181 research outputs found

    Variation in Vatlongos Verbal Morphosyntax : speaker communities in Southeast Ambrym and Mele Maat

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    This thesis examines morphosyntactic variation in an unusual sociolinguistic context in Vanuatu. Vatlongos (Oceanic, Austronesian) is spoken by communities in the southeast of Ambrym island, and by a peri-urban community near the capital city, who relocated after a volcanic explosion in the early 1950s. Within Southeast Ambrym, the thesis further distinguishes Endu from other Vatlongos-speaking villages on the basis of observed dialectal, sociolinguistic and language-contact differences, especially contact with communities and languages of Northern Ambrym. The sociolinguistic setting of Vatlongos is explored via a survey of speakers from all three communities, looking at implications for language contact, language attitudes and the vitality of Vatlongos. The verbal morphosyntax of Vatlongos is described through qualitative and quantitative analysis of a >65,000-word corpus of spontaneous and elicited texts recorded during fieldwork, paying careful attention to variation within and between speaker communities. It first outlines the syntax of simple clauses, the tense, aspect and mood categories of the language and the verbal morphology, before moving onto a description of complex verbal constructions: serial verb constructions, complex predicates, subordination and auxiliary verb constructions. Finally, the thesis examines the frequency of occurrence of these verbal constructions in spontaneous texts across the speaker communities, using chi-square tests and negative-binomial regression modelling to investigate the effects of community and other speaker-level and text-level factors: age, gender, years of education and genre. There are community level differences in the token frequency of auxiliary and serial verb constructions: lower frequency of use of these two constructions is associated with higher level of education in the Anglophone education system. Both the formal variation and the community level frequency differences are consistent with effects of language shift in Mele Maat, under heavy exposure to Bislama and English

    LEGAL STYLE MARKERS ANO THEIR TRANSLATION IN WRITTEN PLEADINGS BEFORE THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

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    This corpus-based study investigates language use in the occluded genre of written pleadings before the European Court of Human Rights through the paradigms of legal phraseology and Translation Studies. The analysis is carried out on three subcorpora of authentic texts: (a) pleadings translated from Russian into English, (b) pleadings translated from Italian into English and (c) pleadings originally drafted in English. Legal language is intricate and formulaic, and frequently makes recourse to prefabricated patterns and routines. Legal phraseology is a major challenge for professional legal translators, and yet its translation has not received much scholarly attention until recently. Legal phraseological units are prefabricated patterns that form the matrix of legal texts and reveal interesting information about both the language and structure of the genre of written pleadings. Over the last thirty years, linguistic deviations occurring in the translation process have constituted one of the main areas within Translation Studies. It has been postulated that translated language has distinctive linguistic characteristics. Legal translation, in addition to linguistic factors, is conditioned by the tension between the legal systems involved, which can result in peculiar language dynamics in the translation of legal texts. This study draws inspiration from Toury\u2019s (1995) and Chesterman\u2019s (2004a) works to describe the different dynamics of translated language, applying a combination of translation norms and universals to identify and describe regularities in translated pleadings. This work is carried out using both linguistic and translational insights in order to demonstrate empirically how written pleadings can be characterised in terms of their phraseological content and how translated pleadings differ from non-translated pleadings. Distributional patterns of recurrent and anomalous legal phraseological units are compared across the corpora and analysed for typicality of frequencies and patterning as well as for quantity and quality of linguistic variation. The results contain a list of legal style markers typical of this genre, obtained in a translational and phraseological perspective. The list supplements the rather scant information about the language of written pleadings at the European Court of Human Rights. The analysis also provides confirmatory evidence of the differences between translated and non-translated texts, specifically, proving the co-existence of two opposite tendencies in translation: conventionalisation (translation of source text textemes with conventional repertoremes of the target environment) and discourse transfer (introduction of prefabricated patterns from the source language). The results may also be of some use and applicability for Russian-to-English and Italian-to-English translators, helping them avoid interference, use of unnatural or overly conservative patterns

    Modality and learner academic writing across genres:an analysis of discourse, socialisation and teacher cognition on a 20-week pre-sessional programme

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    Modality is a complex yet pervasive feature of the English language which is typically difficult for non-native speakers of English to acquire. It is even more so for learners of English who wish to undertake advanced academic study in an English-speaking context, as it requires knowledge of both discipline and genre specific norms and to be able to adapt to reader expectations. This study uses a mixed methods design to analyse the longitudinal development of modality in learner academic writing on a 20-week pre-sessional programme at a UK university. The research triangulates the findings obtained from the analysis of three distinct datasets in order to identify the factors involved in influencing amateur writer output in their assessed written texts. The main focus of the study is an in-depth discourse analysis contrasting expert (successful Masters students) and amateur (pre-sessional) writing in three genres of academic writing within the discipline of Business and Economics. A functional approach is adopted to analyse the expression of modality. This is complemented by an analysis of the teaching material used on the programme and combined with insights on teacher cognition from a series of interviews. The findings show a development in interlanguage, with movement to closer alignment in modal expressions between the types of writers as the programme progresses. However, the findings also show that modality is marginalised as a language item in the teaching materials, in the assessment task types and in the marking criteria, with preference given to rhetorical structures within texts. Tutors also report varying degrees of comfort, expertise and familiarity with regards to modality. The research concludes by making a series of pedagogical recommendations in order to re-direct some of the attention in academic writing instruction back to modality and to integrate it more explicitly and appropriately within the course design

    Formulaic sequences in Early Modern English: A corpus-assisted historical pragmatic study

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    This doctoral project identifies formulaic sequences (hereinafter FS and the plural form FSs) in Early Modern English (hereinafter EModE) and intends to investigate the functions they serve in communication and different text types, namely EModE dialogues and letters. Main contributions of the study include, firstly, the study provides solid arguments and further evidence that FSs are constructions in the Construction Grammar instead of exceptions in the traditional grammar-dictionary model. Within this theoreticall framework, I proposed a new working definition of FSs that is inclusive, descriptive, and methodologically neutral. The study also argues that there are fundamental differences between FSs and lexical bundles (LBs), although the latter often treated as an alternative term of FSs or sub-groups of FSs. Nevertheless, after a thorogh review of the characteristics of the two mult-word units, the study argues that despite of the differences, LBs can be upgrated to FSs as long as they fulfill certail sematic, syntactic, and pragmatic criteria. THis forms the fundation of the methodology design of the study. Secondly, the study enhanced the corpus-assisted approach to the identification of FSs, esp. in EModE texts. The approach consists of three steps: preparation, identification, and generalisation. The identification step was further conducted within two phases: automatic generation of LBs for a corpus and manual identification of FSs from LBs. Specifically, in the preparation step, the dissertation critically discussed how spelling variation in EModE texts shall be dealt with in investigations on FSs. I designed a series of criteria for the two-phase identification of FSs. For one thing, I disagree with previous research that two-word LBs shall be excluded from examination by arguing that many of them are formulaic and cannot be captured from longer LBs and the workload of processing the massive number of two-word LBs is actually manageable. For another, the study contributes an easy-to-follow flow chart demonstrating the procedure of the manual identification of FSs from LBs and listing the criteria that guide the decision-making process. Thirdly, the study provides systematic and comprehensive accounts of FSs in EModE dialogues and letters, esp. how their forms are conventionally mapped to their functions. Data analysis were conducted from aspects such as degree of fixedness, grammatical structures, distribution across function categories, multi-functional FSs, genre-specific FSs, etc. General findings suggest that EModE dialogues and letters actually have many similarities regarding the form and function of FSs and general trends of distribution across function categories. However, outstanding differences between the two text types can be observed too. From the perspective of form, the distinction lies in word choice in realisations of certain FSs. From the perspective of meaning/function, the distinction lies in the kinds of functions that need FSs the most or the least and common function combinations. More importantly, the study observed two types of relationships among FSs themselves and the discourse, including horizonal networks and vertical networks, which reflects the complexity of FSs and their identity as constructions. Specifically, three types of horizontal networks of FSs are embedding, attaching, and joining. A pair of new concepts is proposed to describe the vertical networks: superordinate FSs and subordinate FSs. As a result of the vertical networks, three types of functional diviation are observed: function extension, shifting, and specification

    Ideological aspects of the translation of business annual reports in Oman (English-Arabic)

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    The socioeconomic context in the renaissance era in Oman has resulted in the development of new forms of discursive prastises and thus, in the introduction of new genres. One of these new genres is the business annual report, which in Oman exists in English and Arabic. This thesis examines the role of translation in the production of annual reports. This research makes a contribution to the field of Translation Studies by examining institutional translation in order to gain insights into translation agents, processes, practises and underlying policies with reference to national business institutions in their sociopolitical and historical and institutional contexts .Business reports are still largely under-researched as a genre in Translation Studies. The thesis starts with an overview of relevant aspects of Translation Studies to arrive at a theoretical framework which informs the analysis. The empirical analysis is based on sixty seven reports produced by different Oman-based companies which vary in size and organisational patterns. Annual reports are characterised as a genre in terms of function and structure at the macro-level as well as the micro-level. They have an informative and a persuasive function, as they are produced by different companies in their attempt to promote and fulfil their respective business interests and objectives.The thesis presents the sociocultural and political contexts of the production of the English and Arabic versions of the annual reports, focusing on the underlying functions and principles of institutions and agents. The next chapter illustrates the textual profiles of the English and the Arabic versions, identifying typical translation strategies. The discussion here operates within the framework of product-oriented Descriptive Translation Studies (Lambert and van Gorp 1985). It is argued that the two language versions reflect aspects of ideology, political affiliation and power relations at both the macro and micro- structural levels. These ideological aspects can be seen in particular in the addition, omission and change of specific expressions which refer to religious or interpersonal aspects. These strategies signal the aim to appeal to wider Arab readers and to fulfil the agendas of different agents (government, companies, chairpersons, directors, etc.). The description of the texts is followed by an account of these aspects in terms of sociopolitical and institutional conditions in the production of the translations. For this explanation, reference is made to sociological approaches to translation, mainly building on the work of Bourdieu (1991). This thesis emphasises that the translation of annual reports is a collective effort which takes place in a particular institutional context. Consequently, the translation strategies are regulated by the objectives of the institution within which translators and other agents operate. The translations are prepared in order to meet the expectations and needs of the intended Arabic language addressees; in addition, the generic features of the reports reveal a progression of transmission and development over the course of time in the spheres of business and economy in Oman. This thesis demonstrates that business companies too can be seen as institutions which contribute significantly to disseminating business terms and concepts and promoting investment opportunities domestically and internationally through translation work

    Shifts in the Translation of Interactional Metadiscourse Markers in Arabic and English Opinion Articles

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    This study aims to investigate the ‘shifts’ in the translation of ‘interactional metadiscourse markers’ in Arabic-English and English-Arabic newspaper opinion articles to uncover the translation ‘norms’ governing these shifts. To my knowledge, there is hardly any research on the translation of interactional metadiscourse in the genre of opinion articles, especially in reference to Arabic and English as a language pair. To this end, two types of quantitative and qualitative comparative analyses are conducted, namely a comparative analysis between the Arabic and English STs and their respective TTs and a comparative analysis between the Arabic and English original STs. The former identifies the translation shifts in interactional metadiscourse markers and the latter compares the type and extent of interactional metadiscourse markers between the two languages. The translation norms are reconstructed based on the analysis of translation shifts and with reference to the results of the comparative analysis between the original Arabic and English STs. The comparative analyses are conducted following a corpus-based comparative discourse analysis approach within the tradition of product-oriented descriptive translation studies (Toury, 1995). The theoretical framework is based on Hyland’s (2005a, 2005b) model of interactional metadiscourse and the concepts of shift (van Leuven-Zwart, 1989/1990a; Toury, 1995) and norms (Toury, 1995) in Translation Studies. The results of the analysis of translation shifts identify four main types of shifts in interactional metadiscourse markers that are addition, omission, modification, and substitution. These shifts are constrained by textual-linguistic translation norms that seem to be influenced by differences and/or similarities in genre conventions, socio-political and cultural aspects between the two languages, which are revealed by the comparative analysis between the original Arabic and English opinion articles. The textual-linguistic norms in both directions of translation suggest that Arabic-English translators employ both initial norms of acceptability and adequacy with a stronger preference for the former, whereas English-Arabic translators tend to employ the norm of acceptability

    Studying language:English in action

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    This book introduces key ideas and current critical debates about how English functions within its social and cultural contexts, and provides practical examples and guidance on how to approach further work in these areas. It introduces core topics of language study; language variation, pragmatics, stylistics, critical discourse analysis, language and gender and language and education. Each chapter includes case studies providing worked analysis of sample texts, suggestions for further project work and an annotated further reading section

    Descriptive and comparative approaches

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    Synopsis: The approximately 500 Bantu languages spoken across vast areas of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa are united by the presence of a number of broad typological similarities, including, for example, complex noun class system and agglutinative verbal morphology. However, the languages also exhibit a high degree of micro-variation. Recent work has demonstrated fine-grained morphosyntactic variation across many Bantu languages focusing on grammatical topics such as double object constructions, inversion constructions, or object marking, adopting formal, comparative and typological perspectives. Continuing in this vein, this volume builds on the momentum of the dynamic field of morphosyntactic variation in Bantu and contributes to the growing body of work which examines morphosyntactic variation, with a regional focus on the Bantu languages of East Africa. The East African region is characterized by high linguistic complexity in terms of the number of languages spoken, in terms of the four different linguistic phyla present, and in terms of the inherent sociolinguistic dynamics. The current volume explores this complexity further by bringing together studies which investigate features of morphosyntax of an individual language as well as those which develop an in-depth examination of a single morphosyntactic phenomena in a small sample of languages. The book seeks also to add to the descriptive status of the languages under examination, as well as raising questions relating to language, language contact, language change, and micro-variation in related languages spoken in close geographic proximity
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