"Abhold, leid, gewillt"... ¿Son adjetivos? Estableciendo un corpus para un diccionario sintáctico alemán-español de adjetivos

Si se pretende elaborar un diccionario de adjetivos, ya sea este monolingüe o bilingüe, la primera tarea que se le impone al lexicógrafo es la de definir qué es un adjetivo, una cuestión que todavía hoy no ha sido resuelta satisfactoriamente. En alemán hay una serie de palabras que han sido descritas tradicionalmente como adjetivos en función exclusivamente predicativa, cuyo estatus como adjetivos es, sin embargo, cuestionado por algunos autores. En este artículo se trata de dilucidar si estas palabras realmente solo pueden aparecer en función predicativa, cómo se las describe en diccionarios y gramáticas y cuáles son sus principales correspondencias en español, a fin de decidir si deberían ser incluidas en un corpus destinado a la elaboración de un diccionario sintáctico de adjetivos alemán-español.

Análisis de elementos gráficos de contenido occidental en los glifos de los códices coloniales del centro de México: el caso de los antropónimos castellanos

En este trabajo presentamos el estudio de los glifos nahuas coloniales de antropónimos castellanos que contienen algún elemento occidental en su composición. Es decir, analizamos los «prestamos» que los tlacuiloque o escribas indígenas tomaron para escribirlos. Para llevarlo a cabo hemos revisado multitud de códices aunque somos conscientes de que no hemos tenido acceso a todos ellos. No obstante, consideramos que el resultado final recoge la mayor parte de ellos y ofrece datos que nos permitirá en próximos estudios relacionar antropónimos nahuas, topónimos, oficios, cargos, barrios, etc., en los que también se incluyeron elementos culturales occidentales.

Receptive Vocabulary of CLIL and Non-CLIL Primary and Secondary School Learners

CLIL instruction has been reported to be beneficial for foreign language vocabulary learning since CLIL students show higher vocabulary profiles than students of their same age in traditional EFL contexts. However, to our knowledge, the receptive vocabulary knowledge of CLIL and non-CLIL learners at the end of primary and secondary education has not been examined yet. Hence, this study aims at comparing the receptive vocabulary size 79 CLIL primary learners with the receptive vocabulary knowledge of 331 non-CLIL learners at the end of primary and secondary school. Sex-based differences were also analysed. The 2k Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) was used for the purposes of the study. Results revealed that learners’ receptive vocabulary sizes lie within the most frequent 1000 words, non-CLIL secondary school students throw better results than primary students but the differences between the secondary group and the CLIL group are not statistically significant. As for sex-based differences, we found no significant differences among the groups. These findings led us to believe that the CLIL approach offers a benefit for vocabulary acquisition since CLIL learners have been exposed to the foreign language for a shorter period of time and the results are quite similar to their non-CLIL secondary school partners.

Le pilocentrisme de la France d’Ancien Régime : évolution des représentations de la pilosité de François 1er à Louis XVI

Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec la direction de Jean-Jacques Courtine à l'Université de Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle sous la discipline anthropologie et avec la direction de Dominique Deslandres à l'Université de Montréal sous la discipline histoire

Réflexion autour des dictionnaires de droit civil

Par leur mode de rédaction, les dictionnaires de droit civil révèlent une conception du sens en droit qui se caractérise par son objectivité, son historicité et son unité, c’est-à-dire par un ensemble de qualités qui sont intimement liées dans l’imaginaire des civilistes. Ce faisant, les dictionnaires de droit civil présentent un certain découpage du monde qui ne tient pas toujours compte des sens multiples que les juristes attribuent aux termes fondamentaux de leur vocabulaire. C’est en dégageant l’origine et la raison d’être du décalage entre le sens tel qu’il est défini et celui qui est vécu que l’auteur montre à quel point les dictionnaires de droit civil s’inscrivent dans une relation complexe qu’entretiennent les juristes avec leur langage.

Les définitions dans les codes civils

"Omnis definitio in jure civili periculosa est". Le principe selon lequel toute définition est périlleuse constitue l’une des idées séculaires véhiculées par la tradition de droit civil. Malgré cela, le Code civil français et, plus récemment, le "Code civil du Québec" contiennent tous deux un nombre important de définitions légales. Abordées du point de vue du lexicographe, ces définitions soulèvent la question de savoir à quel point elles doivent être prises en considération dans les dictionnaires juridiques : en présence d’une définition légale, le lexicographe devrait-il simplement la paraphraser ou devrait-il plutôt chercher à rendre compte du sens tel qu’il est véhiculé dans le discours juridique? En étudiant les enjeux soulevés par cette question, le présent texte propose une démarche lexicographique qui relativise l’influence des définitions légales sur le contenu des dictionnaires de droit civil.

The Historical Thesaurus and the sentimental language of Robert Burns

This thesis demonstrates a new methodology for the linguistic analysis of literature drawing on the data within The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (2009). Developing ideas laid out by Carol McGuirk in her book Robert Burns and the Sentimental Era (1985), this study offers a novel approach to the cultural connections present in the sentimental literature of the eighteenth century, with specific reference to Robert Burns. In doing so, it responds to the need to “stop reading Burns through glossaries and start reading him through dictionaries, thesauruses and histories”, as called for by Murray Pittock (2012). Beginning by situating the methodology in linguistic theory, this thesis goes on firstly to illustrate the ways in which such an approach can be deployed to assess existing literary critical ideas. The first chapter does this testing by examining McGuirk’s book, while simultaneously grounding the study in the necessary contextual background. Secondly, this study investigates, in detail, two aspects of Burns’s sentimental persona construction. Beginning with his open letter ‘The Address of the Scotch Distillers’ and its sentimental use of the language of the Enlightenment, and moving on to one of Burns’s personas in his letters to George Thomson, this section illustrates the importance of persona construction in Burns’s sentimental ethos. Finally, a comprehensive, evidence-based, comparison of linguistic trends examines the extent to which similar sentimental language is used by Burns and Henry Mackenzie, Laurence Sterne, William Shenstone and Samuel Richardson. This thesis shows how this new methodology is a valuable new tool for those involved in literary scholarship. For the first time in any comprehensive way the Historical Thesaurus can be harnessed to make new arguments in literary criticism.

LIBRARY: A DEFINITION FROM ANOTHER CONTEXT

This essay presents a series of discussions revolving around the discipline of library professionals who are trained in it.It covers the concept of Library from the formal point of view, contributed by some authors and dictionaries, but also from the particular vision of the author, who conceptualized from the working level, academy, research and daily contact with users.Therefore, it is a short journey from the traditional to the current reality with the inclusion of information technology and communication. But above all, a journey of a very personal feel.

Our own language: Scots verse translation and the second-generation Scottish renaissance

This thesis examines the role of Scots language verse translation in the second-generation or post-war Scottish Renaissance. The translation of European poetry into Scots was of central importance to the first-generation Scottish Renaissance of the nineteen twenties and thirties. As Margery Palmer McCulloch has shown, the wider cultural climate of Anglo-American modernism was key to MacDiarmid’s conception of the interwar Scottish Renaissance. What was the effect on second-generation poet-translators as the modernist moment passed? Are the many translations undertaken by the younger poets who emerged in the course of the nineteen forties and fifties a faithful reflection of this cultural inheritance? To what extent are they indicative of a new set of priorities and international influences? The five principal translators discussed in this thesis are Douglas Young (1913-1973), Sydney Goodsir Smith (1915-1975), Robert Garioch (1909-1981), Tom Scott (1918-1995) and William J. Tait (1918-1992). Each is the subject of a chapter, in many cases providing the first or most extensive treatment of particular translations. While the pioneering work of John Corbett, Bill Findlay and J. Derrick McClure, among other scholars, has drawn attention to the long history of literary translation into Scots, this thesis is the first extended critical work to take the verse translations of the post-MacDiarmid makars as its subject. The nature and extent of MacDiarmid’s influence is considered throughout, as are the wider discourses around language and translation in twentieth-century Scottish poetry. Critical engagement with a number of key insights from theoretical translation studies helps to situate these writers’ work in its global context. This thesis also explores the ways in which the specific context of Scots translation allows scholars to complicate or expand upon theories of translation developed in other cultural situations (notably Lawrence Venuti’s writing on domestication and foreignisation). The five writers upon whom this thesis concentrates were all highly individual, occasionally idiosyncratic personalities. Young’s polyglot ingenuity finds a foil in Garioch’s sharp, humane wit. Goodsir Smith’s romantic ironising meets its match in Scott’s radical certainty of cause. Tait’s use of the Shetlandic tongue sets him apart. Nonetheless, despite the great variety of style, form and tone shown by each of these translators, this thesis demonstrates that there are meaningful links to be made between them and that they form a unified, coherent group in the wider landscape of twentieth-century Scottish poetry. On the linguistic level, each engaged to some extent in the composition of a ‘synthetic’ or ‘plastic’ language deriving partly from literary sources, partly from the spoken language around them. On a more fundamental level, each was committed to enriching this language through translation, within which a number of key areas of interest emerge. One of the most important of these key areas is Gaelic – especially the poetry of Sorley MacLean, which Young, Garioch and Goodsir Smith all translated into Scots. This is to some extent an act of solidarity on the part of these Scots poets, acknowledging a shared history of marginalisation as well as expressing shared hopes for the future. The same is true of Goodsir Smith’s translations from a number of Eastern European poets (and Edwin Morgan’s own versions, slightly later in the century). The translation of verse drama by poets is another key theme sustained throughout the thesis, with Garioch and Young attempting to fill what they perceived as a gap in the Scots tradition through translation from other languages (another aspect of these writers’ legacy continued by Morgan). Beyond this, all of the writers discussed in this thesis translated extensively from European poetries from Ancient Greece to twentieth-century France. Their reasons for doing so were various, but a certain cosmopolitan idealism figures highly among them. So too does a desire to see Scotland interact with other European nations, thus escaping the potentially narrowing influence of post-war British culture. This thesis addresses the legacy of these writers’ translations, which, it argues, continue to exercise a perceptible influence on the course of poetry in Scotland. This work constitutes a significant contribution to a much-needed wider critical re-assessment of this pivotal period in modern Scottish writing, offering a fresh perspective on the formal and linguistic merits of these poets’ verse translations. Drawing upon frequently obscure book, pamphlet and periodical sources, as well as unpublished manuscripts in the National Library of Scotland and the Shetland Archives, this thesis breaks new ground in its investigation of the role of Scots verse translation in the second-generation Scottish Renaissance.

Le pilocentrisme de la France d’Ancien Régime : évolution des représentations de la pilosité de François 1er à Louis XVI

Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec la direction de Jean-Jacques Courtine à l'Université de Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle sous la discipline anthropologie et avec la direction de Dominique Deslandres à l'Université de Montréal sous la discipline histoire

Translation – The fifth language skill? A comparison of the role of translation in Finnish lukio and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

This study attempts to answer the question “Should translation be considered a fifth language skill?” by examining and comparing the use of translation as a language learning and assessment method in the national Finnish lukio curriculum and the curriculum of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). Furthermore, the students’ ability to translate and their opinions on the usefulness of translation in language learning will be examined. The students’ opinions were gathered through a questionnaire that was given to 156 students studying in either lukio or the IBDP in Turku and Rovaniemi. I present and compare the role of translation in selected language teaching and learning methods and approaches, and discuss the effectiveness of translation as a language learning method and an assessment method. The theoretical discussion provides the basis for examining the role of translation as a language learning method and an assessment method in the curricula and final examinations of both education programs. The analysis of the two curricula indicated that there is a significant difference in the use of translation, as translation is used as a language learning method and as an assessment method in lukio, but is not used in either form in the IB. The data obtained through the questionnaire indicated that there is a difference in the level of language competence between the lukio and IB students and suggested that the curriculum in which the student studies has some effect on his/her cognitive use of translation, ability to translate and opinions concerning the usefulness of translation in language learning. The results indicated that both groups of students used translation, along with their mother tongue, as a cognitive language learning method, and, contrary to the expectations set by the analysis of the two curricula, the IB students performed better in the translation exercises than lukio students. Both groups of students agreed that translation is a useful language learning method, and indicated that the most common dictionaries they use are bilingual Internet dictionaries. The results suggest that translation is a specific skill that requires teaching and practice, and that perhaps the translation exercises used in lukio should be developed from translating individual words and phrases to translating cultural elements. In addition, the results suggest that perhaps the IB curriculum should include the use of translation exercises (e.g., communicative translation exercises) in order to help students learn to mediate between languages and cultures rather than learn languages in isolation from each other.

Lexicon-grammar of Russian verbal idioms

Dissertação de Mestrado, Ciências da Linguagem, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade do Algarve, 2016

The Amplifier - v. 15, no. 8

In this issue...Boycott, Lunch-In, Snack Bar, Coach Cullen, Booster Club, Track, Marijuana, President Nixon, Foreign Policy, Dictionaries, Football, Army, Navy

Spheres of Influence: A Few Reflections on the Concept

In the frame of the Ukrainian crisis the question of spheres of influence has returned to political discourse. This may be an awkward subject, but what if we only deny the existence of such power constellations as spheres of influence? Do spheres of influence exist, or are they relics of history, and mere rhetoric? And if they exist, where can we find them? The hypothesis in this article is that instead of being a tangible reality, spheres of influence are obscure and contested political constructions, which nevertheless can have an impact on political behaviour. To demonstrate this, the article will first introduce a few examples of the current use of the concept. Secondly, a few remarks follow concerning the different IR schools of thought, and conceptual history as a method. Next, the article turns to discussing a few dictionaries and the empirical material for the present inquiry, which consists of recent textbooks, i.e. the current political science curriculum in one particular university, at the University of Tampere, Finland. More empirical cases deal with the division of Africa, the post-WWII situation, and the Hungarian revolution of 1956.

A dedicated greedy pursuit algorithm for sparse spectral representation of music sound

A dedicated algorithm for sparse spectral representation of music sound is presented. The goal is to enable the representation of a piece of music signal as a linear superposition of as few spectral components as possible, without affecting the quality of the reproduction. A representation of this nature is said to be sparse. In the present context sparsity is accomplished by greedy selection of the spectral components, from an overcomplete set called a dictionary. The proposed algorithm is tailored to be applied with trigonometric dictionaries. Its distinctive feature being that it avoids the need for the actual construction of the whole dictionary, by implementing the required operations via the fast Fourier transform. The achieved sparsity is theoretically equivalent to that rendered by the orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) method. The contribution of the proposed dedicated implementation is to extend the applicability of the standard OMP algorithm, by reducing its storage and computational demands. The suitability of the approach for producing sparse spectral representation is illustrated by comparison with the traditional method, in the line of the short time Fourier transform, involving only the corresponding orthonormal trigonometric basis.