dialects of the Persian Gulf area show the influence of Persian and Hindi, both of which were the languages of important trading partners for the region’s merchants. Finally, the languages of imperial or colonial administration left their imprint on virtually all dialects of the Arab World, albeit in different measures. It is for this reason that native speakers may choose from a variety of words, some foreign and others Arabic, in order to describe the same concept. Thus a Moroccan might use henna (from Berber) or jidda for grandmother; a Kuwaiti might buy meywa (from Farsi) or fawaakih when he has a craving for fruit; and a Lebanese worker might say she is going to the karhane (from Ottoman Turkish) or masna` when heading off to the factory.

Dialectical differences are not just a matter of appropriations and borrowings. Just as many non-native learners have grappled with the complex structure of the Arabic language, so too have many native speakers of Arabic. For all its complexity, however, there are certain nuances that standard Arabic does not express with efficiency or ease. This is why the regional dialects are marked by a number of simplifications and innovations, intended to allow for greater agility and finesse when speaking.

For example, Levantine dialects make use of agent participles (faakira, the one thinking; raayihun, the ones going; maashi, the one walking) instead of actually conjugating the verb (‘afkuru, I am thinking; yaruuhuuna, they are going; tamshiina, you are going). However, these same dialects, as well as Egyptian, have also created a series of verbal prefixes — small non-words that come before the conjugated verb — in order to refine the duration and timing of an action when conjugated verbs are used: baya’kal, he eats; `am baya’kal, he is eating; raH ya’kal or Ha ya’kal, he will eat. Such distinctions are familiar to speakers of English, but are not immediately apparent in Arabic, whose verbal system seeks to stress other types of information.

The more the merrier

Indeed, this display of innovation and human creativity is one of the strongest motivations for learning Arabic, whether standard or colloquial. Arabic might require as much effort and commitment as the acquisition of two or three Indo-European languages in order for a non-native speaker to be able to communicate in a meaningful way. However, it also opens the door to understanding the manner in which humans use and adapt language to their particular contexts. The diglossia issue is one that causes complications for non-native learners and native Arabic speakers alike, but it is also a fascinating showcase of the birth and evolution of languages that challenges our preconceived notions about good and bad speech, and the relative importance and value of dialects.

Heading image: Golden calligraphy by Quinn Dombrowski, CC-BY-SA-2.0 via Flickr.

The post Is Arabic really a single language? appeared first on OUPblog.

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Yesterday, I went to a local elementary school to tutor, something I’ve recently started. My second grader, CL, brought a nonfiction, information worksheet to go over. He read through the information on what makes popcorn pop and did pretty well in the reading. But his understanding was weak.

The paper said that popcorn kernels pop because the water in the kernel gets heated up into steam, which cracks open the hard cover and the popcorn pops out.

OK. I asked CL, “What is a kernel?
He didn’t know. In fact, he consistently had trouble pronouncing the word. And yet one of the exercises was to draw popcorn before and after popped.

Even more crucial to understanding the text, I asked CL, “What is steam?”
He didn’t know.

The writer of this informational piece made assumptions about his audience, that they would understand certain vocabulary words: kernel and steam. Further, these words were crucial to understanding the piece. In my opinion, the writer failed in communicating. (Yes, in the context of a school assignment, maybe CL just needed to learn a couple words. But these weren’t presented as vocabulary words; instead it was an informational piece that he needed to comprehend, but crucial information was missing from the text.)

How often do we fail to engage our audience because of our vocabulary, our sentence structures, the organization of our stories. Do you consider audience at every turn?

For fun, go to Up-Goer Five and try to write something only using the Ten Hundred most common English words. How does this compare to your usual writing? How should it compare?

Of course, even when writing picture books you don’t have to worry about vocabulary level because these books are usually read by an adult to a kid. However, you do need to make sure the adult will understand the book. Also, many unfamiliar words can be understood in context.

Vocabulary Level. Make sure your vocabulary levels will be understood by the reader. For unfamiliar words, create a strong context, or define it in the text.

Dialect or Diction. THE HELP was written in dialect and it almost turned me off from reading it. It wasn’t the topic or the events, just how it was told. It’s also part of the charm of the story.

Insult or Bless. Remember, too, that your words have the power to tear down or build up. Yes, in fiction, there are awful conflicts that must be expressed honestly. Yes, characters tear each other down. But overall, does your story end in a note of hope? Does good triumph over evil? I know there are dark stories without hope, without success. But they aren’t the type of stories I want to write. My stories end with hope.

Too Intellectual? When I write fiction, I use the words that are appropriate for my story, words that convey exactly what I mean. And yet, I also know that I tend to be a bit too much in love with my words. Sometimes, I will replace words–for my audience’s sake.

What do you do for your audience’s sake? What are you assuming they will know that will make your communication fail?

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Today, I'd like to follow-up on Mary Ann's response to an Ask the TeachingAuthors question submitted by Pam. Pam asked: "In MG and YA novels, do you ever use diction from other cultures or parts of the country in your characterizations? Or do you focus more on a character's actions, behavior and gestures to define them?"

When writing my middle-grade novel, Rosa, Sola, I had the challenge of trying to portray the speech of recent Italian immigrants. Members of my own immigrant family speak with heavy accents and often intersperse Italian words, or Anglicized Italian, with English. If I tried to reproduce such speech in my novel, readers would have a difficult time deciphering it. As Mary Ann pointed out in her post, such dialogue "can be murder to read."

Instead, I used several techniques to portray my immigrant characters' speech:

1. I occasionally interspersed relatively easy-to-pronounce Italian words with English, structuring the dialogue and conversation so that those words could be understood in context.
2. As much as possible, I used cognates of English words to make it easier for readers to guess a foreign word's meaning.
3. For the characters with the heaviest accents, I tried to keep their sentences short. I also structured their speech in nonstandard ways.
   
4. I included a glossary of the Italian words and phrases that appeared in the text.
   

For example, here's how I handled the first occurrence of the word sola:

Mrs. Morelli returned before AnnaMaria did. "I'm sorry, Rosa." She took the baby from Rosa. "AnnaMaria should not have left you sola."

"But I wasn't alone." Rosa smiled up at Mrs. Morelli. "Antonio was with me."

Because many readers are familiar with the word "solo," they might guess that sola means alone. But even if they didn't, they could surmise the meaning from Rosa's response. Similarly, for the title of this post, I'm hoping you guessed that patate means potatoes. Initially, I'd planned to say "Please pass the piselli," but I chose patate because the word looks more like "potatoes" than piselli does "peas."

Like Mary Ann, I also had to be careful regarding the historical accuracy of my dialogue because Rosa, Sola is set in the 1960s. The online etymology dictionary is a great resource to help insure historical accuracy. For example, if you look up the word "groovy," you'll learn:

As teen slang for "wonderful," it dates from 1944; popularized 1960s, out of currency by 1980.

My current work-in-progress, a young-adult novel set in 18th-century Milan, presents even greater challenges when it comes to dialogue. Unlike the characters in Rosa, Sola who speak a mixture of Italian and English, my Milanese characters speak only Italian. Therefore, it really isn't appropriate to intersperse Italian words in their dialogue. While I have read books that do, I try to avoid it. For example, to me, it doesn't make sense to write:

Luigi said, "Please pass the patate."

when, technically, it should be:

Luigi said, "Passami le patate per favore."

So in my novel set in Milan, the only time I have Italian dialogue is in complete (very short) sentences, such as:

When Maria passed him the potatoes, Luigi said, "Grazie."

I still use Italian words in the narrative at times, to help remind readers of the setting, but I avoid mixing them with English in the dialogue.

I hope this discussion has satisfactorily addressed Pam's questions. If we haven't answered your Ask the TeachingAuthors question yet, please be patient. We plan to tackle our backlog in September. Meanwhile, we hope you'll use the link in the sidebar to keep those questions coming!

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Today's Reader Question is one that I address nearly every day in my writing.

In MG and YA novels, do you ever use diction from other cultures or parts of the country in your characterizations? Or do you focus more on a character's actions, behavior and gestures to define them?

Great question! And my answer is....it depends!

My novels (so far) have taken place in very specific places and times (Jackson, Mississippi, 1964-65 and Pittsburgh, 1943-44). Because the setting in these books (Yankee Girl and Jimmy's Stars) has the same weight and importance as my main characters, to ignore how characters sound style: is a lost opportunity to add another dimension not only to the characters, but to the entire story as well.

The way people talk has always been a big issue in my own life. I moved to the South from the Midwest when I was ten, and to this day, whenever I open my mouth, native Southerners say "You're not from around here, are you?" Most of my cousins are Pittsburgh-born and raised. When we talk, I note the difference in their sentence structure, and the local expressions that pepper their conversation. Pittsburghers are so proud of their unique vocabulary, it has been officially dubbed "Pittsburgh-ese", complete with dictionaries, websites and cultural studies.

In a mobile society that has been made ever smaller by TV and the Internet, Americans are losing their geographical and cultural speech patterns. We are beginning to all sound alike, with a homogenized "standard Broadcast American Speech" *sd they called in Speech Class) I think it's sad. We lose something of our roots in the disappearance of "local color" in our language.

So to answer the question, I often use speech as an component equal to action and gesture in developing a multi-dimensional character and to add depth to my fictional word. HOWEVER...

Pure dialect or dialog written entirely using regional expressions can be murder to read. Maybe it's just me, but looking at a page that thick with apostrophes substituting for all the dropped "g's" in an attempt to "sound Southern," makes my eyes hurt. (If you don't believe me, find an old edition of anything by Joel Chandler Harris.) If you don't have an issue with your vision, then try reading the page out loud. For me, anything that I can't read aloud smoothly, is not great writing. If I have to re-read a dialect-laden sentence over and over to puzzle out what the heck the writer is trying to say...well, that's a sign of dialect overkill. Using dialect correctly is a tightrope act. Too little of it, and it calls attention to itself, which of course, takes the reader of the fictional world you have worked so hard to create. Too much of it, and it's like someone dumped a bottle of Tabasco sauce on your meatloaf. A little brings out the flavor; too much, and your dinner is simply inedible.

The trick to using dialect and local speech is a light hand in places where the meaning can be understood in context. It's aeasy to fall into a trap of stereotypical speech. All Southerners don't sound alike, just as all Midwesterners or New Yorkers don't sound alike. Listen to your character. Let your character talk to you in his own voice. I find this easy, because I have never attempted a speech style that I haven't heard first hand. I never drop "g's" or the initial sounds of a word to "sound Southern." I prefer to use expressions like "we're fixing to go" or "what're you so ill about?"(Translation: We are about to leave, and why are you in a bad mood). I handled the Pittsburghese in Jimmy;s Starsby using my mother, who left Pittsburgh in 1943, as a model. If the terms "slippy," "lift supper" and "redd up" had remained in her speech after all these years, they must be central to Pittsburghese, and fairly easy for the outsider to comprehend in context. (Translation: slippery, put a meal on the table, and to clean up a room)

Sometimes speech has more to do with the age and social class of a character. I have a pet peeve of indicating the age of a young character by using the words "gonna," "gotta" and "wanna". (In fact, when I teach Young Writers classes, some of my students are surprised to find out that these are not actual words!) If I use each one of those words once in a book, I feel that I have taken a short cut by resorting to the stereotypical "mush-mouth" teenspeek There are other ways to accomplish the same effect. Kids don't talk in complete sentences. They use contractions. They sometimes use incorrect grammar. They run words together. They talk in Text Speak. Ok, I made up the term, but some of my fifteen-year-old's friends do say things like "You're my BFF" or "OMG, OMG" (and if you don't know what those mean, you need to eavesdrop on kids more often!) Again, all kids don't sound alike. Let your character be your guide.

My last point has to do with the use of historically accurate terms. Or, if you don't write historical fiction, allowing your contemporary characters use outdated or archaic expressions. Like from when we grew up. You know what I mean? Like groovy? Can you dig? (Hopefully your mental ears are hurting by now as I "laid my best 60's jive on you.") If you DO write historical fiction, you have to be aware that some commonly used words today had an entirely different meaning fifty, thirty, even ten years ago. Believe it or not, there was a time when there were no "nerds." When I was in junior high (oops middle school), ners were "goobs" or "social mistfits" and several less politically correct terms. Yes, sometimes I douse politically incorrect words, but only if absolutely essential to the story and character, and never, if there is an acceptable equivalent...like "goobs." In Jimmy's Stars"goobs" were "sad apples", "wet blankets" or "drips." Again, who says this, and in what context, should make the meaning apparent to the reader.

To sum up (finally!!), in using dialect and expressions, less is more. More is...too much of a good thing. Easy with the Tabasco.

THIS WEEK'S READING. I've been slacking a little since school has started here (always a trauma at my house.) But here is what I've managed to digest between High School Emergencies:

CHAPTER BOOK: For the Durationby Tomie DePaolaNi
MG/YA: Night Firesby George Edward Stanley
MG/YA CONTEMPORARY: Slobby Ellen Potter
YA FICTION: Afterby Amy Efaw, Jumping Off Swingsby Jo Knowles, Donut Daysby Lara Zielin
YA NON FICTION: Years of Dustby Albert Marrin
ADULT MEMOIR: The Slippery Yearby Melanie Gideon.

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I'm old. I graduated in 1977. Which is why I got emailed this by someone I went to high school with. As far as I can tell, because everyone is posting this, I think this was the original entry.

Be warned: once you click on the link, your eyes may never be the same.

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