Author: Orlando Garcia

We would like to thank everyone who participated in this contest that asks undergraduates to name a word they consider to be untranslatable and to explore the linguistic, cultural, social, and affective reasons for its untranslatability. We received many thoughtful submissions from a wide array of languages that demonstrated an extraordinary breadth of linguistic and…

Conference notes - Language and AI: Generating Interdisciplinary Connections and Possibilities at Berkeley Bill Allison, February 28, 2024 The Berkeley Language Center and the Language and AI working group at the Townsend Center for the Humanities held a conference this week-- Language and AI: Generating Interdisciplinary Connections and Possibilities. Organized around three pillars (research, industry, and theory) with academic…

We are pleased to announce the Korean Literature Essay Contest, organized by the Korean Language Program within the East Asian Languages and Cultures department and supported by the Center for Korean Studies. This contest is open exclusively to attending undergraduate and graduate students at UC Berkeley who are interested in Korea and Korean literature. The featured book…

It is with great sadness that the BLC announces the passing of John Wuorenmaa on January 11, 2024. John has been a part of the BLC since its founding, assuming his current position in 1996.  Throughout the subsequent 28 years, the BLC underwent substantial transformations, from analog to digital technologies, and John’s responsibilities morphed and…

Spring 2024 BLC Fellows ForumInstructional Development Research Projects Untranslatability and Transposition: Enhancing Italian Language Learning Through the Challenges of Translation Cristina Farronato, Lecturer, Italian StudiesThis presentation will focus on the importance of the role of translation in the language classroom. It will show how in today’s multilingual classes instructors can use translation activities to break…

This year marks 10 years of Words in Action, a multilingual student performance directed by Italian instructor and Distinguished Teaching Award recipient Annamaria Bellezza and sponsored by the Berkeley Language Center. Join the BLC for a community-building event to celebrate this wonderful event and language/culture learning at Berkeley. This event is for ALL UC Berkeley…

Come and celebrate an afternoon of linguistic diversity as UC Berkeley students perform scenes, songs, and poems with the participation of their respective language lecturers: ARABIC (Amel Belguith, Nathalie Khankan), ARMENIAN (Myrna Douzjian), CANTONESE (Chi Leung Chan), CATALAN (Ana Belen Redondo Campillos), CHINESE (FEI TIAN Dancers), FILIPINO, FRENCH (Rachel Shuh), GERMAN (Nikolaus Euba), ITALIAN (Annamaria Bellezza, Cristina Farronato), HINDU (Nora Koa Melnikova), JAPANESE (Yuriko Miyamoto Caltabiano), KOREAN (Ina Choi), PERSIAN (Fateme…

Sparking the Imagination: Creative Connectivity and Emotional Investment in Language Learning There has been an extraordinary rise of interest in the use of ‘emotion’ and ‘creativity’ as leitmotivs in language learning research and teaching. I begin this talk by briefly reviewing some developments of these terms in language education scholarship (including two recent special issues…

Supporting Language Learning for Neurodiverse Students in Classroom Settings The concept of neurodiversity views individual variability along cognitive and neurological dimensions as integral to how people experience and interact with the world around them. Neurodiverse language learners can face several challenges in instructed language learning and assessment contexts, most of which could be alleviated if…