Tapescript section 3

Romeo and Juliet

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ED: Did you make notes while you were watching the performances of Romeo and Juliet,
Gemma?

GEMMA : Yes, I did. I found it quite hard though.

GEMMA : I kept getting too involved in the play.

ED: Me too. I ended up not taking notes.

ED: I wrote down my impressions when I got home.

ED: Do you mind if I check a few things with you?

ED: In case I've missed anything.

ED: And I've also got some questions about our assignment.

GEMMA : No, it's good to talk things through.

GEMMA : I may have missed things too.

ED: OK great. So first of all, I'm not sure how much information we should include in our reviews.

GEMMA : Right. Well, I don't think we need to describe what happens.

GEMMA : Especially as Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's most well-known plays.

ED: Yeah, everyone knows the story.

ED: In an essay we'd focus on the poetry and Shakespeare's use of imagery etc., but that isn't
really relevant in a review.

ED: We're supposed to focus on how effective this particular production is.

GEMMA : Mmm. We should say what made it a success or a failure.

ED: And part of that means talking about the emotional impact the performance had on us.

ED: I think that's important.

GEMMA : Yes. And we should definitely mention how well the director handled important bits of the
 play-like when Romeo climbs onto Juliet's balcony.

ED: And the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt.

GEMMA : Yes. It would also be interesting to mention the theatre space and how the director used it
but I don't think we'll have space in 800 words.

ED: No. OK. That all sounds quite straightforward.

ED: So what about The Emporium Theatre's production of the play?

GEMMA : I thought some things worked really well but there were some problems too.

ED: Yeah. What about the set, for example?

GEMMA : I think it was visually really stunning.

GEMMA : I'd say that was probably the most memorable thing about this production.

ED: You're right.

ED: The set design was really amazing, but actually I have seen similar ideas used in other
productions.

GEMMA : What about the lighting?

GEMMA : Some of the scenes were so dimly lit it was quite hard to see.

ED: I didn't dislike it.

ED: It helped to change the mood of the quieter scenes.

GEMMA : That's a good point.

ED: What did you think of the costumes?

GEMMA : I was a bit surprised by the contemporary dress, I must say.

ED: Yeah - I think it worked well, but I had assumed it would be more conventional.

GEMMA : Me too. I liked the music at the beginning and I thought the musicians were brilliant, but I
thought they were wasted because the music didn't have much impact in Acts 2 and 3.

ED: Yes - that was a shame.

GEMMA : One problem with this production was that the actors didn't deliver the lines that well.

GEMMA : They were speaking too fast.

ED: It was a problem I agree, but I thought it was because they weren't speaking loudly enough -
especially at key points in the play.
GEMMA : I actually didn't have a problem with that.

ED: It's been an interesting experience watching different versions of Romeo and Juliet, hasn't
it?

GEMMA : Definitely. It's made me realise how relevant the play still is.

ED: Right. I mean a lot's changed since Shakespeare's time, but in many ways nothing's
changed.

ED: There are always disagreements and tension between teenagers and their parents.

GEMMA : Yes, that's something all young people can relate to - more than the violence and the
extreme emotions in the play.

ED: How did you find watching it in translation?

GEMMA : Really interesting.

GEMMA : I expected to find it more challenging, but I could follow the story pretty well.

ED: I stopped worrying about not being able to understand all the words and focused on the
actors' expressions.

ED: The ending was pretty powerful.

GEMMA : Yes. That somehow intensified the emotion for me.

ED: Did you know Shakespeare's been translated into more languages than any other writer?

GEMMA : What's the reason for his international appeal, do you think?

ED: I was reading that it's because his plays are about basic themes that people everywhere are
familiar with.

GEMMA : Yeah, and they can also be understood on different levels.

GEMMA : The characters have such depth.

ED: Right - which allows directors to experiment and find new angles.

GEMMA : That's really important because ...

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Right, everyone, let's make a start.

Over the past few sessions, we've been considering the reasons why some world languages are in
decline, and today I'm going to introduce another factor that affects languages, and the speakers of those
languages, and that's technology and, in particular, digital technology.

In order to illustrate its effect, I'm going to focus on the Icelandic language, which is spoken by around
321,000 people, most of whom live in Iceland - an island in the North Atlantic Ocean.

The problem for this language is not the number of speakers - even though this number is small.

Nor is it about losing words to other languages, such as English.

In fact, the vocabulary of Icelandic is continually increasing because when speakers need a new word for
something, they tend to create one, rather than borrowing from another language.

All this makes Icelandic quite a special language - it's changed very little in the past millennium, yet it can
handle twenty-first-century concepts related to the use of computers and digital technology.

Take, for example, the word for web browser ... this is vafri in Icelandic, which comes from the verb 'to
wander'.

I can't think of a more appropriate term because that's exactly what you do mentally when you browse the
internet.

Then there's an Icelandic word for podcast - which is too hard to pronounce!

And so on. Icelandic, then, is alive and growing, but - and it's a big but-young Icelanders spend a great
deal of time in the digital world and this world is predominantly English.

Think about smartphones.

They didn't even exist until comparatively recently, but today young people use them all the time to read
books, watch TV or films, play games, listen to music, and so on.

Obviously, this is a good thing in many respects because it promotes their bilingual skills, but the extent of
the influence of English in the virtual world is staggering and it's all happening really fast.

For their parents and grandparents, the change is less concerning because they already have their native
speaker skills in Icelandic.
But for young speakers - well, the outcome is a little troubling.

For example, teachers have found that playground conversations in Icelandic secondary schools can be
conducted entirely in English, while teachers of much younger children have reported situations where
their classes find it easier to say what is in a picture using English, rather than Icelandic.

The very real and worrying consequence of all this is that the young generation in Iceland is at risk of
losing its mother tongue.

Of course, this is happening to other European languages too, but while internet companies might be
willing to offer, say, French options in their systems, it's much harder for them to justify the expense of
doing the same for a language that has a population the size of a French town, such as Nice.

The other drawback of Icelandic is the grammar, which is significantly more complex than in most
languages.

At the moment, the tech giants are simply not interested in tackling this.

So, what is the Icelandic government doing about this?

Well, large sums of money are being allocated to a language technology fund that it is hoped will lead to
the development of Icelandic sourced apps and other social media and digital systems, but clearly this is
going to be an uphill struggle.

On the positive side, they know that Icelandic is still the official language of education and government.

It has survived for well over a thousand years and the experts predict that its future in this nation state is
sound and will continue to be so.

However, there's no doubt that it's becoming an inevitable second choice in young people's lives.

This raises important questions.

When you consider how much of the past is tied up in a language, will young Icelanders lose their sense of
their own identity?

Another issue that concerns the government of Iceland is this.

If children are learning two languages through different routes, neither of which they are fully fluent in, will
they be able to express themselves properly?