The vocabulary of door sounds

You’re watching a film at home. It’s not your first language but you’re picking up most of the dialogue and you’re following the plot.

You stroke the mouse down to the corner of the screen. You probably don’t need them, but even so, you click on closed captions.

With that click the world expands. All the noises made by objects in the film, all the sounds that are not spoken dialogue, are now pushed to the front of the screen. Each sound is hitched to its appropriate verb.

Most of these are verbs you've not had the opportunity to learn and certainly never to use. Doors have a particularly wide vocabulary. You recognise the phrase PORTA FECHA (meaning DOOR CLOSES) but PORTA RANGE only makes sense when you hear the creaking sound that coincides, more or less, with the words on screen.

PORTA APITA is even better because the verb apitar translates as beep in this context, but in other contexts translates as whistle. The assemblage of sounds that apitar takes responsibility for in Portuguese is different to the assemblage looked after by beep in English and the point where these two assemblages overlap is the door at the fictional service station as a customer enters.

With thanks to the RTP series Emília, directed by Filipa Amaro and starring Beatriz Maia and Catarina Rebelo.

Comments

Phatic rhythm

My boss likes to talk. He doesn’t need an interlocutor, he needs an audience. As there’s not much call to respond during these daily discourses it’s possible to pay attention to how he structures his speech. Linguistics uses the term phatic communication to describe speech that has a social function rather than an informative one. The Open University describes phatic openings to conversations as an ‘invaluable means of establishing relations before getting down to the real purpose of the encounter’. Here are some of the phatic openings that my boss and other colleagues use (I live in Portugal so these phrases are in Portuguese; I've put an approximate translation in brackets after each one): Eh pá (Hey), Pá (Hey), Olha (Look), Ora bem (Well then), Pronto (Ready), É assim (It’s like this). These are often the first thing uttered during an exchange. They request the other person’s attention and signal that things are ready to roll. They mean Please listen to me; I have somethi...

A casa assombrada / The haunted house

Tenho tentado perceber o site das Finanças. É desconcertante. Há tantos pormenores e a organização é tão difícil de adivinhar. Enquanto estou a desenvolver o meu trabalho de edição e revisão, tenho alguns trabalhos precários e mal pagos. Mais recentemente, comecei a trabalhar numa empresa de aluguer de bicicletas. A minha chefe na loja de bicicletas lembrou-me que na Finanças tem listas aprovadas de profissões e actividades. Disse-me que ‘operador de loja’ está na lista e que seria o mais adequado para o que estou a fazer. Olhei pelo início de uma lista no website das Finanças: agricultor, apicultor, bibliotecário, biólogo, bancário, barista, chefe de cozinha, contabilista, cunicultor . A pessoa ou as pessoas que creiam nestas listas parecem ter tentado preencher o alfabeto: nenhuma letra deve estar isenta de pelo menos uma profissão ou atividade. Com esta teoria para avaliar, a procura na lista por operador de loja ou qualquer primo dele, tornou-se mais divertida. Fui direto à letra ...

O Nome Certo / Perfect Pet Names (português / English)

// Sem que saiba as palavras que estão adequada para nomes de animais de estimação, não pode dizer que domina a língua. Trata-se de um domínio especializado das competências linguísticas em que o som, o sentido e a moda são combinados numa palavra só. Em baixo está a lista dos nomes escolhidos por pessoas cuja língua materna é o português. O asterisco significa que conheço mais do que um animal de estimação com esse nome. // Can you say you’ve mastered a language if you don’t know which words work as pet names? The naming of pets is a narrow field of language where sound and sense and fashion fuse in a single word. Below is list of the pet names picked by people whose first language is Portuguese. Where the name has a more common meaning the translation is in brackets. The asterix means I know of more than one pet with this name. Cães / Dogs Pipoca* (popcorn) Zai Tiky Malu Kika Kuri Suki Rosie Rex Vitória Noori Gatos / Cats Estrela (star) Biscoito (bi...

Living not at home

Search This Blog