What's Your Sign for Pizza?: An Introduction to Variation in American Sign Language
By Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, Clayton Valli
* Publisher:Gallaudet University Press
* Number Of Pages:200
* Publication Date:2003-10-06
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1563681447
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781563681448
Product Description:
This introductory text celebrates another dimension of diversity in the United States Deaf community——variation in the way American Sign Language (ASL) is used by Deaf people all across the nation. The different ways people have of saying or signing the same thing defines variation in language. In spoken English, some people say "soda," others say "pop," "coke," or "soft drink;" in ASL, there are many signs for BIRTHDAY, HALLOWEEN, EARLY, and of course, PIZZA.
"What's Your Sign for PIZZA" derives from an extensive seven-year research project in which more than 200 Deaf ASL users representing different ages, genders and ethnic groups from seven different regions were videotaped sharing their signs for everyday vocabulary. This useful text and its accompanying CD begins with an explanation of the basic concepts of language and the structure of sign language, since sign variation abides by the rules governing all human languages. Each part of the text concludes with questions for discussion, and the final section offers three supplemental readings that provide further information on variation in both spoken and signed languages. "What's Your Sign for PIZZA" also briefly sketches the development of ASL, which explains the relationships between language varieties throughout the country.
Corpus Analysis: Language Structure and Language Use (Language and Computers 46) (Language & Computers)
By Charles F. Meyer, Pepi Leistyna
* Publisher:Rodopi
* Number Of Pages:294
* Publication Date:2003-08-13
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:9042010363
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9789042010369
Product Description:
The papers published in this volume were originally presented at the Third North American Symposium on Corpus Linguistics and Language Teaching held on 23-25 March 2001 at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. Each paper analyses some aspect of language use or structure in one or more of the many linguistic corpora now available. The number of different corpora investigated in the book is a real testament to the progress that has been made in recent years in developing new corpora, particularly spoken corpora, as over half of the papers deal either wholly or partially with the analysis of spoken data. This book will be of particular interest to undergraduate and graduate students and scholars interested in corpus, socio and applied linguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, and language teaching.
Beyond Yellow English: Toward a Linguistic Anthropology of Asian Pacific America (Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics)
By Angela Reyes, Adrienne Lo
* Publisher:Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages:424
* Publication Date:2008-12-31
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0195327357
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780195327359
Product Description:
Beyond Yellow English is the first edited volume to examine issues of language, identity, and culture among the rapidly growing Asian Pacific American (APA) population. The distinguished contributors-who represent a broad range of perspectives from anthropology, sociolinguistics, English, and education-focus on the analysis of spoken interaction and explore multiple facets of the APA experience. Authors cover topics such as media representations of APAs; codeswitching and language crossing; and narratives of ethnic identity. The collection examines the experiences of Asian Pacific Americans of different ethnicities, generations, ages, and geographic locations across home, school, community, and performance sites.
Emotion in Dialogic Interaction: Advances in the Complex (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory)
By Edda Weigand, EUROPEAN SCIENCE FOUNDATION EXPLORATORY
* Publisher:John Benjamin Pub.
* Number Of Pages:297
* Publication Date:2004-04
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:158811497X
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588114976
Foreword
This volume contains a selection of papers given at the European Science Foundation
Exploratory Workshop on “Emotion in Dialogic Interaction: Advances
in the complex” held at the University of Münster in October 2002. Wellknown
experts in the field were invited from different European countries
(Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, Sweden)
and from abroad (Canada, Israel). An interdisciplinary approach which
goes beyond academic boundaries was guaranteed by combining different linguistic
disciplines such as descriptive and historical comparative linguistics,
general linguistics, linguistics of different languages and related disciplines such
as psychology and philosophy.
In the literature, the complex network of ‘emotion in dialogic interaction’
is mostly addressed by reducing the complex and isolating individual aspects
which are analysed from a specific, for instance, psychological perspective. The
innovative claim of the workshop was to analyse emotion as an integrative component
of human behaviour in dialogic interaction as demonstrated by recent
findings in neurology. Human beings are purposeful beings, and they try to
negotiate their positions in dialogic interaction. They cannot separate their
abilities such as speaking, thinking, and perceiving, and they are inevitably influenced
by emotions. The challenge of the workshop therefore was to address
the complex on the basis of a model which is able to deal with the complex,
such as the model of the Dialogic Action Game. Approaches which separate
emotions or those which define emotions by means of simple artificial units
were, as a result, not taken into account.
Human behaviour is in part culturally dependent. In this respect, the focus
was on identifying a specifically European way of expressing emotions
and dealing with them in dialogue. The issue of identifying ‘Europeanness’
necessitates comparing different languages and cultures insofar as it is the
diversity of cultures and languages which makes up the general concept of
Western culture.
The workshop was structured according to three thematic parts which
form the structure of the present volume. Part I deals with the theoretical
issue of “Addressing the Complex”. My own paper on “Emotions: The simple
and the complex” highlights the modern view of addressing the complex
object of dialogic interaction by starting from the natural object-of-study
and deriving an appropriate model from it. The model of the Dialogic Action
Game sets up a new paradigm which is not restricted to rules but based
on principles of probability. The focus is on human beings acting and reacting
in complex ever-changing surroundings on the basis of their abilities.
The minimal communicatively autonomous unit is considered to be the
cultural unit of the Dialogic Action Game which integratively comprehends
the essential components of interaction such as language, perception, cognition,
and emotion, and includes variables of different kinds which influence
human behaviour, among them cultural conditions. The key concept
for opening up the complex of human behaviour is considered to be specific
interests, in the end survival needs, and communicative, i.e. interactive
or dialogic purposes.
The papers by František Daneš on “Universality versus Culture-Specificity
of Emotions” and Sveˇtla Cˇmejrková on “Emotions in Language and Communication”
share this view of emotions as complex integrated phenomena
and focus on specific cultural dependencies. Carla Bazzanella in her paper
on “Emotions, Language, and Context” addresses the complex dependency
of emotions on contextual, especially cultural variables. John E. Joseph in his
paper on “Body, Passions and Race in Classical Theories of Language and Emotion”
outlines the historical background from a comparative point of view and
emphasizes the interrelationship between language, body and culture.
Part II focuses on “Communicative Means for Expressing Emotions”. True
to the integrating point of view the verbal means were not isolated, for instance,
as single words but analysed as means-in-use, words or grammatical
categories within the utterance, or the whole utterance as means for a
speech act. Karin Aijmer, in her paper on “Interjections in a Contrastive
Perspective”, analyses minimal verbal units such as interjections as expressions
for complex functions in different languages. Wolfgang Teubert poses
the question “When Did We Start Feeling Guilty?” and deals with the specific
emotion of ‘guilt’ from a corpus-linguistic and discourse-analytic point
of view. A corpus-based comparative analysis of the vocabulary of “Joy, Astonishment
and Fear in English, German and Russian” is given by Valerij
Dem’jankov and his group. Maxim Stamenov, in his paper on “Ambivalence
as a Dialogic Frame of Emotions in Conflict”, deals with ambivalent emotions
in intercultural communication with reference to Turkish loanwords in
Bulgarian.
Part III is devoted to “Emotional Principles in Dialogue”, i.e. cognitive
means and the issue of how emotions influence the sequence of dialogue without
being explicitly expressed.Michael Walrod emphasizes cultural differences
in expressing emotions and, in particular, deals with “the role of emotions in
normative discourse” among the Ga’dang people of the Philippine. In this way,
the difference between European and non-European cultures is highlighted.
The paper by J鰎n Bollow on “Anticipation of Public Emotions in TV Debates”
aims at emotional strategies in political media dialogues. Elda Weizman and
Tamar Sovran interpret “Emotions in Literary Dialogue”, and Christian Plantin
addresses the “strategic use of emotion in argumentation” by focusing on “The
Inseparability of Emotion and Reason”.
Even if the workshop had a clear theoretical conception and was structured
according to thematic guidelines, it goes without saying that not all
papers completely follow the same lines. In a vivid exchange of opinions, many
proposals and evaluations are brought forward. In general, however, the position
of addressing the complex and of describing it by means of an open
model such as the model of the Dialogic Action Game has been approved
and accepted.
Concerning the issue of ‘Europeanness’ the starting assumption has been
confirmed, namely that Europeanness is characterized by internal cultural diversity
and that some sort of unity becomes evident only from outside. The
general view of European identity as emerging from diversity gains more
concrete profile. European identity however is only partly grasped by a view
which looks at existing attitudes and features. As a great step forward it has
to be created, not only politically but also by decisions in other areas, for
instance, in the area of European law or management. As a result of the
discussions it can be considered necessary to create and develop a joint European
interest. The importance of interests which underlie all human behaviour
is a crucial feature of the model of the Dialogic Action Game. They
should be highlighted as a point of orientation for future research on human
behaviour.
Finally, there remains the pleasant duty to thank all those who helped to
make the workshop and the publication of the papers possible: first of all, the
European Science Foundation which accepted and supported the project as an
Exploratory Workshop. Additional financial support was generously provided
by the Westf鋖ische Wilhelms-Universit鋞 Münster and the “Gesellschaft zur
F鰎derung derWestf鋖ischenWilhelms-Universit鋞 zuMünster e.V.”.Moreover,
I would like to extend cordial thanks to J鰎n Bollow, the assistant coordinator,
and to a group of students, among them Stefanie Schn鰎ing, Andreas
Kurschat, Didem 謟an, and Jana K鯿hling. I am especially grateful to Stefanie
Schn鰎ing and J鰎n Bollow who formatted the papers and produced a unified
volume. Last but not least I would like to express my thanks to E.F.K.
Koerner and John Benjamins Publishing Company for accepting the volume
for publication.
Münster,March 2004 EddaWeigand
Inference And Anticipation In Simultaneous Interpreting: A Probability-prediction Model (Benjamins Translation Library)
By G. V. Chernov, Robin Setton, Adelina Hild
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:299
* Publication Date:2004-12-31
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1588115836
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588115836
Foreword
Since 1987, when my Introduction to Simultaneous Interpreting was published
in Russian, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge as well as many an
empirical study of simultaneous interpretation. Why then have I decided to
publish in English now? One reason is that this work remains largely unknown
to most readers, to whom Russian is as inaccessible as the proverbial Greek.
But there were other considerations (for which I must also thank Robin Setton
whose work in part inspired them).
The Nuremberg Trial in 1945–1946 marked the beginning of simultaneous
interpretation, a new professional activity. The first research publication to
inquire into SI appeared barely ten years later (Paneth 1957) and has been
followed by numerous articles, books and dissertations, published mostly in
Europe (including Russia). Today, forty years after the birth of the profession,
and 30-odd years after research in simultaneous interpretation began, it is time
to ask ourselves where we go from here. Should we scrap whatever has been
done so far and start again from scratch in view of new scientific developments?
Or should we take stock and evaluate what has been achieved and try to outline
new directions of research in this rather unusual human activity?
By the nineteen-sixties, aided by the advent of the multichannel tape
recorder, research was being published by several psychologists and professional
interpreters, some of whom were also theoretical linguists (Henri C.
Barik in Canada in 1971; David Gerver in the United Kingdom in 1974;
Irina Zimnyaya & Ghelly Chernov in 1970; Anatoly Shiryaev in 1971, Ghelly
Chernov in 1978; Danica Seleskovitch, Marianne Lederer, & the Paris-based
école du sens). 1978 saw the publication of papers from the interdisciplinary
seminar in Venice organised by D. Gerver (Gerver & Sinaiko 1978), which
contained a wealth of ideas on SI.
From the late 1980s, the regular publication of The Interpreters’ Newsletter
by the Higher School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators
at the University of Trieste acted as a vehicle for a new wave of research
projects, and further collections followed (Gran & Dodds 1989; Gran & Taylor
1990), most significant among them being neurophysiological studies. Among
important recent publications we find also the collective monograph Bridging
the Gap: Empirical Research in Simultaneous Interpretation (Lambert & Moser-
Mercer 1994), the three volumes of Teaching Translation and Interpreting
(Dollerup et al. 1992, 1994, 1996), several papers by D. Gile and S. Viaggio, and
work originating in countries like Finland (Universities of Kouvola, Joensuu,
and others) or the Czech Republic (I. ˇCenkova at Charles University in Prague)
among others.
This literature has offered a wealth of ideas and suggestions, and in just
a few cases, comprehensive models, notably an information processing model
by Massaro-Gerver-Moser (Massaro 1978; Gerver 1977; Moser 1978), the socalled
Theory of Sense expounded in detail by D. Seleskovitch and M. Lederer
(Seleskovitch 1968, 1978; Lederer 1981), Laura Bertone’s Speech Act Model
(Bertone 1989), and Robin Setton’s Cognitive-PragmaticModel (Setton 1999).
Although it has been claimed that not enough facts about SI have been
firmly established and that substantial additional banks of data and facts on SI
are necessary, some facts were firmly established at the initial stage of research
in SI and are now taken as axioms (or, to be more exact, a general agreement
was reached on their validity): (a) that there is indeed simultaneity of SL
message perception (listening) and TL speech production; (b) that interpreters
deal with sense (discourse, text) and not words (‘...interpreting [...] involves
complex and difficult mental operations that require much more than mastery
of linguistic skills in the relevant working languages’ (Gile 1993: 136)); and (c)
that SI activity falls within the framework of both interlingual and intercultural
communication.
Recently there have been calls for the collection of more verifiable facts
about SI and efforts to get beyond the deficiencies of the ‘personal theorising’
(PT) phase of research in SI. The suggestion is that ‘Interpretation Research
and Theory’ (IRT) should replace the PT paradigm (Gile 1990: 28–41).
How is scientific research generally conducted? First, we must have an observable
phenomenon (in our case – professional simultaneous interpretation).
When we are about to begin our research we try to verify whether the observable
part of the phenomenon (the tip of the iceberg) is really what we have
initially taken it for: for example, is simultaneous interpretation really simultaneous?
and if it is so, in what respect? (is it really an ‘iceberg’?). Then we begin
thinking about the nature of the phenomenon observed, its hidden mechanisms,
and an idea (a hypothetical model) of such a mechanism is formed.
Finally, we verify our hypothesis through observation and (if at all possible)
experimentation. By assiduous observation one can establish quite a number
of facts about the tip of the iceberg, while its greater part hidden in the depths
requires an additional effort involving hypothesis formation and verification.
In fact, this is theway initial studies of SI have beendone.D.Gile calls this type
of research ‘personal theorising’; I would rather classify it as Fact-Finding and
Conceptual Modelling.
Among interesting recent publications on SI are those produced by the
Trieste School, although the reported investigations are somewhat uneven.
Alongside some extremely interesting and revealing results (Fabbro & Gran
1994; Rizzine 1990) there are also some that fail to go beyond fact-finding; they
seemto be trivial and even irrelevant because they do not take into account the
specifics of communicative situations in SI.1
Quite a number of recent publications concern interpreter training, which
is not accidental. Among them are books by D. Seleskovitch and M. Lederer
(1989) and D. Gile (1995), which both contain a wealth of ideas and suggestions
in this field, and the three volumes on Teaching Translation and Interpreting
(Dollerup et al. 1992, 1994, 1996). There is indeed an urgent need to
research teaching methods on the basis of fundamental theory, and if the research
now in progress can move in the direction of applied science it will make
interpreter training much more intensive and efficient than it is now. There is
no doubt that students should be aware of the fundamental facts and processes
in conference interpretation, as most faculties and even many professionals
apparently agree (Viaggio 1992, 1994; Visson 1999) since most professional
schools now offer some kind of course in basic theory.
In her introduction to Bridging the Gap, Barbara Moser-Mercer suggests
that there are two interpretation research communities – the ‘liberal arts group’
(théorie du sens, or interpretative theory) and the ‘natural science community’
(‘information processing theory’), the first of the two characterised by
‘its general consistency, [...] its comprehensiveness and simplicity, its intuitive
explanatory force and consequent appeal to pedagogy have all combined
to give it widespread acceptance’. She then indicates that ‘there have been
only a few attempts at verifying the theory, partly because it does not lend itself
readily to verification’ (Lambert & Moser-Mercer 1994: 20). The other group
is most comprehensively represented by the SI information processing model,
which I would call the Massaro-Gerver-Moser model of the SI process. Moser-
Mercer mentions several names among the protagonists of both groups and
indicates that the aim of the volume is to bridge the gap between the two.
Since she does not assign Chernov to either group, although there is a reference
to some of my representative work and I am among the contributors to
the collection, I have since been inclined to assume that my work was to be
placed somewhere on the ‘bridge’ itself, halfway between the two extremes.
That is how I tend to regard my own model, the Message Probability Anticipation
Model of basic psycholinguistic mechanisms in SI, the central hypotheses
of which were published with supporting experimental results between 1970
and 1987 in several articles (mostly in Russian but some also in English) and
two monographs in Russian, and which in today’s terms may be classified as a
semantic-pragmatic model.
I am inclined to take Robin Setton’s monograph Simultaneous Interpretation:
A Cognitive-PragmaticAnalysis (1999) as another ‘bridge’ between the two
extremes. The author follows exactly the same methodology as I did, i.e. observation
and hypothesising – experimental testing of the model hypothesised –
analysis of the results obtained – conclusions and predictions for future investigations.
Relying on current theories in psychology and linguistics, Setton has
arrived at conclusions very similar to those yielded bymymodel, thus corroboratingmy
conclusions. I also found that some of the ideas and reasoning rooted
in the Russian school of psychology and neurophysiology (A. N. Leont’ev’s Activity
Theory in psychology and P. Anokhin’s Theory of Anticipatory Reflection
of the OutsideWorld by the Living Organism and Functional Systems Theory)
continue to offer rich potential for research in SI. In other words, I believe that
my model still offers interesting possibilities and deserves to be known to the
non-Russian speaking SI research community.
Probability anticipation as a general concept needs some explanation and
deserves to be better understood by professionals. Visson, an author of SI
manuals and a professional conference interpreterwrites in hermanual (Visson
1999: 113), in discussing problems with interpreting proverbs, that it may
be dangerous to use a good target-language (TL) equivalent of a proverb
since speakers are prone to develop the metaphor contained in the proverb.
She writes that ‘all theories of notwithstanding,
a speaker’s development of a metaphor cannot be accurately predicted (my
emphasis). The writer does not seem to be aware that that this in itself is
probability anticipation, predicting the development of the metaphor with a
probability of 0.5. So the theory needs some explanation.
Another important stimulus for the publication of the present English
version ofmy book was the emergence of Relevance Theory (Sperber &Wilson
1986/1995) which I find to be highly relevant to my model, and which gives
many new insights into the mechanisms of SI.
A word is in order about the materials I used as a corpus. Besides the experimental
material described in Chapter 11 (see Appendix C), I also used about
40 hours of tape-recorded UN debates (recorded in 1968) with parallel transcripts
of SI into four official UN languages (English, French, Spanish, and
Russian) (see Appendix B); the transcripts of the 1978 UN remote (satellite)
interpretation experiment in Buenos Aires (see Chapter 5, §26 and Appendix
A) and some observations of the performance of SI students at the UN Language
Training Course at the Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages
in Moscow between 1968 and 1975.
In the Foreword to the Russian edition of 1987 I expressed my deep
gratitude to my colleagues among Russian linguists and psychologists who
at various stages of my work took the time to discuss various linguistic and
psychological aspects of my theory. I am particularly indebted tomy co-author
in the original hypothesis of message development probability prediction,
Professor Irina Zimnyaya. My gratitude goes also to the late professors L.
Barkhudarov, G. Kolshansky and O. Moskalskaya, and to Professor Shveitser,
my colleague both in translatology and in the practice of SI, who at various
stages of my work made valuable comments and suggestions. It goes without
saying that I accept all the blame for whatever faults that there are in my work.
I am also indebted to my younger colleagues A. Gurevich, S. Lukanina, Y.
Starostina, A. Usova and G. Filatova, who as undergraduate and postgraduate
students at the time of the active research did all the arduous and timeconsuming
work needed for the initial time-coordinated temporal analysis
of both the experimental corpus and the recorded UN material (Chernov et
al. 1974).
Last but not least, my thanks go to my colleagues in the conference
interpreting profession for their sympathy and support, and above all, to those
among them, seasoned professionals, who participated in my rather strenuous
experiments, and who for obvious reasons must remain anonymous.
October 2000
Moscow
Multiple Voices in the Translation Classroom: Activities, tasks and projects (Benjamins Translation Library)
By Maria Gonzalez Davies, Maria Gonzalez Davies
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:275
* Publication Date:2004-07
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1588115275
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588115270
Fortunately, over the last fifty years, the voices of translation theorists, researchers
and practitioners have been heard more frequently and more powerfully.
Not so those of the professionals who prepare the future theorists,
researchers and practitioners: their teachers. At least not to the extent for them
to have become really visible. The same can be said about the students who will
occupy a place in academia or in the profession. The voices that belong to the
preparatory stage should gradually make themselves be heard loud and clear in
their essential role in the forming of professionals in translation.
How much has translation training changed in the last hundred years?
Has it kept up with research in pedagogy or in psychology? Can it be taught?
An overview of the literature reveals that, although much has been written
about the translation process and product, there is very little about class
dynamics. Preparation of trainers seems to focus either on a prescription of
how translation should be taught – paradoxically, without giving any practical
ideas on how to go about it – or on a description of what happens in
translation, but not of what happens in the classroom.
A typical statement on the difficulties involved in translation training
usually declares that teachers need to have a background in a variety of areas,
such as communication theory, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
neurolinguistics and cognitivism, or translation studies. There is nothing
wrong with this perception – in fact, it is quite true. The point here is that
pedagogy and psychology have been left out. As is often the case, the fact
that the mentioned areas are to be explored in an educational context does
not seem to have been considered. How can these two areas be included in
translator education? The former can offer clear scaffolding for the teaching
focus if it is based, for instance, on the steps that Richards and Rodgers
(1986/2001) suggest should be followed while planning a course. The teacher
should reflect on three aspects: (1) the approach, or theories and beliefs
about the nature of the subject – in our case, translation – and about how
competence can be acquired, (2) the design, or actual classroom dynamics,
which include the selection and sequencing of aims and contents (syllabus),
ideas about the classroom setting, and decisions about the teacher’s and the
student’s roles, and (3) the procedures, or activities, which will draw from
the previous two and may range from teacher-centred lectures to studentcentred
authentic projects. As to the area of psychology, key points could be,
on the one hand, to observe, explore and practise the mental processes that can
improve the students’ translation competence and performance, and, on the
other, to explore issues related to emotional intelligence such as the students’
personalities, backgrounds, and learning and translating styles. Both areas can
complement the teacher’s knowledge and develop the students’ aptitude and
attitude. Research into psychology and pedagogy points to an improvement
of the students’ competence and performance if motivation and participation
are encouraged and if the diversity of learning and teaching styles is respected
(Gardner 1985; Gardner & Lambert 1972; Woodward 1992; Wright 1987). A
translation teacher – any teacher, really – plays, or should play, a double role:
as an expert in a given field and as an expert in teaching.
All the areas mentioned above can be taught either following the “read
and translate” approach or following an interactive approach that encourages
student participation and dialogue. The latter can be carried out by means of
activities, tasks or project work that eithermirrors the professionalworld or actually
enables the students’ participation in authentic translation assignments.
These procedures can be designed to develop reading and writing skills, problem
spotting and problem solving, resourcing, computer skills, professional
skills and any of the other elements usually considered as part of a translator’s
competence (for an overview of studies on translation competence, see Orozco
2000). As teachers, it is up to us to adopt one approach or the other. In a teaching
context, the procedure chosen to teach a content can be as important as the
content itself. Here we are talking about exploring ways to make appropriate
procedural planning improve the declarative knowledge we want our students
to acquire: efficient teaching not only answers questions, it also raises them.
Another point to consider is the often-voiced opinion that translation
training depends on a specific translation theory and that until translation
competence has been fully explained, it cannot be taught properly. If we consider
language learning, a similar predicament arises: do we really know what
lies behind language competence? In spite of this, languages are taught world
wide. It could be argued that, just as there is no one and only valid translation
theory, there is no one and only valid method of teaching translation.
Since the publication of Robert C. Gardner’s and Wallace E. Lambert’s
groundbreaking work on motivation in 1972, Howard Gardner’s on multiple
intelligences in 1986, and of Daniel Goleman’s on emotional intelligence in
1996, we have come to operate in what is sometimes called the Post-Method
Condition (Block 2000; Kumaravadivelu 1994; Prabhu 1992). Ideologically
in consonance with postcolonial times, concepts such as catering for diversity,
multicultural and multilinguistic teaching, respect for the learner and for
learning and teaching styles have become commonplace, as well as the notion
that different pedagogical approaches can be effective depending on the
teaching circumstances.
Previous to this, in some countries, the Communicative Approach substituted
the Grammar-Translation Method in foreign language learning with the
result that, since the late eighties and the nineties, concepts such as learner autonomy,
self-confidence, peer work, decision-making, learning to learn,meaningful
learning and student-centred classes have taken over. All of these can
certainly be relevant to translation training.
A further point is that translation trainers often complain that their
students do not perform adequately. On the one hand, we should remember
that pedagogical logic tells us that learning requires time and that the average
student cannot have acquired the competence of an experienced translator.
On the other, perhaps the time has come to adapt to the new generations by
including texts and activities in our classes not only in the written form, but
also in the oral and non-verbal and, what’s more, in those that integrate both,
in consonance with the culture the students have grown up with and in which
they will be working: TV and radio talk shows, e-mail and cell phone messages,
and so on. It could almost be suggested that, nowadays, the “read and translate”
directive to teach translation is probably as obsolete and unproductive as the
Grammar-TranslationMethod is to teach a foreign language. As a well-known
saying goes “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what
you’ve always got”!
The teacher’s role that we are talking about here is close to that of a guide
and counsellor.Most questions simply do not have a closed answer and require
discussion, negotiating and team work, as well as introspection. All this can be
taught using procedures based on learning and communication strategies, and
research in creativity and psychology.
Here, perhaps, lies a key question: if translation is now considered “a
dynamic process of communication” (Hatim & Mason 1990: 52) to be carried
out in a professional context with speed and efficiency, skills such as text
analysis, paraphrasing, summarising, adapting the source text to the client’s
commission or to the reader’s or listener’s potential expectations, resourcing
and using software adequately, or overcoming constraints are basic and require
an open, flexible and questioning attitude, an attitude that can be fostered and
encouraged at the learning stage “. . . because the university is the only place
where people have the time and willingness to insist on proper methodologies
and strategies.” (Gouadec 2000).
Not all students and teaching contexts are the same even though, in the
literature on translation training, one often receives the contrary impression.
In real life it may even be the case that different translation centres in the same
countries adapt their syllabi according to a needs analysis of their particular
environment. The differences, of course, increase in further distanced geopolitical
areas. Perhaps, in a positive vein, in translation training a situation can be
envisaged similar to that suggested by Hervey et al. (1995: 17) when exploring
the issue of translation loss: “Our approach, then, assumes that the translator’s
ambition is not an absolutist one to maximise sameness, but a relativist to minimize
difference . . . and therefore to forget the mirage of gain and concentrate
instead on the real benefits of compensation.”We need to share more ideas for
the classroom, ideas based on different approaches, not only to translation, but
also to pedagogy. Bridges can surely be built to share common ground while
respecting local and individual differences.
This introduction must include a mention of another aspect that is intrinsic
to motivation and successful learning: the ludic aspect. As Cronin (forthcoming)
observes:
Strangely absent in the theoretical speculation on translation teaching have
been theories of play and game in language. This is all the more surprising in
that any attempt to theorise intuition in thought and creativity in language
must surely take into account the enormous cognitive contribution of play in
human development.
Many of the procedures presented here include this ludic element and contribute
to relaxation, to a certain reduction of inhibition, to undoing creative
blockage and to group binding (see also Ehrmann 1999).
Multiple voices should be heard in the classroom: those of the teachers and
the students, as well as those of different theorists and researchers, and those
of the practitioners and initiators. New paths should be explored instead of
keeping to one approach to translation or to its teaching. At this point, it is
not only a question of encouraging the translators’ visibility, but also of giving
support to these other voices.
Why this book?
To build the competence we want in our students we have to design precise
pedagogical tools – tools for particular purposes that will yield specific desired
effects. Shreve 1995: xiv
Compared to the literature on translation theory, on the best way to translate a
text or on how to become a professional translator, publications on translation
training per se are scarce. Most of these follow a teacher-centred approach to
classroom dynamics with a bias towards teaching translation starting off with
professional standards. The students, the other protagonists of the learning
process, are often regarded as a homogeneous group starting their translator
education from tabula rasa, with the same aptitudes and attitudes. Their specific
needs and the steps to be followed to achieve a professional standard and
a conceptual framework for them to understand and evaluate their translation
decisions are seldom dealt with expressly: prescriptive texts on what they
should know seldom present paths and means to help teachers guide them
systematically or imaginatively towards the desired outcome. In other words,
there seems to be a need to take a step forward and move from an exclusively
text and teacher-centred approach to translation training to one that includes
the students and their different backgrounds and learning styles on the one
hand, and updated pedagogical tools and techniques to improve their translation
competence and performance on the other. Their role in the classroom –
and that of the teacher – can be determined not only according to beliefs of
what translation is about and who the translator is in society, but also through
the application of relevant research in pedagogy. The activities, task chains and
projects suggested here have been designed, on the one hand, to be used in tandem
with the main curriculum designed by the teacher and, on the other, to
give the students a place in the learning process and present the teacher’s role as
that of guide and counsellor. This does notmean that the teacher is left aside as
some would interpret it, but that there is room for more than one approach to
teaching translation and that lectures, group work and authentic projects can
be combined throughout the course.
Who is this book for?
This book is addressed to translation trainers and students, and also to foreign
language teachers who wish to include translation activities in a communicative
and interactive way in their classrooms, to graduates and professional
translators interested in becoming teachers, and also to administrators exploring
the possibility of starting a new translation programme. It can help
translation students in their initial years to bridge the gap between being foreign
language learners and becoming translation apprentices,2 and it can also
be a means for foreign language teachers to use translation as a useful tool to
introduce, reinforce, practise or reflect on the similarities and differences between
the native and the second or foreign languages, and also for the students’
life outside the classroom, in which they may be compelled to act as occasional
translators or interpreters. It can also, of course, become a first contact with an
academic area in which they may wish to engage as future professionals.
This is both a teacher and a student-friendly book that can be used directly
in the classroom once the teacher has selected and adapted the procedures
and the reflection points to his or her classroom setting. Since the procedures
are woven into a reflective background, they are far from being only handy
recipes for a rainy afternoon. Rather, they stem from research and from
classroom observation and experience, and are related to direct pedagogical
action considering, as has been mentioned above, first, the chosen approach,
then, the design and, finally and mainly, the procedures, or the means by
which the previous are implemented in the classroom, that is, activities, tasks
and projects. This is not a book on a particular translation theory, but one
that puts theories into practice so that the students can experiment, explore
and translate from different perspectives. The weight here lies heavily on the
procedures to help fill a void in the usual publications on translator training.
Many of the activities can also be used for self-study by the learners themselves.
This underlines the principle of learner autonomy and allows them to revise
their work without the teacher, a first step towards becoming self-reliant
professionals. References for further reading on the pedagogical, historical or
theoretical points included can be found in the bibliography.
The aim is not to present an exclusive pedagogical approach. This seems
irrelevant in our afore-mentioned Post-Method Condition days when no one
and onlymethod can be regarded as optimal for teaching or learning. Rather, it
seems that the key to efficient training lies with flexible teachers trained to put
into action different approaches and methods and to adapt to their students
by building an adequate scaffolding that gradually disappears as they become
independent agents. That is, the teacher presents, models, guides, counsels and,
finally, lets go.
Language combination is not a particular starting point for the procedures:
the emphasis liesmore on the transference skills and on the reflection needed to
complete a translation assignment adequately as well as on different conceptual
approaches to translation. Sample material or examples are mainly in the
languages I usually work with in my classes: English, Spanish and Catalan.
Examples in French and German have also been included but, as I have
mentioned, the activities are not based on a specific language combination and
can be applied tomore than one language pair. This volume has been conceived
as an idea book that suggests activities, tasks and projects in such a way that
each teacher can select and adapt them to his or her own environment and
take them further.
In short, this book aims to deal with translation training from a wide
perspective far from a virtuoso performance of the teacher and to contribute
to filling a pedagogical void by presenting motivating ideas that may help
build a positive and effective teaching and learning environment and favour
teacher/student as well as student/student interaction. The procedures have
been designed to lay the practical foundations of interactive translation training,
that is, to help students to move from the most rudimentary level of the
word, to the more complicated issues of syntax and, finally, to those of cultural
difference. Moreover, they attempt to synthesize various translation theories,
not only those based on linguistics, but those derived from cultural studies as
well.
Non-finite complementation: A usage-based study of infinitive and -ing clauses in English (Language & Computers)
By Thomas Egan
* Publisher:Rodopi
* Number Of Pages:448
* Publication Date:2008-02-29
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:9042023597
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9789042023598
Product Description:
This book presents a comprehensive guide to the way speakers of British English use infinitive and --ing clauses as verbal complements. It contains details of the non-finite complementation patterns of over 300 matrix verbs, with a particular emphasis on verbs that occur with more than one type of non-finite complement. Drawing upon data from the British National Corpus, the author shows that some of the views which are to be found in the existing literature on these sorts of clauses are in conflict with the evidence of actual usage. He also shows that there is actually much more regularity in this area than has often been taken to be the case. Moreover, this regularity is shown to be motivated by cognitive-functional factors. An appendix contains details of the relative frequency of all of the constructions dealt with in the study, together with an example of each of them. The book is of interest to language teachers as well as linguists, both theoretical and applied.
Thomas Egan is a senior lecturer in English language at Hedmark University College.
Anaphora and Quantification in Situation Semantics (Center for the Study of Language and Information - Lecture Notes)
By Jean Mark Gawron, Stanley Peters
WH-Clauses In English: Aspects of Theory and Description. (Language and Computers 34) (Language & Computers)
By Joe Trotta
* Publisher:Editions Rodopi B.V.
* Number Of Pages:250
* Publication Date:2000-01
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:9042012846
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9789042012844
Product Description:
This study provides the first description-oriented, theoretically-unaligned account of wh-clauses in Modern English. The author employs a data-based approach to examine aspects of both generative and non-generative work as regards their relative strengths and weaknesses.
Wh-clauses in English: Aspects of Theory and Description is a unique combination of statistical findings and qualitative analysis. It is not only underpinned by a systematic investigation of the Brown University corpus but also includes attested material from other sources such as the British National Corpus, the CobuildDirect corpus as well as material gleaned from the internet.
The qualitative and quantitative analyses are combined to approach a wide range of theoretical and descriptive issues, such as wh-movement, landing-sites for moved wh-XPs, vacuous movement, island constraints, among others. Not insignificantly, many questions of indeterminacy are addressed, such as the interface of conjunctions and relative words, the problems of demarcation between interrogatives and free relatives as well as structural ambiguities between interrogatives and exclamatives.
Accessibility and Acceptability in Technical Manuals: A Survey of Style and Grammatical Metaphor (Document Design Companion Series, V. 4)
By Inger Lassen
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:183
* Publication Date:2003-06
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1588113620
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588113627
Particle Verbs and Local Domains (Linguistik Artuell/Linguistics Today)
By Jochen Zeller
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:326
* Publication Date:2001-03
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:9027227624
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9789027227621
Life in Language Immersion Classrooms (Multilingual Matters)
By Elizabeth Buchter Bernhardt
* Publisher:Multilingual Matters Limited
* Number Of Pages:181
* Publication Date:1992-09
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1853591513
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781853591518
September 1992
Multilingual Matters
9780585224961
058522496X
* ISBN-10: 1853591505
* ISBN-13: 978-1853591501
Synopsis
This volume chronicles a project that involved the staff and principals in the midwestern United States, in collaboration with a team of educational researchers. Included as chapters are qualitative studies of immersion teachers, analyses of the use of drama and children's literature, and discussions of staff preparation and maintenance for immersion schooling. Bernhardt has also published "Reading Development in a Second Language", based on her research with adult readers of a variety of second languages.
Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics (Oxford Linguistics)
By Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, R. M. W. Dixon
* Publisher:Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages:472
* Publication Date:2002-02-07
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0198299818
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780198299813
Product Description:
This book considers how and why forms and meanings of different languages at different times may resemble one another. Its editors and authors aim to explain and identify the relationship between areal diffusion and the genetic development of languages, and to discover the means of distinguishing what may cause one language to share the characteristics of another. The introduction outlines the issues that underlie these aims, introduces the chapters which follow, and comments on recurrent conclusions by the contributors. The book includes an archaeologist's view on what material evidence offers to explain cultural and linguistic change, and a general discussion of which kinds of linguistic feature can and cannot be borrowed. The chapters are accessibly-written and illustrated by twenty maps. The book will interest all students of the causes and consequences of language change and evolution.
BiographyAlexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Professor of Lingusitics, The Cairns Institute, James Cook University. She worked in the North Africa and Middle East section of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, and was then Professor of Linguistics at the Universidade Federal de Santa Caterina in Brazil before coming to Australia in 1994. She has worked on descriptive and historical aspects of Berber languages and has published, in Russian, grammars of Modern and Biblical Hebrew. She is a major authority on languages of the Arawak family from northern Amazonia, and has written grammars of Bare, Warekena, and Tariana, in addition to essays on various typological and areal features of South American languages. Professor R. M. W. Dixon is Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, La Trobe University. He has written grammars of a number of Australian languages (including Dyirbal and Yidiny), published one survey volume ('The Languages of Australia', 1980), and is currently working on a comprehensive areal study of all 247 languages of the continent. For the past nine years he has been working in the southern Amazonian jungle of Brazil, writing a grammar of Jarawara, and pursuing a comparative study of the Arawa language family.
Descriptions and Beyond
By Marga Reimer, Anne Bezuidenhout
* Publisher:Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages:668
* Publication Date:2004-09-30
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:019927052X
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780199270521
Product Description:
Marga Reimer and Anne Bezuidenhout present a collection of brand-new essays on important topics at the intersection of philosophy and linguistics. Written by a stellar line-up of contributors drawn from both disciplines, the papers will likewise attract a wide readership of professionals and students from either side.
The Syntax of Old Norse: With a survey of the inflectional morphology and a complete bibliography
By Jan Terje Faarlund
* Publisher:Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages:318
* Publication Date:2004-12-09
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0199271100
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780199271108
Product Description:
This book offers the first account of Old Norse syntax for almost a hundred years and the first ever in a non-Scandinavian language. The language of the Vikings and of the Old Icelandic sagas is the best documented medieval Germanic language and the author is able to present a comprehensive analysis of its syntax and overviews of its phonology and morphology. He supports his analyses with examples taken from Norwegian and Icelandic manuscript editions. Professor Faarlund's approach is descriptive, in a generative framework with a minimum of technical detail. He includes a complete bibliography of Old Norse syntax. The book is intended for advanced students and scholars of historical linguistics, Germanic and Scandinavian languages, Norse philology, and all others with a serious interest in Nordic languages, civilizations, and history.
English Vocabulary in Use Upper-intermediate With answers 1994, 9th printing 1999
by: Michael McCarthy & Felicity O'Dell
0521423961 9780521423960
Review
'One clear reason why English Vocabulary in Use will succeed is apparent in its coverage. The authors offer plenty of lexical breadth to their intended audience of upper intermediate and advanced learners ... Like puzzle or crossword books are for many a train traveller, the English Vocabulary in Use formula is potentially addictive to the industrious, independently studying learner of English. The book will certainly do much to feed learners' prodigious appetites for lexis as it offers both an engaging work of reference and a cornucopia of lively vocabulary practice. It is set to become a standard work among learners the world over.' VATME Newsletter no. 58, 1995
'CUP are right: there is still room for a good vocabulary book at advanced level. And indeed, a self-study book seems most appropriate at this level: students at advanced level usually have different needs, and in this way valuable class time is gained to focus on other skills ... there is not just attention for the meaning of the words, but also for collocation and patterning - just the ticket for advanced learners ... This book does not only look good, it stands up to closer inspection. The concept is very good indeed, the coverage looks ok.' VLE Newsletter, 1994
'The day landed on my desk I was in need of inspiration for ways of extending ... students who seemed to have reached a plateau. In it, I found lots of ideas to use in vocabulary extension ... ... lots of suggestions to help the students organise their vocabulary books.' Peter Clyburn, Faculty of Language, Southbank Institute of TAFE, Newsletter 2
Book Description
English Vocabulary in Use is a vocabulary book for upper-intermediate and advanced learners of English, primarily designed as a self-study reference and practice book, but can also be used for classroom work. Firmly based on current learning theory, its emphasis is on the practical needs of the learner. It aims not only to present and explain words but to demonstrate how to use them and how to work out rules for using them. Vocabulary is explained and presented on left-hand pages with a wealth of innovative follow-up activities opposite. * 100 units, covering approximately 3,000 new vocabulary items * offers learners the opportunity to consolidate and expand existing vocabulary * promotes invaluable learning techniques * gives study tips and suggests follow-up tasks * contains a comprehensive key with additional helpful comments * includes a detailed index and phonetic transcription
Advanced Grammar in Use with Answers
by: Martin Hewings
0521532914 9780521532914
By
* Publisher:Cambridge University Press
* Number Of Pages:304
* Publication Date:2005-03-21
* Sales Rank:348569
* ISBN / ASIN:0521532914
* EAN:9780521532914
* Binding:Paperback
* Manufacturer:Cambridge University Press
* Studio:Cambridge University Press
* Average Rating:4.5
* Total Reviews:9
Book Description:
A fully updated version of the highly successful Advanced Grammar in Use - extra practice is also available on a new interactive CD-ROM to accompany the book. This is the edition with answers.
Date: 2007-06-10Rating: 4
Review:
Advanced Grammar in Use
A very good explanation of various grammar points. The exercises that go with the explanations helps to reinforce the rules of grammar. An excellent homework resource, not just ESL students, but also for native speakers of English.
Date: 2007-01-27Rating: 4
Review:
Good book
I had the intermediate of this book when I was studying intensive English. It is very good because it shows examples and allows you practice a lot. It is a complete self-study and reference book.
Date: 2005-08-02Rating: 5
Review:
Excellent for Teachers and students
If you are giving English l鏴ssons this is the right book. Divided into simple steps the book provides you an excellent gide to your classes or self study.
Date: 2005-02-09Rating: 5
Review:
Alan guarantees satisfaction...
Wow, Alan, what do we get in return if we aren't sastisfied?
Thank you for being so considerate to provide such a guarantee. By the way, I love your banks!
Date: 2003-01-22Rating: 5
Review:
Excellent!
Improving your grammatical skills may be very important for several reasons, one of which is to foster your overall language competence. The primary strength of this book is the fact it cotains both lucid explanations and numerous exercises to check your comprehension. In order to ensure understanding, simple explanations of rather advanced elements of grammar have been provided. By the time you master this book, you will have dramatically improved your grammatical skills. I guarantee that! Are you unsure when to use the past perfect vs past simple? What about the proper use of auxiliaries and modal verbs? Pronouns and prepositions? Gerunds and participles? Word order? Definitely a valuable book.
Spoken Language Processing: A Guide to Theory, Algorithm and System Development
ISBN: 0130226165
Author: Xuedong Huang / Alex Acero / Hsiao-Wuen Hon
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Edition: 1st edition (April 25, 2001)
Paperback: 1008 pages
URL: /http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=songstech-20&path=ASIN%2F0130226165
Summary:Book Info
Offers coverage of new advances in spoken language processing in computer science, drawing on the most recent discoveries in computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, and other fields. Covers speech recognition, speech processing, spoken language understanding, speech synthesis, and speech interface design. DLC: Natural language processing (Computer science).
From the Inside Flap
Preface
Our primary motivation in writing this book is to share our working experience to bridge the gap between the knowledge of industry gurus and newcomers to the spoken language processing community. Many powerful techniques hide in conference proceedings and academic papers for years before becoming widely recognized by the research community or the industry. We spent many years pursuing spoken language technology research at Carnegie Mellon University before we started spoken language R&D at Microsoft. We fully understand that it is by no means a small undertaking to transfer a state-of-the-art spoken language research system into a commercially viable product that can truly help people improve their productivity. Our experience in both industry and academia is reflected in the context of this book, which presents a contemporary and comprehensive description of both theoretic and practical issues in spoken language processing. This book is intended for people of diverse academic and practical backgrounds. Speech scientists, computer scientists, linguists, engineers, physicists, and psychologists all have a unique perspective on spoken language processing. This book will be useful to all of these special interest groups.
Spoken language processing is a diverse subject that relies on knowledge of many levels, including acoustics, phonology, phonetics, linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. The diverse nature of spoken language processing requires knowledge in computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, syntax, and psychology. There are a number of excellent books on the subfields of spoken language processing, including speech recognition, text-to-speech conversion, and spoken language understanding, but there is no single book that covers both theoretical and practical aspects of these subfields and spoken language interface design. We devote many chapters systematically introducing fundamental theories needed to understand how speech recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, and spoken language understanding work. Even more important is the fact that the book highlights what works well in practice, which is invaluable if you want to build a practical speech recognizer, a practical text-to-speech synthesizer, or a practical spoken language system. Using numerous real examples in developing Microsoft's spoken language systems, we concentrate on showing how the fundamental theories can be applied to solve real problems in spoken language processing.
The Grammar of Repetition: Nupe grammar at the syntax-phonology interface (Linguistik Aktuell / Linguistics Today)
By Jason Kandybowicz
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Company
* Number Of Pages:168
* Publication Date:2008-11-27
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:9027255199
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9789027255198
Derivations: Exploring the Dynamics of Syntax (Routledge Leadinglinguists)
By Juan Uriagereka
* Publisher:Routledge
* Number Of Pages:344
* Publication Date:2002-05-31
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0415247764
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780415247764
* Binding:Hardcover
Product Description:
This book presents an analysis of a variety of central linguistic notions, such as case agreement, obviation, and rigidity, from a derivational perspective.