The Beggar Student : Waltz

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-ps/3007/thumbnail.jp

Learning localization through Trans-Atlantic collaboration: bridging the gap between professions

In light of what has taken place since their presentation at the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference in 2005, the authors describe additional requirements and merits of matching technical writing students in the US with translation students in Europe in a collaborative assignment. Where the original article dealt with how to set up and organize the collaboration, this tutorial delves into the pedagogical challenges and the process dynamics involved in such an exchange, including mediation, power, and teamwork issues

Impacts of Economic, Demographic, and Political Characteristics on State TANF Spending

Poverty is a persistent problem in the United States. In 2020, the poverty rate in the United States was 11.4% ( Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2020 ). Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) is the main basic assistance program for families living in poverty in the United States. It was enacted in 1995 to reform the previous basic assistance program for families, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) (Corbett 2013). Unlike its predecessor, on top of providing income to families when a parent or guardian could not, TANF is designed to reduce dependency on welfare. This is done in the law through three mechanisms: ending entitlement of poor families to cash assistance, creating work requirements for recipients, and creating time limits for aid. TANF has failed to alleviate poverty on a national level. Even though federal cash assistance rolls decreased significantly under TANF, there is still a high poverty rate, meaning TANF fails to reach many poor Americans. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), only 23 out of every 100 families living in poverty in 2019 received cash assistance through TANF, versus 68 out of every 100 families under AFDC (“Policy Basics” 2021). The CBPP estimates that to serve families living in poverty to the extent that AFDC did, the program would have to help about two million more families. The National Poverty Center also found that the number of people in the United States living on less than $2 a day rose under TANF, going from 636,000 in 1996 (before TANF) to 1.65 million in 2011 (Newkirk 2018). TANF rolls have consistently decreased year to year at a rate outpacing the decline in the poverty rate, which indicates that TANF is serving a decreasing proportion of poor families. This is largely due to specific restrictions on TANF cash assistance that states have chosen to implement

Current Trends in Translation

Driven by the growth of a global economy and developments in high technology, the process of creating and translating technical documentation has been evolving rapidly. In particular, machine translation (MT) has shown increasing capabilities of efficaciously accomplishing the early stages of the eight stages of translation identified years ago by Robert Bly. As a consequence, translators have learned to use MT as a tool to accelerate their work, but they have also grown wary of MT’s potential for replacing them. To ensure steady employment, some translators have begun cross-training as technical writers; correspondingly, a few technical writers have begun cross-training as translators, as the two professions appear to be undergoing a gradual trend of convergence. Academic programs are urged to respond to the evolving trends

Whoa Emma Waltz : Just Out

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-ps/2170/thumbnail.jp

Coucou Polka : from the Opera: La Marjolaine

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-ps/1463/thumbnail.jp

Polka

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-ps/1108/thumbnail.jp

Linking engineering students in Spain and technical writing students in the US as co-authors: The challenges and outcomes of subject-matter experts and language specialists collaborating internationally

In a first-of-its-kind international collaboration, technical writing classes in Spain and the US matched engineering students with international technical writing students to coauthor procedural instructions. These were then tested for usability by students in Finland and the US, and subsequently translated and localized by students in Belgium, France, and Italy. The coauthors faced challenges in gaining expertise, communicating clearly in a lingua franca, handling differing cultures, testing for usability, and managing differing semester schedules and time zones. Insights from these experiences yield recommendations for instructors who wish to replicate such collaborations.Postprint (published version