Intercultural intertextuality as a translation phenomenon

Texts as communicative occurrences are characterised by their interdependence on other texts, either of the same genre or of a different genre. This characteristic feature is known as intertextuality (or discursivity). The relationship can either be to texts originating in the same language and culture, or to texts originating in another language and culture. This paper comments on the discourse phenomenon of 'intercultural intertextuality' from the point of view of translation (studies). It illustrates strategies employed in the original texts for referring to the source language/culture. Subsequently, the paper explores the translation strategies used in authentic target texts in dealing with the phenomenon of intercultural intertextuality. A variety of political speeches (mainly of the language pair English and German) are used as illustrative examples.

Effects of phonetic/phonics instruction on reading pronunciation (French level I)

Pronunciation training has been traditionally viewed as of limited importance in a communicatively oriented foreign language curriculum (Pennington & Richards, 1986). Many language instructors seemingly deny the usefulness of phonetic training and rely on a listen-and-repeat method with the use of audiotapes (Bate, 1989; Callamand & Pedoya, 1984; Jones, 1997). Beginners in French classes face the challenge of mastering a complex sound and grapheme-phoneme correspondence system without the benefit of specific instruction. Their pronunciation errors develop mostly from bad habits while decoding from print to sound (Dansereau, 1995). ^ The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of basic phonetic/phonics instruction on reading pronunciation accuracy in a French I language course. ^ The sample consisted of two groups of French I students from Florida International University, who received the same instruction in French language and culture during the fall semester of 1999. Only the experimental group received additional phonetic/phonics training. ^ The instrument consisted of three recorded reading tasks: isolated familiar words, isolated unfamiliar words, and dialogue. Research questions were analyzed using a one-way multivariate analysis of variance. Significant differences were found between the two groups on scores for each of the three sections of the instrument, and on the total scores. These findings support the hypothesis of the study and reveal the effectiveness of phonetic/phonics training for beginners of French. ^ The findings imply that beginning language students should receive the minimum knowledge they need to master the French phoneme-grapheme (sound-spelling) system. ^

The effects of jigsaw cooperative learning on motivation to learn English at Chung -Hwa Institute of Technology, Taiwan

The Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Republic of China in Taiwan considers English to be one of the keys to raising Taiwan's international competitiveness and requires students attending institutes of technology to receive instruction in English as a foreign language (EFL). This study focused on impacts of the use of cooperative learning as a teaching method on EFL learners. The setting was the English classes of Chung-Hwa Institute of Technology (CHIT). The subjects were 77 students from two classes, majoring in Business Administration. ^ The purpose of this study was to determine the differential effects (i.e., achievement in learning English, motivation orientation and intensity, and attitude concerning English language and culture) on students between the traditional Chinese teaching method and the Jigsaw cooperative learning method at CHIT. ^ The research design for the study was quasi-experimental and descriptive. This study utilized three survey instruments and final exam grades to investigate the effect of Jigsaw on the EFL students' competency in English, and on their attitudes about, and level of motivation toward learning English. The independent variable was the instructional method: one class utilized the Jigsaw approach to cooperative learning while the other utilized the traditional Chinese approach. The dependent variables were academic performance, motivation orientation toward English, motivation intensity toward learning English, and attitude toward learning of English and English culture as determined by final exam and questionnaire scores. The questionnaires and exam were administrated at the beginning and end of the semester. ^ Data analysis indicated that students learning cooperatively had higher final course grades and made more integrative statements on the measure of orientation toward learning English than students who learned using the traditional Chinese methods. Participants who learned using cooperative strategies had more positive attitudes about learning English connected with their desire to associate with English speakers and had more positive attitudes about the learning mechanism they experienced than those instructed though traditional Chinese learning strategies. There were no differences between the groups on the measure of motivation intensity. Recommendations were made to improve the use of the Jigsaw method of cooperative learning through both pedagogical and policy modifications. ^

A produção textual no ensino fundamental: processo de retextualização com o gênero memórias

Teaching Portuguese language in Brazilian public schools is still limited mostly to studying decontextualized text fragments, memorizing classifications and cult of grammar rules. Considering the language as a social, cultural practice which emerges from the intersubjective interaction, we sought to propose an educational intervention that prioritizes the retextualization processes from speech to the writing of memoirs as a textual genre, so as to contribute for improving learner’s discursive performances. Therefore, paying attention to these concerns and in attempt to contribute for improving the teaching of Portuguese language in elementary school, we chose as privileged locus a 9th grade class from a state school in Bento Fernandes, RN. The corpus is formed by texts produced and retextualized by students from the elders’ oral reports within local community. We sought thus to understand what memory is, its importance for registering local spoken language and culture, as much as to carry out didactic actions that favor students’ learning in the activities of textual production. In light of the theoretical overviews about linguistic-discursive relations, based on Marcuschi’s (1993, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010) conception of oralitiy-writing continuum and the debates proposed by Antunes (2003, 2014), Alves Filho (2011), Koch (2012) and Bakhtin (1992, 2011), we aimed to understand, by analyzing the retextualized memoirs, how these practices complement each other within the process of orality and writing. As for the proposal of didactic sequences, the study has been oriented by Dolz and Scheneuely (2004); as for the memoirs, by the guidelines of Coracine and Ghiraldelo (2011) and Le Goff (2010, 2013). In this way, this work followed the action-research methodology in a qualitative approach, considering the teacher (researcher) as an active agent involved in the process of knowledge production in his own educational practice, so as to interfere in the mediation, knowledge production and its dissemination in classroom context, which is the privileged locus for constructing and transforming process. There is much to be research within the area of retextualization. Yet we verified that this educational intervention, based on discursive operators of retextualization, has been proven viable as an efficient path so that we teachers can work the peculiarities of usages and functions of textual genres in oral and written modalities of a language, without grasping both as a dichotomy. This accredited us to strengthen a discourse that undoes many myths still present in that order, especially the one that causes more damage for the learners of Portuguese language – that writing is a representation of speech.

O conceito de motivação em dizeres de professores de língua inglesa

This work aimed at analyzing the speeches constructed about motivation by English teachers who teach at public state schools in the interior of Minas Gerais. We aimed at delineating the concept of subject underlying the subjects’ notion of motivation and identifying the role that the English teacher attributes to himself and to the student when he/she enunciates on motivational issues, problematizing the possible consequences of these issues for some English teachers while working in public schools. In order to do so, our investigation made use of theoretical assumptions from Applied Linguistics and Discourse Analysis. The theoretical fundamentation deriving from Bakhtin Circle as well as from Michel Pecheux’s theoretical basis were also very relevant for this research. The intersection of these studying fields entails a theoretical construction that considers the voices of those who live the social practice (MOITA LOPES, 2006), which allows one to see the subjects through their heterogeneity, fluidity and fragmentation. Moreover, it generates knowledge about language in its political, ideological, social and historical aspects. AREDA (SERRANI, 1998) was used as a theoretical and methodological framework for data collection. In our analysis, we considered the voices and the conditions of production that constitute 5 English teachers and, from some selected speeches extracted from their discursive production, some notions as intra and interdiscourse, discursive resonance, discursive memory, among others, can be seen interwoven. We hypothesize that the production of meaning deriving from these English teachers comes from a cleavage between the interdiscursivity about motivation and their position in relation to the English language. Some of these teachers’ discursive inscriptions were delineated as they follow: i) the silenced motivation, in which the teachers come up with several voices, repeating what that has already been said about motivation through silence by excess; also, through an inscription in a process of anomy, the English teachers silence motivation, as they come up with other sayings, in an anomic order, denying their identification with their mother tongue and culture because of a desire to learn the foreign language and culture; ii) the motivation in/from/ by others that resounds, in the way the teachers speak, a relation of alterity on what, in/from desire of other relations (colleagues, students, teaching materials, media, etc.), other forms and alternatives are established as a guarantee of students’ motivation; the teachers are also inscripted in in-service practice training as a space of educational development, because they imagine that the experience of the in-service practice alone, which excludes the educational instruction from the Languages course in which they graduated/were graduating at, taught them how to motivate the students; iii) the motivation as a will of power/knowledge, which means there seems to be teachers’ inscription in the relationship between power and knowledge (Foucault, 1996), disconsidering the conflicts that constitute the English classroom to say that there is a control of the English teaching and learning process and, as a result, they also sustain that they hold control over how to motivate; furthermore, the presence of a resonant voice, whose effect is given by an inscription on the (illusion of) completeness can be seen, because the English teachers believe that while motivating their students, this motivation will provide them with all the missing elements, which would mean that when they motivate students, they would be able to fulfill all the gaps in their learning process.

Taller de Escritura Creativa para el desarrollo de la Competencia Literaria en Brasil

Este artículo describe una propuesta de innovación docente basada en la corriente educativa de la Educación para el Desarrollo, así como la mejora de Competencia Comunicativa en L2 y de las Competencias Literarias e Interculturales por medio de un taller diseñado para tal fin. El propósito de este artículo es doble: por un lado mostrar las posibilidades que ofrece el Taller de Escritura e Ilustración Creativa para el desarrollo de las Competencias Literaria, Intercultural y Comunicativa en L2. Se muestra cómo el taller cumple con las directrices marcadas por la Educación para el Desarrollo que se describe en el marco teórico. El segundo objetivo es narrar cómo se han organizado, coordinado e implementado el Taller de Escritura e Ilustración Creativa en la Universidade Federal do Amazonas en Manaos (Brasil), basándose en la metodología del aprendizaje basado en tareas, y cómo se ha conseguido (i) promover la creación de puentes para la consolidación de las relaciones bilaterales entre universidades; (ii) motivar la colaboración científica con los centros brasileños que cuentan con un departamento de español, y (iii) emplear y crear herramientas que permitan incluir la Educación para el Desarrollo.

The effect of multilingual facilitation on active participation in MOOCs Authors:

A new approach for overcoming the language and culture barriers to participation in MOOCs is reported. It is hypothesised that the juxtaposition of English as the language of instruction, used for interacting with course materials, and one’s preferred language as the language of participation, used for interaction with peers and facilitators, is preferable to ‘English only’ for participation in a MOOC. The HANDSON MOOC included seven teams of facilitators, each catering for a different language community. Facilitators were responsible for promoting active participation and peer tutoring. Comparing language groups revealed a series of predictors of intention to learn, some of which became apparent in the first days of the MOOC already. The comparison also uncovered four critical factors that influence participation: facilitation, language of participation, group size, and a pre-existing sense of community. Especially crucial was reaching a sufficient number of active participants during the first week. We conclude that multilingual facilitation activates participation in MOOCs in various ways; and that synergy between the four aforementioned factors is critical for the formation of the learning network that supports a social dynamics of active participation. Our approach suggests future targets for the development of the multilingual and community potential of MOOCs.

O contributo de materiais autênticos para o ensino da competência sociocultural nas aulas de espanhol língua estrangeira

O presente Relatório Final visa aferir a importância que os materiais autênticos podem proporcionar ao ensino da competência sociocultural nas aulas de Espanhol Língua Estrangeira (ELE), contrariando a visão da abordagem cultural no ensino de línguas estrangeiras como mais uma tarefa. O objetivo primordial é estreitar laços entre língua e cultura, explorando as potencialidades dos materiais autênticos. Propõe-se, desta forma, a realização de fichas de trabalho apoiadas nestes materiais, com o intuito de motivar os alunos para a aprendizagem da língua espanhola, associando, sempre, idioma, cultura e comunicação, dado que a competência sociocultural compreende conhecimentos que nos permitem utilizar uma Língua Estrangeira (LE) de modo eficaz e adequado, em diferentes atos comunicativos em que o falante possa estar envolvido, por forma a evitar prováveis situações constrangedoras.

Polityka edukacyjna i językowa wobec mniejszości Sami w Norwegii

The article is devoted to the discussion of education and language policy as factors of ethnic assimilation and on the other hand as a factor of the revitalization of an indigenous culture. The study analyses the position of the Sami language and culture in the education system in Norway. It focuses on language as the main cultural factor of Sami ethnic identity. The author emphasizes the assimilation and marginalization process of the minority language policy in Norway and the possibilities of language revitalization in contemporary Sami society.

Bizkaiko Lehen Hezkuntzako ikasleen irakurtzeko ohiturak eta irakurtzearen balioa: eskola-liburutegiaren eraginari buruzko azterketa

553 p.

Ondas lusas : contributos para a análise linguística do processo de mediação na rádio pública portuguesa : abordagem pragmático-textual

A presente dissertação tem como objeto de análise as produções discursivas realizadas em dezasseis emissões do programa Em Nome do Ouvinte, emitido semanalmente na rádio pública portuguesa. As emissões escolhidas debatem o contributo da rádio pública na divulgação da língua e da cultura portuguesas. A investigação incide sobre o processo linguístico de mediação, motivado pelas mensagens dos ouvintes, os modos de receção dialógica e as estratégias de delicadeza presentes no discurso, no qual, de entre várias sequências textuais e marcadores pragmáticos, se destacam as sequências de justificação.

Building genre knowledge: a case study of efl student perceptions of the argument essay

Dissertação de mest. em Didáctica das Línguas e Culturas Modernas Especialização Inglês, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Univ. do Algarve, 2003

Les retraductions françaises d'Al Moqqadima d'Ibn Khaldoun : étude paratextuelle des retraductions de Vincent-Mansour Monteil (1967) et d’Abdesselam Cheddadi (2002)

Ce mémoire porte sur les retraductions françaises du XXe siècle d’Al Moqaddima (Les Prolégomènes) (1377) d’Ibn Khaldoun, un traité historique et philosophique du XIVe siècle. La première traduction française, Les Prolégomènes, est réalisée par De Slane entre 1840 et 1863. Elle est suivie de deux retraductions, à savoir Discours sur l’histoire universelle (1967- 1968) réalisée par Vincent-Mansour Monteil, et Le Livre des Exemples I : Autobiographie, La Muqaddima (2002) réalisée par Abdesselam Cheddadi. L’objet de ce mémoire est de mener une analyse contextuelle, paratextuelle et discursive de ces deux retraductions de l’œuvre monumentale d’Ibn Khaldoun, afin de dégager les principaux facteurs déterminant, dans chaque cas, le choix de retraduire. Notre approche théorique s’inscrit dans le contexte récent de remise en cause de ladite « hypothèse de la retraduction » d’Antoine Berman, qui privilégie une analyse textuelle de l’œuvre (re)traduite en négligeant quelque peu l’analyse contextuelle éclairant les conditions de production des retraductions, et en limitant le positionnement du traducteur à sa relation envers la « vérité » du texte source. Ainsi, en retraçant l’histoire des différentes éditions des Prolégomènes au XXe siècle, en exposant le contexte qui entoure les retraductions, et en nous nous attachant aux stratégies discursives déployées par les traducteurs en marge de ces dernières, nous tenons compte des réflexions récentes sur les « causalités multiples » du phénomène de la retraduction, tout en montrant comment la subjectivité du traducteur, ses décisions et ses motivations sont reliées à tous les éléments extratextuels ou contextuels mis en valeur par les théoriciens. Nous montrons par notre analyse que les deux retraductions au corpus sont motivées par des facteurs internes au texte (tels que l’authenticité de leur original, une meilleure connaissance du texte, de la langue et de la culture source, la nécessité de corriger des erreurs dans les traductions antérieures), mais aussi par de nouveaux éléments externes au texte (tels que le changement de normes sociales, littéraires et traductionnelles, l’émergence de nouvelles interprétations du texte, le positionnement idéologique du retraducteur, sa volonté de s’imposer comme une autorité, etc.). La retraduction s’avère donc un phénomène complexe motivé par une combinaison de facteurs, à la fois internes (textuels), externes (contextuels) et personnels, propres au (re)traducteur.

Les retraductions françaises d'Al Moqqadima d'Ibn Khaldoun : étude paratextuelle des retraductions de Vincent-Mansour Monteil (1967) et d’Abdesselam Cheddadi (2002)

Ce mémoire porte sur les retraductions françaises du XXe siècle d’Al Moqaddima (Les Prolégomènes) (1377) d’Ibn Khaldoun, un traité historique et philosophique du XIVe siècle. La première traduction française, Les Prolégomènes, est réalisée par De Slane entre 1840 et 1863. Elle est suivie de deux retraductions, à savoir Discours sur l’histoire universelle (1967- 1968) réalisée par Vincent-Mansour Monteil, et Le Livre des Exemples I : Autobiographie, La Muqaddima (2002) réalisée par Abdesselam Cheddadi. L’objet de ce mémoire est de mener une analyse contextuelle, paratextuelle et discursive de ces deux retraductions de l’œuvre monumentale d’Ibn Khaldoun, afin de dégager les principaux facteurs déterminant, dans chaque cas, le choix de retraduire. Notre approche théorique s’inscrit dans le contexte récent de remise en cause de ladite « hypothèse de la retraduction » d’Antoine Berman, qui privilégie une analyse textuelle de l’œuvre (re)traduite en négligeant quelque peu l’analyse contextuelle éclairant les conditions de production des retraductions, et en limitant le positionnement du traducteur à sa relation envers la « vérité » du texte source. Ainsi, en retraçant l’histoire des différentes éditions des Prolégomènes au XXe siècle, en exposant le contexte qui entoure les retraductions, et en nous nous attachant aux stratégies discursives déployées par les traducteurs en marge de ces dernières, nous tenons compte des réflexions récentes sur les « causalités multiples » du phénomène de la retraduction, tout en montrant comment la subjectivité du traducteur, ses décisions et ses motivations sont reliées à tous les éléments extratextuels ou contextuels mis en valeur par les théoriciens. Nous montrons par notre analyse que les deux retraductions au corpus sont motivées par des facteurs internes au texte (tels que l’authenticité de leur original, une meilleure connaissance du texte, de la langue et de la culture source, la nécessité de corriger des erreurs dans les traductions antérieures), mais aussi par de nouveaux éléments externes au texte (tels que le changement de normes sociales, littéraires et traductionnelles, l’émergence de nouvelles interprétations du texte, le positionnement idéologique du retraducteur, sa volonté de s’imposer comme une autorité, etc.). La retraduction s’avère donc un phénomène complexe motivé par une combinaison de facteurs, à la fois internes (textuels), externes (contextuels) et personnels, propres au (re)traducteur.