Literary translation and quality assessment analysis – its significance in translation training

This paper aims to highlight the role of translation quality assessment in translation training so as to develop students’ translation competence and skills to face translation problems. An analysis to assess literary translation quality is proposed before proceeding to discuss its pedagogical implementation.

Symbolic fractional dynamics

Fractional dynamics reveals long range memory properties of systems described by means of signals represented by real numbers. Alternatively, dynamical systems and signals can adopt a representation where states are quantified using a set of symbols. Such signals occur both in nature and in man made processes and have the potential of a aftermath as relevant as the classical counterpart. This paper explores the association of Fractional calculus and symbolic dynamics. The results are visualized by means of the multidimensional technique and reveal the association between the fractal dimension and one definition of fractional derivative.

Wuthering heights on the screen: exploring the relations between film adaptation and subtitling

This essay aims to confront the literary text Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë with five of its screen adaptations and Portuguese subtitles. Owing to the scope of the study, it will necessarily afford merely a bird‘s eye view of the issues and serve as a starting point for further research. Accordingly, the following questions are used as guidelines: What transformations occur in the process of adapting the original text to the screen? Do subtitles update the film dialogues to the target audience‘s cultural and linguistic context? Are subtitles influenced more by oral speech than by written literary discourse? Shouldn‘t subtitles in fact reflect the poetic function prevalent in screen adaptations of literary texts? Rather than attempt to answer these questions, we focus on the objects as phenomena. Our interdisciplinary undertaking clearly involves a semio-pragmatic stance, at this stage trying to avoid theoretical backdrops that may affect our apprehension of the objects as to their qualities, singularities, and conventional traits, based on Lucia Santaella‘s interpretation of Charles S. Peirce‘s phaneroscopy. From an empirical standpoint, we gather features and describe peculiarities, under the presumption that there are substrata in subtitling that point or should point to the literary source text, albeit through the mediation of a film script and a particular cinematic style. Therefore, we consider how the subtitling process may be influenced by the literary intertext, the idiosyncrasies of a particular film adaptation, as well as the socio-cultural context of the subtitler and target audience. First, we isolate one of the novel‘s most poignant scenes – ‗I am Heathcliff‘ – taking into account its symbolic play and significance in relation to character and plot construction. Secondly, we study American, English, French, and Mexican adaptations of the excerpt into film in terms of intersemiotic transformations. Then we analyze differences between the film dialogues and their Portuguese subtitles.

How does gender affect visiting a world heritage site?

To date few studies have been undertaken in Portugal dealing with the attitudes, motivations, and profile of tourists who visit World Heritage Sites. Also, few studies have dealt with destination image (e.g., Agapito, Mendes & Valle, 2010; Lopes, 2011). As far as it is known, none have approached the issue of gender differences in the choice of a Portuguese heritage destination. Since cultural tourism destinations need to differentiate themselves from each other, appropriate market segmentation must be based on a deep understanding of the customers’ motivations and preferences. Keeping in mind results from empirical literature (e.g., Silberberg, 1995; Beerli & Martin, 2004; Richards, 2004; Pérez, 2009; Sheng, Shen, & Chen, 2008), gender seems to be a possible approach to market segmentation, whether for Guimarães or for other cultural tourism destinations around the world. Located in the north-western region of Portugal, Guimarães is a city of strong symbolic and cultural significance, and the nomination of its historical centre as a World Heritage Site in 2001 enhanced its tourism potential. This study analyses the possible relation between gender and attitudes and motivations towards a World Heritage Site, such as Guimarães. Additionally, the empirical approach used in the study tries to capture differences in the perceived attributes of the city. Commonalities and distinctions within and between groups of tourists, by focusing on the specific characteristic of gender, were analysed. The study addressed two main questions: first, whether males and females have similar or different preferences in choosing the city as their destination; and, second, whether there are gender differences in the perception of the attributes of Guimarães. A better understanding of the gendered nature of the destination is a valuable cue for shaping products and services according to visitors’ preferences.

Significance of Biogenic Amines in Cold-Smoked Fish and Their Relation to Microbiological Characteristics of Products Available in Portuguese Retail Markets

Studies on microbial characterization of cold-smoked salmon and salmon trout during cold storage were performed on samples available in the Portuguese market. Samples were also classified microbiologically according to guidelines for ready-to-eat (RTE) products. Further investigations on sample variability and microbial abilities to produce tyramine and histamine were also performed. The coefficient of variation for viable counts of different groups of microorganisms of samples collected at retail market point was high in the first 2 wk of storage, mainly in the Enterobacteriaceae group and aerobic plate count (APC), suggesting that microbiological characteristics of samples were different in numbers, even within the same batch from the same producer. This variation seemed to be decreased when storage and temperature were controlled under lab conditions. The numbers of Enterobacteriaceae were influenced by storage temperature, as indicated by low microbial numbers in samples from controlled refrigeration. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and Enterobacteriaceae were predominant in commercial products, a significant percentage of which were tyramine and less histamine producers. These results might be influenced by (1) the technological processes in the early stages of production, (2) contamination during the smoking process, and (3) conditions and temperature fluctuations during cold storage at retail market point of sale.