84,588 research outputs found
Aiming for Cognitive Equivalence – Mental Models as a Tertium Comparationis for Translation and Empirical Semantics
This paper introduces my concept of cognitive equivalence (cf. Mandelblit, 1997), an attempt to reconcile elements of Nida’s dynamic equivalence with recent innovations in cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology, and building on the current focus on translators’ mental processes in translation studies (see e.g. Göpferich et al., 2009, Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, 2010; Halverson, 2014). My approach shares its general impetus with Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk’s concept of re-conceptualization, but is independently derived from findings in cognitive linguistics and simulation theory (see e.g. Langacker, 2008; Feldman, 2006; Barsalou, 1999; Zwaan, 2004). Against this background, I propose a model of translation processing focused on the internal simulation of reader reception and the calibration of these simulations to achieve similarity between ST and TT impact. The concept of cognitive equivalence is exemplarily tested by exploring a conceptual / lexical field (MALE BALDNESS) through the way that English, German and Japanese lexical items in this field are linked to matching visual-conceptual representations by native speaker informants. The visual data gathered via this empirical method can be used to effectively triangulate the linguistic items involved, enabling an extra-linguistic comparison across languages. Results show that there is a reassuring level of interinformant agreement within languages, but that the conceptual domain for BALDNESS is linguistically structured in systematically different ways across languages. The findings are interpreted as strengthening the call for a cognition-focused, embodied approach to translation
The view from elsewhere: perspectives on ALife Modeling
Many artificial life researchers stress the interdisciplinary character of the field. Against such a backdrop, this report reviews and discusses artificial life, as it is depicted in, and as it interfaces with, adjacent disciplines (in particular, philosophy, biology, and linguistics), and in the light of a specific historical example of interdisciplinary research (namely cybernetics) with which artificial life shares many features. This report grew out of a workshop held at the Sixth European Conference on Artificial Life in Prague and features individual contributions from the workshop's eight speakers, plus a section designed to reflect the debates that took place during the workshop's discussion sessions. The major theme that emerged during these sessions was the identity and status of artificial life as a scientific endeavor
An introduction to the Cambridge advanced modeller
Complex products and their development processes may be viewed as systems,
whose different aspects can be modelled as networks of interactions between
elements in different domains. Many approaches have been proposed to explore,
support or improve engineering processes by building such models. Developing
these approaches, and applying them to problems of realistic complexity, often
requires specialised computer software suitable for manipulating large data sets.
However, creating suitable tools can be difficult–because software development is
time-consuming and requires skills that many researchers and practitioners do not
possess.
We developed an approach which aims to address this problem by recognising the
iterative nature of modelling research and its often tight coupling with prototype
software development, and by reducing the effort of software prototyping and
revision within this process. The approach is enabled by, and embodied in, the
Cambridge Advanced Modeller (CAM)–a configurable software platform we have
developed, refined and applied over several years and through a number of
research projects
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