Does the PMSP connectionist model of single word reading learn to read in the same way as a child?

The Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg and Patterson (1996) connectionist model of reading was evaluated at two points early in its training against reading data collected from British children on two occasions during their first year of literacy instruction. First, the network’s non-word reading was poor relative to word reading when compared with the children. Second, the network made more non-lexical than lexical errors, the opposite pattern to the children. Three adaptations were made to the training of the network to bring it closer to the learning environment of a child: an incremental training regime was adopted; the network was trained on grapheme– phoneme correspondences; and a training corpus based on words found in children’s early reading materials was used. The modifications caused a sharp improvement in non-word reading, relative to word reading, resulting in a near perfect match to the children’s data on this measure. The modified network, however, continued to make predominantly non-lexical errors, although evidence from a small-scale implementation of the full triangle framework suggests that this limitation stems from the lack of a semantic pathway. Taken together, these results suggest that, when properly trained, connectionist models of word reading can offer insights into key aspects of reading development in children.

Der Wissenschaftlichkeit auf der Spur: zum Einsatz von Korpora in der Vermittlung des Deutschen als (fremder) Wissenschaftssprache

Recently, Corpus Linguistics has become a popular research tool in the field of German as a Foreign Language. However, little attention has been paid to teaching and learning potentials that corpora and corpus-based teaching offer. This paper seeks to demonstrate some of the ways in which corpus-based techniques can be used for teaching purposes, even by those who have little experience in Corpus Linguistics. The focus will be on teaching and learning German for Academic Purposes in German Studies abroad.

Advances in Discourse Studies

Methods of approaching the study of discourse have developed rapidly in the last ten years, influenced by a growing interdisciplinary spirit among linguistics and anthropology, sociology, cognitive and cultural psychology and cultural studies, as well as among established sub-fields within linguistics itself. Among the more recent developments are an increasing ‘critical’ turn in discourse analysis, a growing interest in historical, ethnographic and corpus-based approaches to discourse, more concern with the social contexts in which discourse occurs, the social actions that it is used to take and the identities that are constructed through it, as well as a revaluation of what counts as ‘discourse’ to include multi-modal texts and interaction. Advances in Discourse Studies brings together contributions from leading scholars in the field, investigating the historical and theoretical relationships between new advances in discourse studies and pointing towards new directions for the future of the discipline. Featuring discussion questions, classroom projects and recommended readings at the end of each section, as well as case studies illustrating each approach discussed, this is an invaluable resource for students of interdisciplinary discourse analysis.

Doing well by talking good? A topic modelling-assisted discourse study of corporate social responsibility

Using the novel technique of topic modelling, this paper examines thematic patterns and their changes over time in a large corpus of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports produced in the oil sector. Whereas previous research on corporate communications has been small-scale or interested in selected lexical aspects and thematic categories identified ex ante, our approach allows for thematic patterns to emerge from the data. The analysis reveals a number of major trends and topic shifts pointing to changing practices of CSR. Nowadays ‘people’, ‘communities’ and ‘rights’ seem to be given more prominence, whereas ‘environmental protection’ appears to be less relevant. Using more established corpus-based methods, we subsequently explore two top phrases - ‘human rights’ and ‘climate change’ that were identified as representative of the shifting thematic patterns. Our approach strikes a balance between the purely quantitative and qualitative methodologies and offers applied linguists new ways of exploring discourse in large collections of texts.

Uma análise de semelhanças e diferenças na tradução de textos técnicos, jornalísticos e literários

Por meio da utilização de corpus de textos técnicos, jornalísticos e literários escritos originalmente em inglês e traduzidos para o português, pode-se efetuar uma análise das soluções propostas pelos tradutores ao lidarem com semelhanças e diferenças lingüísticas e culturais dos textos de partida e de chegada. Com esse intuito, aplicou-se o modelo descritivo-comparativo sugerido por Aubert (1984, 1998), o qual se origina das categorias de Vinay e Darbelnet ([1958, 1977] 1995), a fim de, primeiramente, identificar e, depois, classificar os procedimentos ou modalidades empregadas na tradução desses gêneros textuais. Registraram-se como modalidades de maior incidência nos três corpora: a tradução literal, a transposição e a modulação. em virtude de a alta freqüência da tradução literal ocorrer em textos técnicos e, contrariamente ao esperado, incidir com proporção ainda maior em textos jornalísticos, poder-se-ia inferir uma tendência para automatismos na tradução desses dois tipos de textos. Já a necessidade de um emprego acentuado da modulação e da transposição com modulação em textos literários poderia ser decorrente de uma participação mais ativa do tradutor na tentativa de escapar da literalidade e proceder a uma maior reelaboração, a fim de passar características normalmente associadas à linguagem do romance.

Tendencies to explicitation in 'A Legião Estrangeira' translated into English with the tittle The Foreign Legion by Giovanni Pontiero

Some aspects involving explicitness within the literary translation process from Portuguese into English are analyzed. Clarice Lispector's 'A Legião Estrangeira' and its translation by Giovanni Ponteiro as The Foreign Legion, have been selected for current investigation employing the theoretical and methodological approach based on Baker's Corpus-based Translation Studies (1993, 1995, 1996, 2000) and Berber Sardinha's Corpus Linguistics (2004). The interrelations between the original and the translated texts and Ponteiro's solutions in his translation of preferential and recurring terms and idiomatic expressions are underscored and discussed.

Análise de vocábulos recorrentes e preferenciais na obra As mulheres de Tijucopapo, de Marilene Felinto, e na respectiva tradução para o inglês The women of Tijucopapo, realizada por Irene Mathews, com base em aspectos de normalização

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

A tradução e os prazeres o mundo de Clarice Lispector

Pós-graduação em Estudos Linguísticos - IBILCE

Um estudo de marcadores culturais na obra An invincible memory pelo autotradutor João Ubaldo Ribeiro

Pós-graduação em Letras - IBILCE

Investigando o uso de marcadores culturais presentes em quatro obras amadeanas, traduzidas para o inglês

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Estudo de termos simples, expressões fixas e semifixas encontrados em corpora paralelos e comparáveis da subárea de economia política

The main purpose of this investigation is to analyze the most frequent simple terms, fixed and semifixed expressions in the subarea of Social Political Economy in Portuguese and their corresponding terms in English, found in fifteen papers written by Bresser-Pereira and in his self-translated texts. The methodology used is the Corpus-Based Translation (Baker, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996; Camargo, 2005, 2007), Corpus Linguistics (Berber Sardinha, 2004) and Terminology (Barros, 2004). Results show that terms and expressions used in the source texts have no univocity within the specialized language related to the Brazilian Social Sciences. The terms translated into English also reflect variation due to the options chosen by the selftranslator as he seeks to adapt the theoretical concepts to the possibilities of the Target Language.

Uma investigação de aspectos de normalização na autotradução An Invincible Memory

This paper aims at observing the particular case of an author’s and self-translator’s style concerning normalisation features present in the self-translation. Our study has its theoretical starting point based on Baker’s proposal (1993, 1995, 1996, 2000) and Scott’s investigation in order to carry out an analysis of the use of linguistic choices involving evidence of normalization. The results point out that, while participating as a self-translator, Ubaldo Ribeiro reveals individual, distinctive and preferred stylistic options which present less lexical variation; in contrast, in the situation of participating as an author, Ubaldo Ribeiro shows stylistic choices of higher lexical diversity. Observed normalisation features reveal conscious or subconscious use of fluency strategies, making the target text easier to read. Due to his renowned sound command of the target language, the results may also suggest the challenges during the translated text re-creation process faced as a self-translator could have been greater than the challenges during the previous original text creation process faced as an author

Investigando a tradução de acrônimos e siglas da área de sensoriamento remoto: uma proposta do ponto de vista fraseológico

The aim is to analyze a corpus of remote sensing in order to identify acronyms in English and then search for their equivalents in Portuguese. The research is based on the approach of Corpus-Based Translation Studies (BAKER, 1995), Corpus Linguistics (BERBER SARDINHA, 2004), and Phraseology (PAVEL, 2003). The program WordSmith Tools version 6.0 is used. The results show that there is no standardization in these translations.

Análise de marcadores culturais no par de obras Relato de um certo oriente e The tree of the seventh heaven

This paper presents some results of a study on culturally marked terms in a corpus composed by the Brazilian novel Relato de um certo oriente (1989), by Milton Hatoum, and its translation into English The tree of the seventh heaven, by Ellen Watson. For the analysis of culturally marked terms, we followed the interdisciplinary approach proposed by Camargo (2005, 2007) involving corpus-based translation studies (BAKER, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2000), and the investigations of cultural domains (NIDA, 1945; AUBERT, 1981, 2006). The methodology adopted in the present research required the software WordSmith Tools (SCOTT, 2007), which provides the necessary resources for the collection of data in a corpus of translated texts. The software tool called WordList was used for the selection of the most frequent words in the texts and also for the identification of the culturally marked terms. For the analysis of the culturally marked terms in both texts we used the software tool Concord. The results revealed that most of the culturally marked terms are inserted in the ecological domain, and the other terms are distributed in the domains of material, social and ideological culture, which reflects the theme of the book.