Translanguaging and source-oriented lexical creativity in the English Translation of Chinese science fiction Sān Tǐ

The English translation of Chinese science fiction Sān Tǐ by Liu Cixin has achieved notable acclaim among English-speaking readers. The translator Ken Liu expressed his commitment to retaining the “rhythms and cadences” of the original Chinese, a task that often requires creative solutions to navigating the linguistic boundaries typically present between Chinese and English. It also raises intriguing questions about the reception of such translational choices in the Anglophone world, where translations are often expected to adhere to the norms of fluent and standard English. This thesis focuses on the creative lexical choices made by the translator which are featured by their rareness in the TL and driven by the inherent features of the SL. Translanguaging provides a framework for studying the translator’s employment of creative words as a bridge between the SL and TL, strengthening fidelity to the original work while expanding the way of expression in TL. The study reveals that source-oriented lexical innovations are comprised of three types: creative rendering of culture-loaded terms, science fiction neologisms, and the inventive use of nonce words. Seen from the above findings, the strategic use of translanguaging by Ken Liu is revealed, which includes the preservation of pronunciation accuracy through phonetic transliteration, creative hybridization, and the utilization of non-textual semiotics, etc. Moreover, the study carries out an investigation on the accessibility of translanguaged creations to English-speaking readers, unveiling such measures as semantic footnotes, context-based scaffoldings, and the use of semantically transparent terms to strengthen understanding and engagement

Joyce's deplurabel muttertongues: Re-examining the multilingualism of Finnegans Wake

The multilingualism of Finnegans Wake has been widely regarded as a feature that makes the text difficult and perplexing, and even inessential to some readers and translators who have chosen to iron it out of their plot summaries and translations. Because the work has a reputation for impenetrability and inaccessibility that at times borders on discursive incoherence, its political value has chiefly been related to its rebellion against linguistic order—specifically the structural, historical, and ideological rule of the British Empire’s primary language, English—rather than its capacity for literary pleasure, inclusivity, and illumination. This project critically complicates established assessments of Joycean multilingualism and develops innovative transdisciplinary approaches to the Wake’s multilingual design in an effort to do scholarly, creative, as well as ethical, justice to the text itself as well as its variously diverse global readership. Chapters 1 and 2 explore the stylistic particularities of the Wake’s multilingual design from the perspective of linguistics and second-language acquisition. These chapters engage with the poetic materiality of Wakese and explore the role of readers’ diverse and variable accents, creative choices, multilingual repertoires, and overall cultural, subjective, and bodily singularities in the text’s capacity to generate multiple semantic and narrative layers. Chapter 1 tests the various material aspects of Wakean multilingualism, including but not limited to phonology, considering the various creative effects of embodied readerly engagement with it. It demonstrates that multilingualism is not only a tool for productive linguistic estrangement but also enables a peculiarly intimate access into the language of Joyce’s text. Chapter 2 focuses more specifically on the Wake’s multivalent stylistic uses of inter- and intralingual phonologies, beginning with an exploration of the soundscapes, phonotactics, and cultural signifiers of different languages, such as Russian, Swahili, German, and Irish English, and moving onto the book’s internal, fictionalised multilingual system of sound-symbolism, materialised through phonological patterning and the “phonological signatures” of archetypal characters such as ALP and Issy. While the first two chapters explore how the multilingual text operates across different reading spaces and bodies, chapter 3 looks at how translators engage with it in their capacity as readers and (re)writers. I discuss how Wakean multilingualism challenges assimilative and corrective methods of translation and how the act of linguistic transfer inevitably triggers a cultural and material transformation as well. My case studies in this chapter are the two most important Russian translations of the Wake, which are virtually unknown in Anglophone Joyce scholarship. I place the Russian translations in a Western scholarly context, assessing their translatorial methodologies in relation to other important projects of Wake translation and exploring how they handle its multilingual design, considering the particular effects of transposing the text not only from an Anglophone to a Russophone linguistic and cultural space but also from Roman into Cyrillic script. Finally, in chapter 4, I argue that the Wake’s multilingualism, as a performative literary manifestation and invitation to difference, variability, and changeability, makes it an intrinsically ethical text: its political value simultaneously honours its Irish postcolonial heritage and has a global historical and multicultural reach. The chapter engages with concepts from feminist, queer, and disability theorists towards the development of new theoretical approaches to the political and ethical value of Wakean multilingualism in a contemporary global context

Alliteration and assonance as mnemonic devices in second language word-pair learning

The central question addressed in this thesis is to what extent phonological patterns, in particular alliteration and assonance, aid the recall and retention of word pairs for Japanese L1 learners of English. The research builds on previous findings from a series of classroom-based quasi-experimental work, principally from the team of Boers, Lindstromberg and Eyckmans, which shows a mnemonic advantage for collocations and compounds that have phonological patterns, compared to equivalent word strings with no phonological overlap. This advantage appears in both free- and cued-recall tests, and across a variety of temporal intervals (up to two weeks). Much of the prior research has drawn participant samples from a Dutch L1 speaking population. Furthermore, these studies have mainly used target items deemed to be familiar to the participants. This thesis is motivated by the need to question if the previous empirical findings generalise to a population whose L1 phonological constructs are different from those of Dutch L1 speakers. The purpose is to test if Japanese L1 speakers have a different perception of alliteration and assonance, and if so, whether this impacts on their learning behaviour. A further aim is to investigate whether the mnemonic effect applies to unfamiliar target items. In addition, the thesis considers the extent to which the cognitive process of form-based priming underpins the mnemonic effect. A series of four experiments are conducted which progressively examine the processing advantage conferred by alliterating and assonating patterns. Different sets of experimental stimuli are used, including high-frequency, low-frequency, and pseudoword items. Treatment phases often incorporate a dictation activity when using familiar word stimuli, or a study phase when using unfamiliar stimuli. A variety of testing instruments are adopted to measure recall of the written forms of the stimuli, or the forms plus meanings of novel stimuli, over differing periods of time. One study uses a Lexical Decision Task to ascertain if phonological patterns aid lexical processing. Overall, the findings indicate that phonological patterns do confer a small mnemonic advantage for known stimuli, though the effect dissipates with time. However, the extent to which orthographic similarity plays a facilitatory role remains unclear. When participants are asked to learn novel word-pairs the results are more ambiguous; alliteration seems to have a greater mnemonic effect than assonance, but the cognitive challenge of learning new material appears to mitigate any robust mnemonic effects. The data from the Lexical Decision Task do not support any strong claims that perceptual priming is the determining factor for the processing advantage. In answer to the central question, it can be inferred from the findings that both phonological and orthographic patterns are a useful pedagogical tool for helping language learners recall and retain multi-word strings

As Below So Above: Reconstructing the Neo-Babylonian Worldview

To add to our knowledge about a Near Eastern culture, this project examines through textual evidence how the early first millennium BCE Neo-Babylonians thought, reasoned, and wrote in order to partially reconstruct the shared, generally held worldview of the Neo-Babylonian people using the transdisciplinary approach of worldview analysis. Worldviews are what we use to think with, not what we think about. Underlying surficial cultural behaviors are deeper levels of cognition regarding how to reason, perceive the world, prioritize values, prescribe behavior, and explain all of life. Specifically, this work examines the language and logic reflected in the textual archive, believing that this is the foundational level of any worldview. I argue that one finds two related components: (1) that they were linguistically programmed to be attuned to the full context over particularities, verbal actions over agential subjects, the continuity of substances over discrete objects, the standard use of maleness over femaleness, and the affective power of spoken or written words, and (2) that they were logically programmed to prefer gradations over distinctions, functional properties over inherent attributes, radials and/or rhizomes over linearity, and relationships and/or comparisons over abstractions and algorithms. By addressing this underlying, implicit cognitive software the Neo-Babylonians used, one is better able to understand the society’s more observable and obvious religious, ethical, legal, political, and social features. This has the potential to present a more contextualized view of Neo-Babylonian civilization. Reconstructing the ancient Neo-Babylonian worldview allows scholars to compare and contrast the linguistic and logical features to other ancient nearby cultures in order to understand continuities and differences and what accounts for them. One can open a dialogue between these ancient societies at a deeper level. It demonstrates the uniqueness of Neo-Babylonia. And it provides a basis for understanding how Neo-Babylonians contributed to the roots of Western civilization and thought. Most current worldview analysis examines modern or postmodern worldviews. By examining an ancient worldview, one can begin to more clearly understand any common aspects which exist for all worldviews and any elements that exist in ancient ones which are missing from cataloging more modern worldviews. Thus, the cataloging of an ancient worldview helps to open new vistas within worldview studies. This study invites similar ones within ancient Near Eastern studies and within ancient studies in general

Keys to The Gift

"Yuri Leving’s Keys to The Gift: A Guide to Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel is a new systematization of the main available data on Nabokov’s most complex Russian novel, The Gift (1934–1939). From notes in Nabokov’s private correspondence to scholarly articles accumulated during the seventy years since the novel’s first appearance in print, this work draws from a broad spectrum of existing material in a succinct and coherent way and provides innovative analyses. The first part of the monograph, “The Novel,” outlines the basic properties of The Gift (plot, characters, style, and motifs) and reconstructs its internal chronology. The second part, “The Text,” describes the creation of the novel and the history of its publication, public and critical reaction, challenges of English translation, and post-Soviet reception. Along with annotations to all five chapters of The Gift, the commentary provides insight into problems of paleography, featuring a unique textological analysis of the novel

Keys to The Gift

"Yuri Leving’s Keys to The Gift: A Guide to Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel is a new systematization of the main available data on Nabokov’s most complex Russian novel, The Gift (1934–1939). From notes in Nabokov’s private correspondence to scholarly articles accumulated during the seventy years since the novel’s first appearance in print, this work draws from a broad spectrum of existing material in a succinct and coherent way and provides innovative analyses. The first part of the monograph, “The Novel,” outlines the basic properties of The Gift (plot, characters, style, and motifs) and reconstructs its internal chronology. The second part, “The Text,” describes the creation of the novel and the history of its publication, public and critical reaction, challenges of English translation, and post-Soviet reception. Along with annotations to all five chapters of The Gift, the commentary provides insight into problems of paleography, featuring a unique textological analysis of the novel

The Language of Paul Muldoon

This book interprets the multifarious writing of the Irish-American word wizard, Paul Muldoon, who has been described by The Times Literary Supplement as ‘the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War’. Readership: All interested in poetry and writing from Ireland and the English-speaking world, and in the enigma of language

Georges Perec's Geographies: Material, Performative and Textual Spaces

Georges Perec, novelist, filmmaker and essayist, was one of the most inventive and original writers of the twentieth century. A fascinating aspect of his work is its intrinsically geographical nature. With major projects on space and place, Perec’s writing speaks to a variety of geographical, urban and architectural concerns, both in a substantive way, including a focus on cities, streets, homes and apartments, and in a methodological way, experimenting with methods of urban exploration and observation, classification, enumeration and taxonomy. Georges Perec’s Geographies is the first book to offer a rounded picture of Perec’s geographical interests. Divided into two parts, Part I, Perec’s Geographies, explores the geographies within Perec’s work in film, literature and radio, from descriptions of streets to the spaces of his texts, while Part II, Perecquian Geographies, explores geographies in a range of material and metaphorical forms, including photographic essays, soundscapes, theatre, dance and writing, created by those directly inspired by Perec. Georges Perec’s Geographies extends the body of Perec criticism beyond Literary and French Studies to disciplines including Geography, Urban Studies, Planning and Architecture to offer a complete and systematic examination of Georges Perec’s geographies. The diversity of readings and approaches will be of interest not only to Perec readers and fans but to students and researchers across these subjects

The Music Sound

A guide for music: compositions, events, forms, genres, groups, history, industry, instruments, language, live music, musicians, songs, musicology, techniques, terminology , theory, music video. Music is a human activity which involves structured and audible sounds, which is used for artistic or aesthetic, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The traditional or classical European aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influenced classical music: melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color/timbre, and form. A more comprehensive list is given by stating the aspects of sound: pitch, timbre, loudness, and duration. Common terms used to discuss particular pieces include melody, which is a succession of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord, which is a simultaneity of notes heard as some sort of unit; chord progression, which is a succession of chords (simultaneity succession); harmony, which is the relationship between two or more pitches; counterpoint, which is the simultaneity and organization of different melodies; and rhythm, which is the organization of the durational aspects of music

Purloined Poetics: The Grotesque in the Music of Maurice Ravel

Since Ravel's death, both critics and scholars have questioned why a composer with his gifts would cling to convention--conservative forms, tertian harmonies--in an era of musical revolution. The grotesque, an aesthetic phenomenon characterized by unity among disjunction, engages this strand of criticism in three specific ways: 1) it provides an aesthetic framework for interpreting Ravel's diverse musical styles; 2) it offers a new context for his long-standing appreciation of Poe; and 3) it unveils transgressive elements within conventional musical structures. To differentiate the French grotesque from other varieties, I examine discourses by Hugo, Gautier, Baudelaire, and Berlioz before turning to the tales and criticism of Poe--a juncture where Ravel and the French grotesque meet. Four Ravel works--Sérénade grotesque, L'Heure espagnole, Daphnis et Chloé, and La Valse--manifest disjunctive relationships between music, text, rhythm and meter, gesture; these, combined with the works' reception histories, evoke the grotesque