Techniques to Improve the word alignments in Statistical Machine Translation from English to Malayalam

In Statistical Machine Translation from English to Malayalam, an unseen English sentence is translated into its equivalent Malayalam translation using statistical models like translation model, language model and a decoder. A parallel corpus of English-Malayalam is used in the training phase. Word to word alignments has to be set up among the sentence pairs of the source and target language before subjecting them for training. This paper is deals with the techniques which can be adopted for improving the alignment model of SMT. Incorporating the parts of speech information into the bilingual corpus has eliminated many of the insignificant alignments. Also identifying the name entities and cognates present in the sentence pairs has proved to be advantageous while setting up the alignments. Moreover, reduction of the unwanted alignments has brought in better training results. Experiments conducted on a sample corpus have generated reasonably good Malayalam translations and the results are verified with F measure, BLEU and WER evaluation metrics

Deutsch als L4 für Muttersprachler des Persischen

Das Erkenntnisinteresse der vorliegenden Arbeit besteht darin, im Rahmen einer explorativ-interpretativen Querschnittstudie vertiefte Einblicke in den Sprachgebrauch von mehrsprachigen Deutschlernenden am Beispiel von Verb-Nomen Kollokationen zu gewinnen. Unter Berücksichtigung der in diesem Zusammenhang bisher nicht untersuchten Sprachenkonstellation L1 Persisch, L2 Englisch, L3 Arabisch und L4 Deutsch sollen die von den Lernenden angewendeten lexikalischen Transferstrategien erforscht werden. Der Untersuchungsgegenstand sind die soziokognitiven Löseprozesse der ProbandInnen bei der dyadischen Bearbeitung von Kollokationsaufgaben. Zur Identifizierung der Transferphänomene und der TL-Strategien (Target Language-Strategien) werden Gesprächs-protokolle ausgewählter Dyaden analysiert. Überdies werden zwecks Rekonstruktion und Interpretation der Löseprozesse stimulated recall-Interviews mit den ProbandInnen herangezogen, wodurch die Datensets miteinander trianguliert werden. Zudem wird ermittelt, inwieweit ausgewählte Faktoren (Psychotypologie, Kompetenz in der Zielsprache und Kompetenz in den zuvor gelernten Sprachen) den Transferprozess beeinflussen. Hierzu dienen die Erkenntnisse aus begleitend durchgeführten Leitfadeninterviews und Sprachstandstests (TOEFL- und Arabischtest). Ferner wird der Arbeitsstil der ProbandInnen bei der dyadischen Aufgabenbearbeitung anhand des Fragebogens Style Analysis Survey von Oxford (1995) bestimmt. An der Studie, die im Deutschen Sprachinstitut Teheran durchgeführt wurde, nahmen 14 iranische Deutschlernende auf dem Niveau B2.1 und C2.2 teil. Sie wurden aufgrund ihrer mittels eines Fragebogens erhobenen Sprachlernbiografien ausgewählt. Die Gesprächsprotokolle der Dyadenarbeit und die Interviews wurden vollständig transkribiert bzw. transliteriert und anschließend qualitativ-interpretativ ausgewertet. Um ihre Wissenslücken bei der Bearbeitung der Kollokationsaufgaben zu kompensieren, setzten die ProbandInnen verschiedene inter- und intralinguale Strategien ein. Dabei ist der L1 Persisch und der L4 Deutsch insgesamt der größte Einfluss beizumessen. Diesbezüglich wird deutlich, dass zwischen Sprachniveau und Transferverhalten der Lernenden ein Zusammenhang besteht, insofern als fortgeschrittene Lernende stärker zu intralingualem Transfer neigen. Zudem lässt sich festhalten, dass ein Zusammenhang zwischen der empfundenen psychotypologischen Distanz und der Rolle der Muttersprache besteht, d.h. bei als größer empfundener psychotypologischer Distanz zwischen Persisch und Deutsch wird seltener aus dem Persischen transferiert. Überdies ist festzustellen, dass die L2 Englisch zwar gelegentlich mitaktiviert wird, jedoch nur eine untergeordnete Rolle spielt. Ein Einfluss der L3 Arabisch kann aus verschiedenen Gründen (u.a. geringes Niveau und mangelnder Gebrauch dieser Sprache) nicht festgestellt werden. Die vorliegende Arbeit versteht sich als ein Plädoyer für die Relevanz der Schulung von Kollokationen im Fremdsprachenunterricht, da die produktive Kollokationskompetenz der ProbandInnen auch auf einem hohen Niveau gravierende Defizite aufweist.

The acquisition of verbal paradigms in Dutch and Greek L2 children: cross-linguistic differences and inflectional defaults

Previous research with children learning a second language (L2) has reported errors with verb inflection and cross-linguistic variation in accuracy and error patterns. However, owing to the cross-linguistic complexity and diversity of different verbal paradigms, the cross-linguistic effects on the nature of default forms has not been directly addressed in L2 acquisition studies. In the present study, we compared accuracy and error patterns in verbal agreement inflections in L2 children acquiring Dutch and Greek, keeping the children’s L1 constant (Turkish). Results showed that inflectional defaults in Greek follow universal predictions regarding the morphological underspecification of paradigms. However, the same universal predictions do not apply to the same extent to Dutch. It is argued that phonological properties of inflected forms should be taken into account to explain cross-linguistic differences in the acquisition of inflection. By systematically comparing patterns in child L2 Dutch and Greek, this study shows how universal mechanisms and target language properties work in tandem in the acquisition of inflectional paradigms.

Contemporary Approaches to Translation in the Classroom : A study of students' Attitudes and Strategies

The purpose of this study is to explore the strategies and attitudes of students towards translation in the context of language learning. The informants come from two different classes at an Upper Secondary vocational program. The study was born from the backdrop of discussions among some English teachers representing different theories on translation and language learning, meeting students endeavoring in language learning beyond the confinement of the classroom and personal experiences of translation in language learning. The curriculum and course plan for English at the vocational program emphasize two things of particular interest to our study; integration of the program outcomes and vocational language into the English course - so called meshed learning – and student awareness of their own learning processes. A background is presented of different contrasting methods in translation and language learning that is relevant to our discussion. However, focus is given to contemporary research on reforms within the Comparative Theory, as expressed in Translation in Language and Teaching (TILT), Contrastive Analysis and “The Third Space”. The results of the students’ reflections are presented as attempts to translate two different texts; one lyric and one technical vocational text. The results show a pragmatic attitude among the students toward tools like dictionaries or Google Translate, but also a critical awareness about their use and limits. They appear to prefer the use of first language to the target language when discussing the correct translation as they sought accuracy over meaning. Translation for them was a natural and problem-solving event worth a rightful place in language teaching.

Tu dis et je murmure! : Une analyse des verbes de parole dans la littérature suédoise pour enfants et leurs traductions en français

This study presents a description of the role of verbs in introducing the direct dialogue in literacy and of the way they are translated from Swedish to French in children’s literature. In order to adapt the text to the target language, these verbs sometimes change and lose their impact on the tone and character of the dialogue. This can be problematic in texts aimed for children where readability depends on a child’s language capacity. Another aim of this study is to expose des difficulties encountered in the transfer of values and emotional effects when translating children’s literature from source language to target languageOur conclusion is that the Swedish children’s literature translated to French is often subject to modifications rather than translation of verbs that introduce direct dialogue. Consequently, dialogue meaning and character personalities are modified within the text translation. In our analysis of four Swedish children’s books and their translation to French we have seen that these adaptations are not made for adapting to the intended reader’s capacities in the target language or to the literacy of the source text but rather to adapt to certain linguistic norms relative to the style of French language.

Cambios en el uso de la lengua meta en el aula tras la introducción de Lgy 11 : Una revisión sistemática de literatura con el objetivo de investigar si ha cambiado el uso de la lengua meta en la enseñanza de lenguas modernas tras la introducción de Lgy 11

Resumen: La tesina investiga si ha cambiado el uso de la lengua meta en la enseñanza de lenguas modernas en la escuela sueca tras el inicio de Lgy 11. El estudio se realiza a través de una revisión sistemática de literatura. Vemos que en nuestro campo de investigación faltan estudios profundos. Los estudios encontrados indican un aumento del uso de la lengua meta en el aula tras el inicio de Lgy 11. Sin embargo, en pocas situaciones parece cumplirse la norma que indica que todo lo esencial de la enseñanza debe realizarse en la lengua meta. Las unidades de gramática parecen ser el segmento de la enseñanza en el cual los profesores usan el sueco más extensamente. Según los estudios analizados solamente una profesora incorpora la lengua meta cuando enseña la gramática. No obstante, la mayoría de los profesores expresan que la gramática es una parte esencial de la enseñanza de lenguas modernas

The priority of temporal aspects in L2-Swedish prosody : Studies in perception and production

Foreign accent can be everything from hardly detectable to rendering the second language speech unintelligible. It is assumed that certain aspects of a specific target language contribute more to making the foreign accented speech intelligible and listener friendly, than others. The present thesis examines a teaching strategy for Swedish pronunciation in second language education. The teaching strategy “Basic prosody” or BP, gives priority to temporal aspects of Swedish prosody, which means the temporal phonological contrasts word stress and quantity, as well as the durational realizations of these contrasts. BP does not prescribe any specific tonal realizations. This standpoint is based on the great regional variety in realization and distribution of Swedish word accents. The teaching strategy consists virtually of three directives: · Stress the proper word in the sentence. · Stress proper syllables in stressed words and make them longer. · Lengthen the proper segment – vowel or subsequent consonant – in the stressed syllable. These directives reflect the view that all phonological length is stress-induced, and that vowel length and consonant length are equally important as learning goals. BP is examined in the light of existing findings in the field of second language pronunciation and with respect to the phonetic correlates of Swedish stress and quantity. Five studies examine the relation between segment durations and the categorization made by native Swedish listeners. The results indicate that the postvocalic consonant duration contributes to quantity categorization as well as giving the proper duration to stressed syllables. Furthermore, native Swedish speakers are shown to apply the complementary /V: C/ - /VC:/ pattern also when speaking English and German, by lengthening postvocalic consonants. The correctness of the priority is not directly addressed but important aspects of BP are supported by earlier findings as well as the results from the present studies.

La noción de lo esencial en la enseñanza de lenguas modernas según los profesores. : Entrevistas con cinco profesores sobre la norma "Todo lo esencial de la enseñanza debe realizarse en la lengua meta" de Gy11.

La tesina investiga cómo cinco profesores interpretan la norma de Gy11 que indica que todo lo esencial de la enseñanza de lenguas modernas debe realizarse en la lengua meta. Las entrevistas semiestructuradas indican que los profesores interpretan la norma de maneras parecidas, es decir, que los profesores deben usar la lengua meta lo máximo posible en la enseñanza. La mayoría de los profesores están de acuerdo con la norma, sin embargo, tienen varias críticas contra Skolverket y la formulación de la norma. Ninguno de los profesores ha cambiado su uso de la lengua meta en el aula debido a la norma.

The Role of Motivational Strategies in the Upper Elementary Classroom : A systematic literature review about teacher strategies that promote self-confidence, motivation and a conducive learning environment

The aim of this literature review is to investigate which strategies teachers use to motivate pupils to communicate orally in English. The literature review also investigates how these teacher strategies affect pupils. The methodology used for this investigation is a systematic literature review. Various databases have been used when searching for literature. Scientific articles and theses have been searched for. They have also been read and analyzed before they have become a part of this review. The results indicate that some teachers feel insecure when speaking English. Therefore Swedish is spoken in many language classrooms. Teachers speaking in front of the class is the traditional way of teaching, and it does not seem to be a strategy who influences pupils positively. If teachers speak the target language among pupils they often get more motivated and focused pupils who feel comfortable speaking English. Young pupils are fast learners. By exposing them to the English language in early ages they receive great opportunities to learn a foreign language and strengthen their self-confidence. Drama, songs and rhymes are preferable strategies to use when teaching young learners. What position teachers decide to take in the classroom is also a significant element when teaching foreign languages.

Rethinking the English pedagogy at Hope College in Taiwan

For many years Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and an English-Only approach to English teaching have characterised pedagogy at Hope College in Taiwan.

These approaches have had a significant impact on the ways in which students understand their cultural identities and develop competency in both oral and written English. Sometimes, in the EFL context in Taiwan, an English-Only policy can impact on students' learning in two ways. Firstly, it may cause students to doubt the validity of their own culture in comparison to English speaking culture. Secondly it may lead to students' resisting English culture because of enhanced feelings of nationalism. Furthermore, sometimes, students may feel disturbed when learning English in an English-Only class because the lack of cognitive understanding usually makes them misunderstand the content expressed in the target language (English) and misuse the target language.

In this paper I consider the need to reintroduce elements of the Grammar-Translation method to an EFL context and suggest an integrative pedagogy in which native English-speaking teachers, applying English only in the classes, focus on teaching listening and speaking to directly foster students' English linguistic competence, while local English teachers, applying both English and Chinese in the classes, focus on teaching reading and writing to foster students' in-depth cognitive ability of English culture and suitable written expression. The purpose of such integrative pedagogy is to keep students' cultural identity as well as advance students' understanding and correct use in English.

Correlates of screening mammography for Italian and Anglo-Australian women

The first aim of the research was to determine the applicability of certain variables from the Health Belief Model (HBM), the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), the risk dimensions from the Psychometric Paradigm, the Common-Sense Model of Illness Representations and the Locus of Control to Italian women’s beliefs and behaviours in relation to screening mammography. These models have predominantly been derived and evaluated with English-speaking persons. The study used quantitative and qualitative methods to enable explanation of research-driven and participant-driven issues. The second aim was to include Italian women in health behaviour research and to contrast the Italian sample with the Anglo-Australian sample to determine if differences exist in relation to their beliefs. In Australia many studies in health behaviour research do not include women whose first language is not English. The third aim was to evaluate the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria’s (ACCV) Community Language Program (CLP) by: (a) identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the program as seen by the participants; and (b) assessing the impact of the program on women’s knowledge and beliefs about breast cancer, early detection of breast cancer, self-reported and intended breast screening behaviours. The CLP is an information service that uses women’s first language to convey information to women whose first language is not English. The CLP was designed to increase knowledge about breast and cervical cancer. The research used a pre-test-intervention-post-test design with 174 Italian-born and 138 Anglo-Australian women aged 40 years and over. Interviews for the Italian sample were conducted in Italian. The intervention was an information session that related to breast health and screening mammography. Demographic variables were collected in the Pre-Test only. Qualitative open-ended questions that related specifically to the information session were collected in the Post-Test phase of the study. Direct logistic regression was used with the participants’ beliefs and behaviours to identify the relevant variables for language (Italian speaking and English-speaking), attendance to an information session, mammography screening and breast self-examination (BSE) behaviour. Pre- and Post-Test comparisons were conducted using chi-square tests for the non-parametric data and paired sample t-tests for the parametric data. Differences were found between the Italian and Anglo-Australian women in relation to their beliefs about breast cancer screening. The Italian women were: (1) more likely to state that medical experts understood the causes of breast cancer; (2) more likely to feel that they had less control over their personal risk of getting breast cancer; (3) more likely to be upset and frightened by thinking about breast cancer; (4) less likely to perceive breast cancer as serious; (4) more likely to only do what their doctor told them to do; and (5) less likely to agree that there were times when a person has cancer and they don’t know it. A pattern emerged for the Italian and Anglo-Australian women from the logistic regression analyses. The Italian women were much more likely to comply with medical authority and advice. The Anglo-Australian women were more likely to feel that they had some control over their health. Specifically, the risk variable ‘dread’ was more applicable to the Italian women’s behaviour and internal locus of control variable was more relevant to the Anglo-Australian women. The qualitative responses also differed for the two samples. The Italian women’s comments were more general, less specific, and more limited than that of the Anglo-Australian women. The Italian women talked about learning how to do BSE whereas the Anglo-Australian women said that attending the session had reminded them to do BSE more regularly. The key findings and contributions of the present research were numerous. The focus on one cultural group ensured comprehensive analyses, as did the inclusion of an adequate sample size to enable the use of multivariate statistics. Separating the Italian and Anglo-Australian samples in the analyses provided theoretical implications that would have been overlooked if the two groups were combined. The use of both qualitative and quantitative data capitalised on the strengths of both techniques. The inclusion of an Anglo-Australian group highlighted key theoretical findings, differences between the two groups and unique contributions made by both samples during the collection of the qualitative data. The use of a pre-test-intervention-post-test design emphasised the reticence of the Italian sample to participate and talk about breast cancer and confirmed and validated the consistency of the responses across the two interviews for both samples. The inclusion of non-cued responses allowed the researcher to identify the key salient issues relevant to the two groups. The limitations of the present research were the lack of many women who were not screening and reliance on self-report responses, although few differences were observed between the Pre- and Post-Test comparisons. The theoretical contribution of the HBM and the TRA variables was minimal in relation to screening mammography or attendance at the CLP. The applicability of these health behaviour theories may be less relevant for women today as they clearly knew the benefits of and the seriousness of breast cancer screening. The present research identified the applicability of the risk variables to the Italian women and the relevance of the locus of control variables to the Anglo-Australian women. Thus, clear cultural differences occurred between the two groups. The inclusion of the illness representations was advantageous as the responses highlighted ideas and personal theories salient to the women not identified by the HBM. The use of the illness representations and the qualitative responses further confirmed the relevance of the risk variables to the Italian women and the locus of control variables to the Anglo-Australian women. Attendance at the CLP did not influence the women to attend for mammography screening. Behavioural changes did not occur between the Pre- and Post-Test interviews. Small incremental changes as defined by the TTM and the stages of change may have occurred. Key practical implications for the CLP were identified. Improving the recruitment methods to gain a higher proportion of women who do not screen is imperative for the CLP promoters. The majority of the Italian and Anglo-Australian women who attended the information sessions were women who screen. The fact that Italian women do not like talking or thinking about cancer presents a challenge to promoters of the CLP. The key theoretical finding that Italian women dread breast cancer but comply with their doctor provides clear strategies to improve attendance at mammography screening. In addition, the inclusion of lay health advisors may be one way of increasing attendance to the CLP by including Italian women already attending screening and likely to have attended a CLP session. The present research identified the key finding that improving Anglo-Australian attendance at an information session is related to debunking the myth surrounding familial risk of breast cancer and encouraging the Anglo-Australian women to take more control of their health. Improving attendance for Italian women is related to reducing the fear and dread of breast cancer and building on the compliance pattern with medical authority. Therefore, providing an information session in the target language is insufficient to attract non-screeners to the session and then to screen for breast cancer. Suggestions for future research in relation to screening mammography were to include variables from more than one theory or model, namely the risk, locus of control and illness representations. The inclusion of non-cued responses to identify salient beliefs is advantageous. In addition, it is imperative to describe the profile of the cultural sample in detail, include detailed descriptions of the translation process and be aware of the tendency of Italian women to acquiesce with medical authority.

Information structure and the flow of translation

Translators are often recommended to highly observe the natural flow of the target language of the translated texts. The use and order of discoursal aspects of texts such as thematic information, topical elements, left-dislocation, and passive voice, among others, which constitute information structure may sometimes conflict with this viewpoint. It is argued that such discoursal elements are determinant in understanding the flow of the texts in the source language and should not, therefore, be frequently switched around in the translated texts to fit the norm of the target language. The order of these linguistic elements should be maximally maintained when translating a text into a target language. It is after all the employment of such information structure units by the writer of the source text which is significant at any given point in discourse both cognitively, when processing the text, and interactionally, when communicating with the reader.

Information structure and the flow of translation

Translators often follow the established conventions of translations set out by founders like Nida and Taber (1969) or Newmark (1988). The principal convention, one could say, is to adhere to the source text in form and meaning. Another major convention is to keep the flow of the translated text natural, often referred to as ‘readability’ (Baker and Saldanha, 2009; Hatim and Munday, 2004). These two conventions are hard to go together, and one of them is often flouted. To maintain the same position of discoursal elements or information structure of the source text which include thematic information, left-dislocation, contrastiveness, and passive voice in the translated text is not an easy task. This exacerbates the task especially if the source and the target language have different typological features. This paper argues that discoursal elements are determinant in understanding the flow of the texts in the source language and should not, therefore, be frequently switched around in the translated texts to fit the norm of the target language. The order of these information structure elements should be maximally maintained when translating a text into a target language. It is after all the employment of such information structure units by the writer of the source text which is significant at any given point in discourse both cognitively, when processing the text, and interactionally, when communicating with the reader.

Phraseological translation

Almost all texts contain some complex lexical units, belonging to the phraseology of the language of a specialized field or of the general language. The translator must first identify this phraseologism, and then understand its meaning. However, it is not enough to propose an explanation in the target language: the translator has to establish its phraseologically equivalent lexical unit in meaning and in phraseological formulations.

O processo de conscientização na sala de aula de língua espanhola

This article discusses the awareness process of students in a Spanish as a foreign language classroom, at a Centre of Language Studies in a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The frame of reference is Paulo Freire's pedagogy (FREIRE, 1980, 1984, 1987, 1999, 2000), Wallerstein (1983) and Schleppegrell (1997)'s investigations which are important to the comprehension of the relation between Freirean's pedagogy and the language teaching. This is a qualitative research and it focuses on action research practice in a Spanish language classroom, in which a syllabus based on Paulo Freire's pedagogy was implemented in order to verify how the target language was used in the classroom (MENEGHINI, 2001). Data analysis and discussion are based on data triangulation and classroom interactions are taken on primary data. The implementation of this research suggests that the problem posing tasks on themes chosen from the student's realities are the way which leads to the awareness.