The ethnographer as community manager : language translation and user negotiation

This article investigates the ethnographic methodological question of how the researcher observes objectively while being part of the problem they are observing. It uses a case study of ABC Pool to argue a cooperative approach that combines the roles of the ethnographer with that of a community manager who assists in constructing a true representation of the researched environment. By using reflexivity as a research tool, the ethnographer engages in a process to self-check their personal presumptions and prejudices, and to strengthen the constructed representation of the researched environment. This article also suggests combining management and expertise research from the social sciences with ethnography, to understand and engage with the research field participants more intimately - which, ultimately, assists in gathering and analysing richer qualitative data.

Narration in Swedish pre- and primary school : a recourse for language development and multilingualism

Increased immigration in Europe and worldwide has led to more pre- and primary school students being educated through the medium of a second language, and there is considerable research, much of it coming from Australia, to suggest that in order to cope with this situation, children will need to begin to acquire, from their earliest years in pre-school, a variety of knowledge-based language skills that will be sufficient to carry them through the subject-based education they will encounter in their subsequent schooling. This is particularly important for L2-students who are less likely to meet academic language outside the school. In this paper, based on transcripts of oral interactions in the classroom, it is argued that conversational and story-telling skills, oral and written, provide a rich environment for the development of academic school language, while at the same time promoting and making good use of the cultural diversity that is increasingly a feature of pre-primary and primary classrooms.

Overview of INEX 2013

INEX investigates focused retrieval from structured documents by providing large test collections of structured documents, uniform evaluation measures, and a forum for organizations to compare their results. This paper reports on the INEX 2013 evaluation campaign, which consisted of four activities addressing three themes: searching professional and user generated data (Social Book Search track); searching structured or semantic data (Linked Data track); and focused retrieval (Snippet Retrieval and Tweet Contextualization tracks). INEX 2013 was an exciting year for INEX in which we consolidated the collaboration with (other activities in) CLEF and for the second time ran our workshop as part of the CLEF labs in order to facilitate knowledge transfer between the evaluation forums. This paper gives an overview of all the INEX 2013 tracks, their aims and task, the built test-collections, and gives an initial analysis of the results

Overview of INEX 2014

INEX investigates focused retrieval from structured documents by providing large test collections of structured documents, uniform evaluation measures, and a forum for organizations to compare their results. This paper reports on the INEX 2014 evaluation campaign, which consisted of three tracks: The Interactive Social Book Search Track investigated user information seeking behavior when interacting with various sources of information, for realistic task scenarios, and how the user interface impacts search and the search experience. The Social Book Search Track investigated the relative value of authoritative metadata and user-generated content for search and recommendation using a test collection with data from Amazon and LibraryThing, including user profiles and personal catalogues. The Tweet Contextualization Track investigated tweet contextualization, helping a user to understand a tweet by providing him with a short background summary generated from relevant Wikipedia passages aggregated into a coherent summary. INEX 2014 was an exciting year for INEX in which we for the third time ran our workshop as part of the CLEF labs. This paper gives an overview of all the INEX 2014 tracks, their aims and task, the built test-collections, the participants, and gives an initial analysis of the results.

Dialectal Speech in Literature and Translation : Bachelor Degree Thesis in English Linguistics

This essay studies how dialectal speech is reflected in written literature and how this phenomenon functions in translation. With this purpose in mind, Styron's Sophie's Choice and Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are analysed using samples of non-standard orthography which have been applied in order to reflect the dialect, or accent, of certain characters. In the same way, Lundgren's Swedish translation of Sophie's Choice and Ferres and Rolfe's Spanish version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are analysed. The method consists of linguistically analysing a few text samples from each novel, establishing how dialect is represented through non-standard orthography, and thereafter, comparing the same samples with their translation into another language in order to establish whether dialectal features are visible also in the translated novels. It is concluded that non-standard orthography is applied in the novels in order to represent each possible linguistic level, including pronunciation, morphosyntax, and vocabulary. Furthermore, it is concluded that while Lundgren's translation intends to orthographically represent dialectal speech on most occasions where the original does so, Ferres and Rolfe's translation pays no attention to dialectology. The discussion following the data analysis establishes some possible reasons for the exclusion of dialectal features in the Spanish translation considered here. Finally, the reason for which this study contributes to the study of dialectology is declared.

Media translation and lesser-used languages: implications of subtitles for Irish language broadcastind

Eguíluz, Federico; Merino, Raquel; Olsen, Vickie; Pajares, Eterio; Santamaría, José Miguel (eds.)

Validity, reliability and responsiveness of the French language translation of the Western Ontario Shoulder Instability Index (WOSI).

BACKGROUND: The WOSI (Western Ontario Shoulder Instability Index) is a self-administered quality of life questionnaire designed to be used as a primary outcome measure in clinical trials on shoulder instability, as well as to measure the effect of an intervention on any particular patient. It is validated and is reliable and sensitive. As it is designed to measure subjective outcome, it is important that translation should be methodologically rigorous, as it is subject to both linguistic and cultural interpretation. OBJECTIVE: To produce a French language version of the WOSI that is culturally adapted to both European and North American French-speaking populations. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A validated protocol was used to create a French language WOSI questionnaire (WOSI-Fr) that would be culturally acceptable for both European and North American French-speaking populations. Reliability and responsiveness analyses were carried out, and the WOSI-Fr was compared to the F-QuickDASH-D/S (Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand-French translation), and Walch-Duplay scores. RESULTS: A French language version of the WOSI (WOSI-Fr) was accepted by a multinational committee. The WOSI-Fr was then validated using a total of 144 native French-speaking subjects from Canada and Switzerland. Comparison of results on two WOSI-Fr questionnaires completed at a mean interval of 16 days showed that the WOSI-Fr had strong reliability, with a Pearson and interclass correlation of r=0.85 (P=0.01) and ICC=0.84 [95% CI=0.78-0.88]. Responsiveness, at a mean 378.9 days after surgical intervention, showed strong correlation with that of the F-QuickDASH-D/S, with r=0.67 (P<0.01). Moreover, a standardized response means analysis to calculate effect size for both the WOSI-Fr and the F-QuickDASH-D/S showed that the WOSI-Fr had a significantly greater ability to detect change (SRM 1.55 versus 0.87 for the WOSI-Fr and F-QuickDASH-D/S respectively, P<0.01). The WOSI-Fr showed fair correlation with the Walch-Duplay. DISCUSSION: A French-language translation of the WOSI questionnaire was created and validated for use in both Canadian and Swiss French-speaking populations. This questionnaire will facilitate outcome assessment in French-speaking settings, collaboration in multinational studies and comparison between studies performed in different countries. TYPE OF STUDY: Multicenter cohort study. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II.

Language networks, literary translation and the friars in late medieval ireland

Dublin, Trinity College MS 667 (olim F 5 3) is something of a meeting point of languages and traditions, representing one of the most significant witnesses to Latin exemplars for vernacular translations to survive from medieval Ireland. What is more, the translated texts appear to travel in groups, with several Irish-language manuscripts bearing close comparison to Trinity 667 in the texts and versions of texts they contain. Examining these texts and the contexts in which they circulated in Irish can give us a sense of the sorts of historical and cultural currents to which such translation work appears to have been responding.

Machine Translation and the Disruption of Foreign Language Learning Activities

This study examines the question of how language teachers in a highly technologyfriendly university environment view machine translation and the implications that this has for the personal learning environments of students. It brings an activity-theory perspective to the question, examining the ways that the introduction of new tools can disrupt the relationship between different elements in an activity system. This perspective opens up for an investigation of the ways that new tools have the potential to fundamentally alter traditional learning activities. In questionnaires and group discussions, respondents showed general agreement that although use of machine translation by students could be considered cheating, students are bound to use it anyway, and suggested that teachers focus on the kinds of skills students would need when using machine translation and design assignments and exams to practice and assess these skills. The results of the empirical study are used to reflect upon questions of what the roles of teachers and students are in a context where many of the skills that a person needs to be able to interact in a foreign language increasingly can be outsourced to laptops and smartphones.

Machine translation and the disruption of foreign language learning activities

This study examines the question of how language teachers in a highly technology-friendly university environment view machine translation and the implications that this has for the personal learning environments of students. It brings an activity-theory perspective to the question, examining the ways that the introduction of new tools can disrupt the relationship between different elements in an activity system. This perspective opens up for an investigation of the ways that new tools have the potential to fundamentally alter traditional learning activities. In questionnaires and group discussions, respondents showed general agreement that although use of machine translation by students could be considered cheating, students are bound to use it anyway, and suggested that teachers focus on the kinds of skills students would need when using machine translation and design assignments and exams to practice and assess these skills. The results of the empirical study are used to reflect upon questions of what the roles of teachers and students are in a context where many of the skills that a person needs to be able to interact in a foreign language increasingly can be outsourced to laptops and smartphones.