Brat2Viz: a tool and pipeline for visualizing narratives from annotated texts

Narrative Extraction from text is a complex task that starts by identifying a set of narrative elements (actors, events, times), and the semantic links between them (temporal, referential, semantic roles). The outcome is a structure or set of structures which can then be represented graphically, thus opening room for further and alternative exploration of the plot. Such visualization can also be useful during the on-going annotation process. Manual annotation of narratives can be a complex effort and the possibility offered by the Brat annotation tool of annotating directly on the text does not seem suciently helpful. In this paper, we propose Brat2Viz, a tool and a pipeline that displays visualization of narrative information annotated in Brat. Brat2Viz reads the annotation file of Brat, produces an intermediate representation in the declarative language DRS (Discourse Representation Structure), and from this obtains the visualization. Currently, we make available two visualization schemes: MSC (Message Sequence Chart) and Knowledge Graphs. The modularity of the pipeline enables the future extension to new annotation sources, different annotation schemes, and alternative visualizations or representations. We illustrate the pipeline using examples from an European Portuguese news corpus

The Position and Norms of Translated Children’s Literature in Saudi Arabia: A Multimodal Socio-cultural Approach

When examining the position and norms of translated children’s literature, researchers tend to speak of the ‘Arab world’ rather than a specific country. Although the Arab world shares a language, it does not have a single culture, economy, politics, etc. Variations between different countries are reflected in its translated children’s literature. Picturebooks are made up of a verbal mode, visual mode and the combination of these two modes (i.e. intermodal relations). Nonetheless, researchers tend only to consider the verbal mode in regard to picturebooks, ignoring the visual mode and the intermodal relations. In light of these gaps, this research aims to assess the position and norms of translated children’s literature within the Saudi market as well as examine picturebooks in their entirety. To do so, this thesis asks five main questions: 1) What is the position of translated children’s literature in Saudi Arabia? 2) How are textual, paratextual and metatextual aspects of Arabic target texts correlated to the position of translated children’s literature in Saudi Arabia? 3) What translational initial norms are adopted to translate elements in the verbal and visual modes? 4) Which intermodal relations can be identified in the source and target texts, and how are they approached in translation? 5) What norms govern children’s literature translated from English into Arabic in Saudi Arabia? Based on Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory (1990), Toury’s notion of norms (2012a) and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2001) multimodal approach, a comparative multimodal analysis of elements, translation techniques and intermodal relations was carried out on twenty cases. All distributed in the Saudi market, these cases were published by four publishers originating from three different Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon. The analytical framework combines the Composite Translation Techniques Model, the Composite Elements Model and Nikolajeva and Scott’s (2000) typology of image-text relationships. To assess the position of translated children’s literature, this study looks at the volume of translated children’s literature from and into Saudi Arabia, as well as the volume of translated Saudi children’s literature in comparison to original Saudi children’s literature and Saudis’ perception of the state of the latter. To explore the hypothetical links to the position of translation, textual (i.e. initial norms), metatextual elements (i.e. perception) and paratextual elements (i.e. price, binding type, publishing format and the (in)visibility of translators’ and authors’ names) are examined. There are three types of norms in this research: elements, translation techniques and element-specific translation technique(s), which are extracted using a comparative multimodal analysis to identify regularities of behaviour and are argued based on Chesterman’s (2017) normative forces. The dynamicity of norms in translated children’s literature in Saudi Arabia is explained in terms of Chang’s (2000) macro-polysystem hypothesis. The results indicate that translated children’s literature in Saudi Arabia seems to occupy a central position in the children’s literature polysystem. However, contrary to Even-Zohar’s hypothesis, this position is mostly accompanied by a TL-oriented translation method. Similarly, metatextual and paratextual aspects examined in this research show no clear connection to the proposed position. Despite being multimodal, picturebooks are treated mainly as monomodal verbal texts in which each mode has a different translation method. The use of TL-oriented translation techniques, such as substitution, visual substitution, modulation and discursive creation has caused many intermodal relation shifts in TTs. A hypothetical link between a higher number of intermodal relation shifts and a higher degree of TL-orientation has been established, which is confirmed by an initial test. Results also identify several norms in translated children’s literature available in the Saudi market. Examples include the non-occurrence of alcohol, the clear presence of social and moral values, the adoption of visual repetition and the literal translation of elements involving mythical and magical creatures

Translating the Nation: The (Re)framing of Cultural Identity in Three Anthologies of Palestinian Folktales, 1904-1998

This thesis examines the translation and framing strategies employed in three anthologies of translated Palestinian oral tales, Tales Told in Palestine (1904), Speak Bird, Speak Again (1989), and Arab Folktales from Palestine and Israel (1998). I employ Mona Baker’s narrative theory to show how the Palestinian cultural identity is (re)framed in translations of Palestinian folktales, and examine how Orientalist narratives of Palestine are constructed, and contested, in translation through juxtapositions of certain translation strategies with paratextual commentary. I form my analysis by employing Edward Said’s concepts of ‘Orientalism’ and ‘Imagined Geography’ and Ibrahim Muhawi’s analysis of the Palestinian folktale genre. In Told in Palestine, James Edward Hanauer frames Palestine as the ‘Holy Land’, a sacred site for the three monotheistic religions, and as a measurable landscape occupied by diverse ethnic groups with various beliefs, excluding the social and situational contexts of the oral narratives. In Arab Folktales from Palestine and Israel, Raphael Patai creates an illusion of visibility and credibility by juxtaposing the literal translations of the tales with paratextual commentary to recreate the stylistic properties of the Palestinian folktale genre and demonstrate how the genre reflects the mentality and psyche of all Arab cultures, producing as a result exoticized translations filled with stereotypes about Arabs. In Speak Bird, Speak Again, Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana contest Orientalist narratives on Palestine through their ‘thick translations’ of the folktales, framing the tales as performances of the Palestinian narrators’ communicative competence and narrating skills by ‘keying’ in the conventional narrative and linguistic properties of the Palestinian folktale genre to recreate an equivalent effect in the Target Text, and framing the tales as activities rooted in the rich social lives of the Palestinian community through extensive paratextual commentary

From Shanhai Jing to Liaozhai Zhiyi: towards a morphology of classical Chinese supernatural fiction

The present research is an attempt at a morphological analysis of classical Chinese supernatural fiction known as zhiguai under the theoretical framework designed by Vladimir Propp and later developed by Alan Dundes. As to the study of Chinese zhiguai tales, mountains of work bas been done, but research is usually confined either to exploration into the geographical-historical sources of these tales or to the recognition and reconstruction of society in ancient China. It is therefore believed that a systematic study of zhiguai literature from a linguistics-oriented structuralfunctional perspective will shed light on the rules governing the textual organisation of classical Chinese fiction of the supernatural and strange.This thesis will be divided into two parts with the first one atmmg at a diachronic survey of zhiguai literature. In this section, the origins of this genre and its development through dynasties in traditional China will be explored with attention focused on an evidential and thematic study of zhiguai works most influential and representative of the time and of the author as well.Part Two, which will start with a review of Propp's morphological method and model, is devoted to a synclironic study of Chinese zhiguai fi ction from a Proppian perspective. For each tale text selected for morphological analysis, functions will be identified, and a linear functional scheme presented, and described in terms of the sequence of functions and the distribution of functions among dramatis personae. All the structural and functional traits will be tabulated, discussed and, where possible and necessary, compared. Finally, based on a data analysis, a conclusion will be made on morphological features and structural patterns of classical Chinese fiction of the supernatural and strange.Fifty zhiguai tales will be selected for analysis from ancient zhushu (commentaries), leishu (categorised books), congshu (collectanea), or authoritative modem editions of works of supernatural fiction in classical Chinese. In the course of selection, priority has been given to those about other/supernatural beings or mortals with supernatural power as classified by Aame as "Tales of magic" m conformity with Propp's corpus of Russian fairy tales in Morphology of the Folktale

Library Trends 41 (1) 1992: Libraries Serving an Underserved Population: Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Patrons

published or submitted for publicatio

‘IMPLICIT CREATION’ – NON-PROGRAMMER CONCEPTUAL MODELS FOR AUTHORING IN INTERACTIVE DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) constitutes a research field that emerged from several areas of art, creation and computer science. It inquires technologies and possible artefacts that allow ‘highly-interactive’ experiences of digital worlds with compelling stories. However, the situation for story creators approaching ‘highly-interactive’ storytelling is complex. There is a gap between the available technology, which requires programming and prior knowledge in Artificial Intelligence, and established models of storytelling, which are too linear to have the potential to be highly interactive. This thesis reports on research that lays the ground for bridging this gap, leading to novel creation philosophies in future work. A design research process has been pursued, which centred on the suggestion of conceptual models, explaining a) process structures of interdisciplinary development, b) interactive story structures including the user of the interactive story system, and c) the positioning of human authors within semi-automated creative processes. By means of ‘implicit creation’, storytelling and modelling of simulated worlds are reconciled. The conceptual models are informed by exhaustive literature review in established neighbouring disciplines. These are a) creative principles in different storytelling domains, such as screenwriting, video game writing, role playing and improvisational theatre, b) narratological studies of story grammars and structures, and c) principles of designing interactive systems, in the areas of basic HCI design and models, discourse analysis in conversational systems, as well as game- and simulation design. In a case study of artefact building, the initial models have been put into practice, evaluated and extended. These artefacts are a) a conceived authoring tool (‘Scenejo’) for the creation of digital conversational stories, and b) the development of a serious game (‘The Killer Phrase Game’) as an application development. The study demonstrates how starting out from linear storytelling, iterative steps of ‘implicit creation’ can lead to more variability and interactivity in the designed interactive story. In the concrete case, the steps included abstraction of dialogues into conditional actions, and creating a dynamic world model of the conversation. This process and artefact can be used as a model illustrating non-programmer approaches to ‘implicit creation’ in a learning process. Research demonstrates that the field of Interactive Digital Storytelling still has to be further advanced until general creative principles can be fully established, which is a long-term endeavour, dependent upon environmental factors. It also requires further technological developments. The gap is not yet closed, but it can be better explained. The research results build groundwork for education of prospective authors. Concluding the thesis, IDS-specific creative principles have been proposed for evaluation in future work

Dubbing Wordplay in Children’s Programmes from English into Thai

This doctoral research aims to investigate the most prevalent translation techniques adopted by Thai dubbing translators when transferring English-language idioms found in animated films into a lesser-known language such as Thai. To achieve this purpose, the methodological approach combines a quantitative phase, which has the benefit of revealing certain tendencies, with a qualitative phase that investigates the data in greater depth. Wordplay instances can be grouped into two main categories according to their presentation nature: media-based and rhetoric-based. In the case of the media-based category, the types of wordplay instances uncovered in the analysis are audio-verbal, audio-visual-verbal and visual-verbal, while, based in the rhetoric-based category, they are homonymy, homophony, paraphony, hahaphony and allusion types. In an attempt to render ST puns into the TT, the following seven dubbing techniques have been activated by Thai translators: loan, literal translation, explicitation, substitution, recreation, combination and non-translation. Close examination of the data reveals that, despite the translators’ best effort to transfer the semantic ambiguity and humorous effect embedded in the English wordplay into the Thai dialogue, PUN>NON-PUN is the translation outcome with the highest occurrence. This results in the inevitable loss of semantic ambiguity and humour in the TT wordplay, as well as other pedagogical objectives intended by the film’s producers such as a language learning facilitator for young viewers

Translating The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen: representations of culture, gender and Buddhism

A recent major work on Thai-English poetry translation is The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen (2010/2012), the only complete translation into any language of the Thai-language epic poem Sepha rueang Khun Chang Khun Phaen (KCKP). Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, the translators, mainly render their translation of the epic verse into prose. Their translation is an English version of the standard accounts as edited by Prince Damrong Rajanubhap in 1917–1918 with a slight revision in 1925 and older manuscripts, notably the Wat Ko edition. Baker and Pasuk’s intervention manifests itself at textual level for they restored a great number of passages excised by Damrong. The reinstated segments include censored female sexuality, monk clowning and the less violent account of the creation of Goldchild (กุมารทอง). In the standard edition, Damrong did not allow Siamese women to be sexually expressive and Buddhist monks to be clowns in the national literature he helped shape. The violent account of the Goldchild creation Damrong chose for his standard edition vilifies the leading male character, Khun Phaen. To identify approaches to translating a Thai epic poem into English, twenty-four segments rendered into verse passages, twenty key culturally specific items (CSIs) and four paratextual elements, which also represent the text as a whole, are analysed. This interdisciplinary study takes into account the socio-cultural contexts and aesthetic norms prevalent in the periods in which the source texts were written. The sociological approach in which the method of interview is employed is also adopted in this study. The translated text, paratext and responses from the interviews are analysed to identify translation strategies and procedures and whether the translators conformed to the ‘textual system’ of their time so that their translation of an unrecognised national literature would be admitted to the fellowship of world literature

Corpus-Based Approaches to Igbo Diacritic Restoration

With natural language processing (NLP), researchers aim to get the computer to identify and understand the patterns in human languages. This is often difficult because a language embeds many dynamic and varied properties in its syntaxes, pragmatics and phonology, which needs to be captured and processed. The capacity of computers to process natural languages is increasing because NLP researchers are pushing its boundaries. But these research works focus more on well resourced languages such as English, Japanese, German, French, Russian, Mandarin Chinese etc. Over 95% of the world’s 7000 languages are low-resourced for NLP i.e. they have little or no data, tools, and techniques for NLP work. In this thesis, we present an overview of diacritic ambiguity and a review of previous diacritic disambiguation approaches on other languages. Focusing on Igbo language, we report the steps taken to develop a flexible framework for generating datasets for diacritic restoration. Three main approaches, the standard n-gram model, the classification models and the embedding models were proposed. The standard n-gram models use a sequence of previous words to the target stripped word as key predictors of the correct variants. For the classification models, a window of words on both sides of the target stripped word were use. The embedding models compare the similarity scores of the combined context word embeddings and the embeddings of each of the candidate variant vectors. The processes and techniques involved in projecting embeddings from a model trained with English texts to an Igbo embedding space and the creation of intrinsic evaluation tasks to validate the models were also discussed. A comparative analysis of the results indicate that all the approaches significantly improved on the baseline performance which uses the unigram model. The details of the processed involved in building the models as well as the possible directions for future work are discussed in this work