Teaching foreign languages through translation: considering multiple intelligences

Aquest treball de recerca tracta de la relació existent entre pedagogia, traducció, llengües estrangeres i intel•ligències múltiples. El debat sobre si la traducció és una eina útil a la classe de llengües estrangeres és un tema actual sobre el qual molts investigadors encara indaguen. Estudis recents, però, han demostrat que qualsevol tasca de traducció -en la qual s’hi poden incloure treballs amb les diferents habilitats- és profitosa si la considerem un mitjà, no una finalitat en ella mateixa. Evidentment, l’ús de la traducció dins l’aula és avantatjosa, però també hem de tenir presents certs desavantatges d’aquesta aplicació. Un possible desavantatge podria ser la creença que, al principi, molta gent té referent a l’equivalència, paraula per paraula, d’una llengua vers una altra. Però després de presentar vàries tasques de traducció als estudiants, aquests poden arribar a controlar, fins i tot, les traduccions inconscients i poden assolir un cert nivell de precisió i flexibilitat que val la pena mencionar. Però l’avantatge principal és que s’enfronten a una activitat molt estesa dins la societat actual que combina dues llengües, la llengua materna i la llengua objecte d’estudi, per exemple. De tot això en podem deduir que utilitzar la llengua materna a la classe no s’ha de considerar un crim, com fins ara, sinó una virtut, evidentment si és emprada correctament. En aquest treball de recerca s’hi pot trobar una síntesi tant de les principals teories d’adquisició i aprenentatge de llengües com de les teories de traducció. A la pregunta de si les teories, tant de traducció com de llengües estrangeres, s’haurien d’ensenyar implícita o explícitament, es pot inferir que segons el nivell d’estudis on estiguin els aprenents els convindrà aprendre les teories explícitament o les aprendran, de totes maneres, implícitament. Com que qualsevol grup d’estudiants és heterogeni -és a dir que cada individu té un ritme i un nivell d’aprenentatge concret i sobretot cadascú té diferents estils de percepció (visual, auditiu, gustatiu, olfactiu, de moviment) i per tant diferents intel•ligències-, els professors ho han de tenir en compte a l’hora de planificar qualsevol programa d’actuació vers els alumnes. Per tant, podem concloure que les tasques o projectes de traducció poden ajudar als alumnes a aprendre millor, més eficaçment i a aconseguir un aprenentatge més significatiu.

Developing methodologies to allow the robust prediction dynamic context dominated by perturbations

El principal objectiu del projecte era desenvolupar millores conceptuals i metodològiques que permetessin una millor predicció dels canvis en la distribució de les espècies (a una escala de paisatge) derivats de canvis ambientals en un context dominat per pertorbacions. En un primer estudi, vàrem comparar l'eficàcia de diferents models dinàmics per a predir la distribució de l'hortolà (Emberiza hortulana). Els nostres resultats indiquen que un model híbrid que combini canvis en la qualitat de l'hàbitat, derivats de canvis en el paisatge, amb un model poblacional espacialment explícit és una aproximació adequada per abordar canvis en la distribució d'espècies en contextos de dinàmica ambiental elevada i una capacitat de dispersió limitada de l'espècie objectiu. En un segon estudi abordarem la calibració mitjançant dades de seguiment de models de distribució dinàmics per a 12 espècies amb preferència per hàbitats oberts. Entre les conclusions extretes destaquem: (1) la necessitat de que les dades de seguiment abarquin aquelles àrees on es produeixen els canvis de qualitat; (2) el biaix que es produeix en la estimació dels paràmetres del model d'ocupació quan la hipòtesi de canvi de paisatge o el model de qualitat d'hàbitat són incorrectes. En el darrer treball estudiarem el possible impacte en 67 espècies d’ocells de diferents règims d’incendis, definits a partir de combinacions de nivells de canvi climàtic (portant a un augment esperat de la mida i freqüència d’incendis forestals), i eficiència d’extinció per part dels bombers. Segons els resultats dels nostres models, la combinació de factors antropogènics del regim d’incendis, tals com l’abandonament rural i l’extinció, poden ser més determinants per als canvis de distribució que els efectes derivats del canvi climàtic. Els productes generats inclouen tres publicacions científiques, una pàgina web amb resultats del projecte i una llibreria per a l'entorn estadístic R.

Towards a user-friendly webservice architecture for statistical machine translation in the PANACEA project

This paper presents a webservice architecture for Statistical Machine Translation aimed at non-technical users. A workfloweditor allows a user to combine different webservices using a graphical user interface. In the current state of this project,the webservices have been implemented for a range of sentential and sub-sententialaligners. The advantage of a common interface and a common data format allows the user to build workflows exchanging different aligners.

Excuse me, but your accent is very unusual. The complexity of establishing third languages in Inglourious Basterds. Applying a model of translation analysis to dubbing

The growing multilingual trend in movie production comes with a challenge for dubbing translators since they are increasingly confronted with more than one source language. The main purpose of this master’s thesis is to provide a case study on how these third languages (see CORRIUS and ZABALBEASCOA 2011) are rendered. Another aim is to put a particular focus on their textual and narrative functions and detect possible shifts that might occur in translations. By applying a theoretical model for translation analysis (CORRIUS and ZABALBEASCOA 2011), this study describes how third languages are rendered in the German, Spanish, and Italian dubbed versions of the 2009 Tarantino movie Inglourious Basterds. A broad range of solution-types are thereby revealed and prevalent restrictions of the translation process identified. The target texts are brought in context with some sociohistorical aspects of dubbing in order to detect prevalent norms of the respective cultures andto discuss the acceptability of translations (TOURY 1995). The translatability potential of even highly complex multilingual audiovisual texts is demonstrated in this study. Moreover, proposals for further studies in multilingual audiovisual translation are outlined and the potential for future investigations in this field thereby emphasised.

Fine-Tuning Translation Kinetics Selection as the Driving Force of Codon Usage Bias in the Hepatitis A Virus Capsid

Hepatitis A virus (HAV), the prototype of genus Hepatovirus, has several unique biological characteristics that distinguish it from other members of the Picornaviridae family. Among these, the need for an intact eIF4G factor for the initiation of translation results in an inability to shut down host protein synthesis by a mechanism similar to that of other picornaviruses. Consequently, HAV must inefficiently compete for the cellular translational machinery and this may explain its poor growth in cell culture. In this context of virus/cell competition, HAV has strategically adopted a naturally highly deoptimized codon usage with respect to that of its cellular host. With the aim to optimize its codon usage the virus was adapted to propagate in cells with impaired protein synthesis, in order to make tRNA pools more available for the virus. A significant loss of fitness was the immediate response to the adaptation process that was, however, later on recovered and more associated to a re-deoptimization rather than to an optimization of the codon usage specifically in the capsid coding region. These results exclude translation selection and instead suggest fine-tuning translation kinetics selection as the underlying mechanism of the codon usage bias in this specific genome region. Additionally, the results provide clear evidence of the Red Queen dynamics of evolution since the virus has very much evolved to re-adapt its codon usage to the environmental cellular changing conditions in order to recover the original fitness.

Fine-Tuning Translation Kinetics Selection as the Driving Force of Codon Usage Bias in the Hepatitis A Virus Capsid

Hepatitis A virus (HAV), the prototype of genus Hepatovirus, has several unique biological characteristics that distinguish it from other members of the Picornaviridae family. Among these, the need for an intact eIF4G factor for the initiation of translation results in an inability to shut down host protein synthesis by a mechanism similar to that of other picornaviruses. Consequently, HAV must inefficiently compete for the cellular translational machinery and this may explain its poor growth in cell culture. In this context of virus/cell competition, HAV has strategically adopted a naturally highly deoptimized codon usage with respect to that of its cellular host. With the aim to optimize its codon usage the virus was adapted to propagate in cells with impaired protein synthesis, in order to make tRNA pools more available for the virus. A significant loss of fitness was the immediate response to the adaptation process that was, however, later on recovered and more associated to a re-deoptimization rather than to an optimization of the codon usage specifically in the capsid coding region. These results exclude translation selection and instead suggest fine-tuning translation kinetics selection as the underlying mechanism of the codon usage bias in this specific genome region. Additionally, the results provide clear evidence of the Red Queen dynamics of evolution since the virus has very much evolved to re-adapt its codon usage to the environmental cellular changing conditions in order to recover the original fitness.

Empirics of the international inequality in CO2 emissions intensity: explanatory factors according to complementary decomposition methodologies

This paper analyses the international inequalities in CO2 emissions intensity for the period 1971–2009 and assesses explanatory factors. Multiplicative, group and additive methodologies of inequality decomposition are employed. The first allows us to clarify the separated role of the carbonisation index and the energy intensity in the pattern observed for inequalities in CO2 intensities; the second allows us to understand the role of regional groups; and the third allows us to investigate the role of different fossil energy sources (coal, oil and gas). The results show that, first, the reduction in global emissions intensity has coincided with a significant reduction in international inequality. Second, the bulk of this inequality and its reduction are attributed to differences between the groups of countries considered. Third, coal is the main energy source explaining these inequalities, although the growth in the relative contribution of gas is also remarkable. Fourth, the bulk of inequalities between countries and its decline are explained by differences in energy intensities, although there are significant differences in the patterns demonstrated by different groups of countries. JEL codes: D39; Q43; Q56. Key words: CO2 international distribution, inequality decomposition, CO2 emissions intensity

Language Resources Factory: case study on the acquisition of Translation Memories

This paper demonstrates a novel distributed architecture to facilitate the acquisition of Language Resources. We build a factory that automates the stages involved in the acquisition, production, updating and maintenance of these resources. The factory is designed as a platform where functionalities are deployed as web services, which can be combined in complex acquisition chains using workflows. We show a case study, which acquires a Translation Memory for a given pair of languages and a domain using web services for crawling, sentence alignment and conversion to TMX.

Translation and validation of the Ten-Item-Personality Inventory into spanish and catalan

In response to an increasing need for ever-shorter personality instruments, Gosling, Rentfrow, and Swann (2003) developed the Ten-Item-Personality Inventory (TIPI), which measures the dimensions of the Five Factor Model (FFM) using 10 items (two for each dimension) and can be administered in about one minute. In two studies and using a multi-judge (self and observer) and multi-instrument design, we develop Spanish (Castilian) and Catalan versions of the TIPI and evaluate them in terms of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent, discriminant, and content validity, as well as self-observer correlations. Test-retest correlations were strong, and convergence with the NEO-PI-R factors was significant. There were also strong correlations between observer ratings and the participants’ self-ratings. Despite some inconsistencies with respect to the Agreeableness scale, the Catalan translation and both translations into Spanish of the original TIPI demonstrated sufficient psychometric properties to warrant use as a Five Factor personality measure when the use of longer instruments is not convenient or possible. Furthermore, as the first translation of a brief standard Big Five Instrument into Catalan, this work should facilitate future research on personality in the Catalan-speaking population.

Shallow-transfer rule-based machine translation for Czech to Polish

This article describes the developmentof an Open Source shallow-transfer machine translation system from Czech to Polish in theApertium platform. It gives details ofthe methods and resources used in contructingthe system. Although the resulting system has quite a high error rate, it is still competitive with other systems.

Automatic acquisition of Named Entities for Rule-Based Machine Translation

This paper proposes to enrich RBMTdictionaries with Named Entities(NEs) automatically acquired fromWikipedia. The method is appliedto the Apertium English-Spanishsystem and its performance comparedto that of Apertium with and withouthandtagged NEs. The system withautomatic NEs outperforms the onewithout NEs, while results vary whencompared to a system with handtaggedNEs (results are comparable forSpanish to English but slightly worstfor English to Spanish). Apart fromthat, adding automatic NEs contributesto decreasing the amount of unknownterms by more than 10%.

Taking on new challenges in multi-word unit processing for Machine Translation

This paper discusses the qualitativecomparative evaluation performed on theresults of two machine translation systemswith different approaches to the processing ofmulti-word units. It proposes a solution forovercoming the difficulties multi-word unitspresent to machine translation by adopting amethodology that combines the lexicongrammar approach with OpenLogos ontologyand semantico-syntactic rules. The paper alsodiscusses the importance of a qualitativeevaluation metrics to correctly evaluate theperformance of machine translation engineswith regards to multi-word units.

A Widely Used Machine Translation Service and its Migration to a Free/Open-Source Solution : the Case of Softcatalà

Softcatalà is a non-profit associationcreated more than 10 years ago to fightthe marginalisation of the Catalan languagein information and communicationtechnologies. It has led the localisationof many applications and thecreation of a website which allows itsusers to translate texts between Spanishand Catalan using an external closed-sourcetranslation engine. Recently,the closed-source translation back-endhas been replaced by a free/open-sourcesolution completely managed by Softcatalà: the Apertium machine translationplatform and the ScaleMT web serviceframework. Thanks to the opennessof the new solution, it is possibleto take advantage of the huge amount ofusers of the Softcatalà translation serviceto improve it, using a series ofmethods presented in this paper. In addition,a study of the translations requestedby the users has been carriedout, and it shows that the translationback-end change has not affected theusage patterns.