Context Is Everything

There are many translation engines on the web. You can input a phrase from any language and get a translation into any language. As long as the context of the phrase is not important, the translation will probably be ok. However, human language is not so simple. Computers cannot handle context and it would take a highly sophisticated software program that is capable of changing and learning to be able to handle context. Input the Japanese phrase "Watashi wa pai desu" and you get "I am a pie." This is a literal translation that does not take context into account. It would be an accidentally correct translation were the speaker playing the role of a pie in a play, but that is a rare context. The mostly likely context is ordering pie in a restaurant, i.e., "As for me, I'll have pie." All of us Worthams know a second language (a fact that I am very proud of), and we can all probably think of similar things in our respective second language (as well as English, for that matter).

However, context is not limited to single phrases. It applies to all forms of language and very likely to other forms of human behavior. The recent brouhaha over Shirley Sherrod is a good example. Ms. Sherrod talked about not giving her best efforts to a white farmer at time well before her career at the USDA. The video clip was thrown out on the Internet by a conservative blogger, and absolutely everyone took the bait, including news organizations, the USDA who fired Ms. Sherrod, the White House who pressure the USDA to do so, and the NAACP who denounced her. Later it was revealed that in the greater context of her speech, she was talking about her path to change away of racist sentiments. Now all of the above parties were eating crow, apologizing, and generally slinking away. As far as I know, the conservative blogger has not apologized, but the video had its intended effect, that is, to bait the NAACP because of its false accusations that the Tea Party is racist, and the NAACP bit hard on the bait.

The following may be a bit partisan, but this is exactly the kind of thing conservatives constantly suffer with. MoveOn.org, Media Matters, and often the MSM in general take conservatives out of context and beat them over the head with out-of-context statements. "Context for we, but not for thee" is the rule of the day for such organizations.

Context also applies to history. Mormons are often the butt of polygamy jokes, which grossly misconstrues the context of the time. Joseph Smith statements are listed line by line in anti-Mormon literature, all without context of language as well as the time period in which the statements were made. Photo-shopping and video-shopping are also types of context switching, i.e., insert a innocuous photo of a person into another photo to put the person in a different and often damning context. With new technology, video-shopping is a new danger. Watch out for it in upcoming elections and issues.

Post Script: Another idea occurred to me this morning. If a person followed me around with a camera and took pictures at inopportune times, I could be portrayed as as an pot-bellied beer drinker. I have on numerous occasions had a bottle of beer in my hand.
Snapshot: Alan is pouring himself a beer!
Context: It is customary for the Japanese to poor each others drink. So my beer-drinking friend would pour my orange juice and I would pour his beer.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I reached into the refrigerator and grabbed a beer.
Snapshot: Alan has beer in his refrigerator and there is a strange woman in his kitchen! He is a beer-drinking womanizer!
Context: Yumi had some friends visit from Japan, and they like to have a beer before they go to bed. Hence the beer and the woman.
So photo-shopping may not be required. An accurate photograph can be misused.