Face threats in interpreting : a pragmatic study of plenary debates in the European Parliament

This monograph focuses on pragmatic aspects of simultaneous interpreting, and is therefore intended both for translation scholars and for linguists interested in interlingual transfer of pragmatic meaning. Efforts have been made to avoid dense, strictly scientific language and the use of unexplained specialist terminology in the hope that the book might also appeal to practicing interpreters and interpreter trainees, although it should be noted that its character is descriptive rather than prescriptive. The main problem under discussion is how simultaneous interpreters handle face-threatening acts and impoliteness directed by politicians at their opponents, and the authentic material under analysis comes from plenary debates of the European Parliament, which are routinely interpreted into all the official languages of the European Union. Chapters 1–4 are meant to set the scene. Chapter 1 presents the European Union as a multilingual institution, with a special focus on its translation and interpreting services. Chapter 2 zooms in on the latter, considering such features of plenary debates of the European Parliament that have direct consequences for interpreting, and also including an overview of existing research on interpreting for the needs of various EU bodies. Chapter 3 provides the pragmatic background to the study, shedding light especially on the crucial notions of “face,” “facework,” “face-threatening acts” and “impoliteness,” while Chapter 4 reviews existing research on facework performed by interpreters in various settings and interpreting modes. The author’s empirical contribution is presented in Chapter 5, which scrutinises Polish interpretations of British Eurosceptics’ plenary speeches, in particular ones that fiercely attack and possibly offend the speakers’ political opponents. Five speeches undergo detailed discourse analysis covering all identifiable aspects of facework as performed by the original speaker and the interpreter, whereas a considerably larger corpus of source texts and the corresponding interpretations is analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively in terms of personal reference and impoliteness. The interpretations are searched, first and foremost, for signs of interpreting strategies at play during transfer of face-threatening input. Many of these strategies result in mitigation of the originally intended impoliteness. Chapter 6 develops this topic, endeavouring to find multifarious explanations of the pronounced trend towards mitigation by the interpreter within the wide framework of modern translation studies. Both this chapter and the final conclusions devote much attention to avenues for future research that would offer some possibilities of triangulating and complementing the results of the present study

Claiming Spaces: Proceedings of the 2007 National Maori and Pacific Psychologies Symposium 23rd-24th November 2007

This is the full conference proceedings of Claiming Spaces: Proceedings of the 2007 National Maori and Pacific Psychologies Symposium 23rd-24th November 2007

Helping instructors activate learners’ oral pragmatic competence in the L2 classroom

In this thesis, I address the lack of focus on what are the most common challenges that learners of Japanese experience in their oral interaction and the link between these challenges and their cause. I explore a number of pragmatic challenges that learners of Japanese as L2 encountered during their study abroad programmes or work placements in Japan. Following McKenney and Reeve’s (2012) model for conducting design-based research, the data draws on open-ended questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with 57 learners of Japanese at two higher education institutions in Ireland to determine the challenges they encountered in their oral interaction with L1 speakers. The challenges which present themselves in the data are examined through Relevance Theory, a cognitive-pragmatic approach that is somewhat unexplored in interlanguage pragmatics research. I demonstrate that challenges at the production and interpretation level arise due to difficulties in decoding and inference of implicit and explicit aspects of communication. These challenges are the result of current instructional practices in the L2 classroom, where there is an excessive focus on linguistic input, an unawareness of learners’ own pragmatic competence and a lack of inferential processes being taught. The findings lend support to the need to enhance pragmatic competence among L2 learners through domain-specific cognitive processes. I argue that ideas developed in Relevance Theory can be particularly beneficial to the teaching and learning of pragmatics in the L2 classroom, in particular for oral interaction. I present a four-process pedagogical framework to help instructors activate learners’ pragmatic competence. This pedagogical framework is based on Ifantidou’s (2014) definition of pragmatic competence. I also outline general guidelines and concrete activities for L2 instructors to help narrow the gap between linguistic form and proposition expressed as well as enhance learners’ production and interpretation of both explicit and implicit meanin

Translation quality assessment : Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley as case study

This thesis is a descriptive, evaluative and comparative study in the field of translation studies. One of the objectives for this thesis is to explore a valid criterion by which a literary translation can be evaluated efficiently and to assess the translation of the selected novel for this research. The aim of this study is to measure the shifts which occurred between TTl and TT2 when compared to the ST. The thesis also aims at highlighting the significance of culture and the way cultures are introduced to the Tar et readership through translation. It is thought that the strategy of Foreignization enriches target texts and introduces cultural elements to the target reader. The corpus of the study is Ziqiiq Al Midaq the well-known novel by Naguib Mahfouz, the Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature in 1988. This novel has been first translated by Trevor Le Gassick in 1966 and a revision of this translation was published in 1975. The main objective of this study is to explore the translation shifts which were applied in TTl and TT2. The methodology of this thesis relies on the Nord Model (2005). It focuses on the translation problems introduced by Nord. The four aspects of translation problems Nord identifies are Pragmatic, linguistic, cultural and text-specific translation problems. A final assessment of the quality of both versions of translation is discussed at the end of the study

Putting the meat in meat-less?: A critical discourse analysis of corporate marketing of plant-based products

The plant-based industry has sustained rapid growth within recent years due to awareness surrounding environmental harms. Due to the rise in profitability of plant-based products in the consumer market, multiple corporations have either acquired or created plant-based brands. The corporations that have done so (Tyson, Smithfield, Kellogg’s, Nestlé, and Conagra Foods) are the subjects of study for this project. These major corporations are also part of the industrial animal agriculture system, and garner profit from meat and dairy businesses. This study explores the way the marketing is embedded in ideologies of Western capitalism and patriarchy. I use critical discourse analysis to analyze 20 statements extracted from the specified companies’ public websites. I found that the corporations constructed their actions and image through a populist framework that in turn embodies hegemonic values. In short, the discourse of the marketing allows for the corporations to evade the significance of their role in ecological, animal, and social harms, while appropriating the values of a movement that itself holds the promise of dismantling corporate dominance over food and nonhumans

Enhancing EFL teacher trainees’ cognition through Systemic Theoretical Instruction (STI)

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (SCT) proposes that human mental functioning is fundamentally a mediated process that is organized by cultural artefacts, language being one of the primary means of mediation (Lantolf & Thorne, 2007). Based on SCT, Gal’perin (1969) conceived Systemic Theoretical Instruction (STI), a developmental theory that proposes ways of developing cognition through three key phases: 1) Materialization; 2) Verbal Action; and 3) Internalization. Given that EFL teachers must possess a solid level of knowledge (linguistic, metalinguistic and pedagogical) and that there is no exact correspondence of the forms of tense/aspect in English and Spanish, these grammatical features seem to be particularly difficult to attain for learners of L1 Spanish. Thus, following a methodological design of mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative), this study aimed to investigate the extent to which intervention with STI could contribute in enhancing teacher trainees’ cognition of these features. The study was carried out at the University of Quintana Roo in México with a group of 50 participants (teacher trainees) during 8 weeks and distributed throughout 12 sessions. Data collection included pre, post and delayed testing and participants were divided into control and experimental groups. Intervention consisted of training based on STI (including its three phases) aiming to compare the effectiveness of this with Traditional Instruction in teaching the concepts of tense and aspect in English. Results showed that STI contributed to the development of metalinguistic knowledge which eventually leads to internalisation. Having received instruction on the basis of ´minimal-conceptual-units´, materialization and verbalisation contributed to fostering cognitive development (MLK and pedagogical thinking) among teacher trainees. Microgenesis affordances resulting from verbalisation revealed that collaborative languaging activated the effective use of semiotic tools (i.e. discourse markers, reasoning markers, play and metalanguage). This served to deploy mechanisms enabling joint attention and intersubjectivity which allowed learners to attain self and other regulation and ultimately internalization of the concepts of tense and aspect

Aligning specialist English language curriculum in higher education with development imperatives and workplace communication needs in Vietnam : a case study of the Vietnamese petroleum industry

The research investigated the alignment between English language communication in multinational joint ventures in the petroleum industry in Vietnam and a university-based English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course for petroleum engineering students. The study identified the types of knowledge necessary for professional workplace communication and the extent to which these knowledge types are currently taught in the university course. The study found levels of misalignment between the two especially in the contextual knowledge needed by petroleum engineers to communicate competently and appropriately in the workplace. Contextually-appropriate communication requires knowledge of participants, the organisation and social norms of interaction. The findings will improve recognition of the features of successful workplace communication and contribute to innovations in ESP course design and teaching

Meta-analysis of the effectiveness of task-based interaction in form-focused instruction of adult learners in foreign and second language teaching

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