Historical Theatre: The Task of the Translator

This article discusses ways in which the translator
may approach the plays of the Spanish Golden
Age in order to create translations free from the
philological deadness that characterises so many
versions to date. By thinking of translation both
as a writing practice that eschews locatedness,
and an ethical regime that is anxious to preserve
the rights of alterity, this article proposes a series
of translational strategies geared to the writing
of translations that give English-language
expression to these classical plays, while
simultaneously belonging to themselves

Language-universal Sensory Deficits in Developmental Dyslexia: English, Spanish, and Chinese

Studies in sensory neuroscience reveal the critical importance of accurate sensory perception for cognitive development. There is considerable debate concerning the possible sensory correlates of phonological processing, the primary cognitive risk factor for developmental dyslexia. Across languages, children with dyslexia have a specific difficulty with the neural representation of the phonological structure of speech. The identification of a robust sensory marker of phonological difficulties would enable early identification of risk for developmental dyslexia and early targeted intervention. Here, we explore whether phonological processing difficulties are associated with difficulties in processing acoustic cues to speech rhythm. Speech rhythm is used across languages by infants to segment the speech stream into words and syllables. Early difficulties in perceiving auditory sensory cues to speech rhythm and prosody could lead developmentally to impairments in phonology. We compared matched samples of children with and without dyslexia, learning three very different spoken and written languages, English, Spanish, and Chinese. The key sensory cue measured was rate of onset of the amplitude envelope (rise time), known to be critical for the rhythmic timing of speech. Despite phonological and orthographic differences, for each language, rise time sensitivity was a significant predictor of phonological awareness, and rise time was the only consistent predictor of reading acquisition. The data support a language-universal theory of the neural basis of developmental dyslexia on the basis of rhythmic perception and syllable segmentation. They also suggest that novel remediation strategies on the basis of rhythm and music may offer benefits for phonological and linguistic development.

Genetic Algorithm Search for Predictive Patterns in Multidimensional Time Series

Based on an algorithm for pattern matching in character strings, we implement a pattern matching machine that searches for occurrences of patterns in multidimensional time series. Before the search process takes place, time series are encoded in user-designed alphabets. The patterns, on the other hand, are formulated as regular expressions that are composed of letters from these alphabets and operators. Furthermore, we develop a genetic algorithm to breed patterns that maximize a user-defined fitness function. In an application to financial data, we show that patterns bred to predict high exchange rates volatility in training samples retain statistically significant predictive power in validation samples.

NON-GAUSSIAN STATISTICS OF OIL PRICING TIME-SERIES: A CASE STUDY

The stochastic nature of oil price fluctuations is investigated over a twelve-year period, borrowing feedback from an existing database (USA Energy Information Administration database, available online). We evaluate the scaling exponents of the fluctuations by employing different statistical analysis methods, namely rescaled range analysis (R/S), scale windowed variance analysis (SWV) and the generalized Hurst exponent (GH) method. Relying on the scaling exponents obtained, we apply a rescaling procedure to investigate the complex characteristics of the probability density functions (PDFs) dominating oil price fluctuations. It is found that PDFs exhibit scale invariance, and in fact collapse onto a single curve when increments are measured over microscales (typically less than 30 days). The time evolution of the distributions is well fitted by a Levy-type stable distribution. The relevance of a Levy distribution is made plausible by a simple model of nonlinear transfer. Our results also exhibit a degree of multifractality as the PDFs change and converge toward to a Gaussian distribution at the macroscales.