Natural effusions: Mrs J. Howorth’s English translation of Albrecht von Haller’s Die Alpen

Albrecht von Haller's Die Alpen [The Alps] was an immensely popular piece of early eighteenth-century poetry, yet it took more than half a century to be translated into English. In this article I examine Mrs J. Howorth's prose rendering of it in her translated collection The Poems of Baron Haller (1794) and analyse how the translation itself reflects late-eighteenth-century scientific, political and aesthetic concerns, notably through the influence of Linnaeus and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Secondly, I explore how Howorth constructed a public image of herself as a female consumer and producer of botanical literature, and argue that her translation constitutes an early example of British women's increasing engagement in science through the activity of translation.

Thinking for speaking and linguistic relativity among bilinguals: towards a new research agenda

This article evaluates how the different papers in this special issue fill a gap in our understanding of cognitive processes that are being activated when second language learners or bilinguals prepare to speak. All papers are framed in Slobin’s (1987) Thinking for Speaking theory, and aim to test whether the conceptualisation patterns that were learned in early childhood can be relearned or restructured in L2 acquisition. In many papers the focus is on identifying constraints on this restructuring process. Among these constraints, the role of typological differences between languages is investigated in great depth. The studies involve different types of learners, language combinations and tasks. As all informants were given verbal rather than non-verbal tasks, the focus is here on the effects of conceptual transfer from one language on another, and not on the effects of language on non-linguistic cognition. The paper also sketches different avenues for further research in this field and proposes that researchers working in this field might want to take up the challenge of investigating whether speakers of different languages perceive motion outside explicitly verbal contexts differently, as this will enable us to gain an understanding of linguistic relativity effects in this domain. Studying which teaching methods can help learners to restructure their conceptualisation patterns may also shed new light on the aspects of discourse organization and motion event construal that are most difficult for learners.

Authoriality in poetic translation. The case of Amelia Rosselli's practice

This article provides a historical and theoretical contextualization of Amelia Rosselli's practice of translation. Some hitherto neglected Rosselli translations from John Berryman will be examined to ascertain the role played by translation in her multilingual oeuvre. My analysis builds upon recent explorations of translingual authors' translating practice informed by Deleuze and Guattari's seminal Kafka: pour une littérature mineure. It aims to achieve an understanding of the aesthetic of Rosselli's trilingualism and the function of translation within the author's minorizing project.

History teachers’ thinking about the nature of their subject

This paper addresses how secondary history teachers view the nature and purposes of their subject and how they think these views impact on their practice. Data were collected through individual qualitative interviews with eleven UK history teachers at the start of their careers. Their views on the nature of history are broadly empiricist with postmodern perspectives having been less influential. Their rationales for the subject emphasise broader educational purposes. The case for further emphasis on subject understandings in teacher education is made through a consideration of the implications of a lack of emphasis of more postmodern perspectives on classroom practice.

The ‘thinking’ in thinking-for-speaking: where is it?

According to the thinking-for-speaking (TFS) hypothesis, speakers of different languages think differently while in the process of mentally preparing content for speech. The aim of the present paper is to critically discuss the research carried out within the TFS paradigm, against the background of the basic tenets laid out by the proponents of this framework. We will show that despite substantial progress in the investigation of crosslinguistic differences in the organisation of information in discourse, the studies that actually examine the cognitive aspects of speech production are, to date, vanishingly few. This state of affairs creates a gap in our knowledge about the thought processes that co-occur with speech production during language use and acquisition. We will argue that in order to reach a more comprehensive picture of the cognitive processes and outcomes of speech production, methodologies additional to the analysis of information organisation must be used.

Thinking out of the box – skills for work

Since the Dearing Report .1 there has been an increased emphasis on the development of employability and transferable (‘soft’) skills in undergraduate programmes. Within STEM subject areas, recent reports concluded that universities should offer ‘greater and more sustainable variety in modes of study to meet the changing demands of industry and students’.2 At the same time, higher education (HE) institutions are increasingly conscious of the sensitivity of league table positions on employment statistics and graduate destinations. Modules that are either credit or non-credit bearing are finding their way into the core curriculum at HE. While the UK government and other educational bodies argue the way forward over A-level reform, universities must also meet the needs of their first year cohorts in terms of the secondary to tertiary transition and developing independence in learning.

Dancing in translation: Irina Brook’s mise en scène of 'Danser à Lughnasa', Jean-Marie Besset’s translation of Brian Friel’s 'Dancing at Lughnasa'

This essay contributes to debates about theatre and cross-cultural encounter through an analysis of Irina Brook’s 1999 Swiss / French co-production of Irish playwright Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, in a French translation by Jean-Marie Besset. While the translation and Brook’s mise en scène clearly identified the source text and culture as Irish, they avoided cultural stereotypes, and rendered the play accessible to francophone audiences without entirely assimilating it to a specific Swiss or French cultural context. Drawing on discourses of theatre translation, and concepts of cosmopolitanism and conviviality, the essay focuses on the potential of such textual and theatrical translation to acknowledge specific cultural traces but also to estrange the familiar perceptions and boundaries of both the source and target cultures, offering modes of interconnection across diverse cultural affiliations.

The description of stencilling by Gilles Filleau des Billettes: transcription and translation

This article presents the description of stencilling by Gilles Filleau des Billettes. The description sets out a method for stencilling letters, words, and texts, and specifies equipment for doing the work; it forms the basis for a reconstruction of the equipment and method, which is presented in a parallel article in this volume of Typography papers (see E. Kindel, 'A reconstruction of stencilling based on the description by Gilles Filleau des Billettes', Typography papers, 9, pp. 28–65). The original French text, approximately 10,000 words in length, is here transcribed and accompanied by a parallel English translation. Introductory notes on the preparation of both texts are provided; images of stencil letters found among the papers of Sébastien Truchet, Des Billettes’s colleague, are shown in an appendix.

A decade of plant proteomics and mass spectrometry: translation of technical advancements to food security and safety issues

Tremendous progress in plant proteomics driven by mass spectrometry (MS) techniques has been made since 2000 when few proteomics reports were published and plant proteomics was in its infancy. These achievements include the refinement of existing techniques and the search for new techniques to address food security, safety, and health issues. It is projected that in 2050, the world’s population will reach 9–12 billion people demanding a food production increase of 34–70% (FAO, 2009) from today’s food production. Provision of food in a sustainable and environmentally committed manner for such a demand without threatening natural resources, requires that agricultural production increases significantly and that postharvest handling and food manufacturing systems become more efficient requiring lower energy expenditure, a decrease in postharvest losses, less waste generation and food with longer shelf life. There is also a need to look for alternative protein sources to animal based (i.e., plant based) to be able to fulfill the increase in protein demands by 2050. Thus, plant biology has a critical role to play as a science capable of addressing such challenges. In this review, we discuss proteomics especially MS, as a platform, being utilized in plant biology research for the past 10 years having the potential to expedite the process of understanding plant biology for human benefits. The increasing application of proteomics technologies in food security, analysis, and safety is emphasized in this review. But, we are aware that no unique approach/technology is capable to address the global food issues. Proteomics-generated information/resources must be integrated and correlated with other omics-based approaches, information, and conventional programs to ensure sufficient food and resources for human development now and in the future.

Foreign credit: travel writing and authenticity in the dutch translation of The memoirs and travels of Mauritius Augustus, Count de Benyowsky (1790)

This article explores the translation and reception of the Memoirs and Travels (1790) of Count Mauritius Augustus Benyowsky (1746-86) in the Netherlands, and examines the complications, tensions and problems that transfer between a major and a more minor European language involves. I analyse how the Dutch translator Petrus Loosjes Adriaanszoon positioned himself as a mediator between these very different source and target cultures and ask how he dealt with the problems of plausibility and ‘credit’ which had beleaguered the reception of the Memoirs and Travels from the outset. In this article I am concerned to restore minority languages to the discussion of how travel literature circulated in Western Europe at the close of the eighteenth century and to demonstrate how major/minor language translation was central to the construction of Dutch-language culture in the Low Countries in this period.