Lexical chunks in English and Spanish sales contracts: A corpus-based study

Producción CientíficaThis paper focuses on the study of word combinations “of common usage” which are “lexicalized”, have “syntactic and semantic stability, may be idiomatized and carry connotations, and have an emphatic or intensifying function.” (Gläser 1994/1995, 45). Following previous research on Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) and legal phraseology, we will define, identify and classify these units in English and Spanish according to their form and meaning, using a comparable corpus of sales contracts. To carry out our study, we will focus on a number of descriptors that are commonly used within these units on the basis of the headwords they collocate with, in order to determine how specific or general they are in their form, use and meaning since this issue poses translation problems. As genres determine matters such as or terminology and phraseology, the results will be useful for specialized translators and legal drafters.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (project FFI2016-75672-R

How specific wine tasting descriptors are?

Producción CientíficaAlthough wine tasting notes are a specialized genre in the field of Oenology, with their own rhetoric and language, some of the elements describing the language of wine are by no means as specialized as that of most other specialized genres such as technical notes, auditor reports or abstracts. In this study, we will explore how wine literature attempts to analyze such adjectives used in wine tasting notes. We will then, based on a comparable corpus of 700 tasting notes per language, study a number of common wine descriptors in English and Spanish in the context of the nouns that they collocate. Our purpose is to determine their specificity or generality in their use and meaning. On the basis of their collocability, we will categorize the descriptors and analyze the meaning components of the descriptors falling in the most general category.Junta de Castilla y León (project LE227413)Ministry of Education (project FFI2013-42994-R

Describing phraseological devices in medical abstracts: an English/Spanish contrastive analysis

Producción CientíficaGenre studies have been mainly focused on the rhetorical structure of research papers. However, genre theorists have not systematically studied either relationships among related genres or interlingual studies between genres. The present study aims at describing and comparing the rhetorical and phraseological structures of abstracts in English and Spanish in order to observe how information is rendered in the two languages under analysis. Our methodology is descriptively performed on a comparable corpus of abstracts in the field of diagnostic imaging and published in well-reputed journals. We will determine composition strategies by means of a semantic and functional approach so as to establish their similarities and differences in this genre. Our results will be primarily of help to translators, technical writers and ESP students to better understand some of the discourse aspects of rendering scientific information in both languages.La typologie des genres s’intéresse prioritairement à la structure rhétorique des études de recherche. Cependant, les théoriciens n’ont pas étudié systématiquement les relations entre les genres ni les études interlinguistiques. Cette étude vise à décrire et à comparer les structures rhétoriques et phraséologiques de résumés en anglais et en espagnol afin de déterminer la façon dont l’information est transmise. Notre méthodologie concerne un corpus de résumés dans le domaine de l’imagerie diagnostique des revues de renom. Nous utiliserons les stratégies de composition d’une approche sémantique et fonctionnelle pour établir leurs ressemblances et leurs différences. Nos résultats serviront aux traducteurs, aux rédacteurs techniques et aux étudiants des LSP afin de mieux comprendre certains éléments discursifs de transmission d’information scientifique dans les deux langues

A corpus-based writing aid for Spanish language authors: the scientific abstract generator prototype

Producción CientíficaAbstracts are a secondary genre based on the Research Paper (RP) that have often been analyzed in English for insights into rhetorical structure and information distribution. However, this wealth of descriptive research has not produced particularly useful results for scientists who are not native speakers of English nor has it been “directly amenable to applied endeavours”. The aim of this paper is to describe the methodology and the tools devised by the ACTRES research group to bridge the transition between the descriptive and the procedural approach. The findings obtained will feed into a writing application for Spanish-speaking scientists who need to report their work in English to the global research community: it is called the Scientific_Abstract_Generator. A custom-made comparable corpus, BioABSTRACTS_C-ACTRES, has been compiled and analyzed for rhetorical and lexico-grammatical features of this genre in both English and Spanish. Then, crosslinguistic similarities and differences relevant for our intended users have been identified and will be used to build a writing prototype available as a useful and usable computer interface

Contrasting the rhetoric of abstracts in medical discourse: Implications and applications for English/Spanish translation

Producción CientíficaThe present study aims at offering a contrastive analysis framework for the specific textual patterns of the expert-to-expert communicative setting from a semantic and a functional approach. Our methodology tries to identify patterns of behaviour in one of the genres that might be said to be exclusive of expert-to-expert discourse in medicine: abstracts. By means of describing regularities, differences in the way information is distributed will be pinpointed. Since textual realizations have been agreed to bridge the distance between the semantic and the functional component, cohesion will be analyzed both as a semantic marker and as an indicator of information distribution — pragmatic marker — according to functional constraints. ‘Ad hoc’ comparable and translation corpora have been built, extracted from medical journals with a significant impact. Intra and interlingual analysis of those corpora has been carried out to attain a comprehensive description of textual patterns from the above mentioned semantic, formal and functional parametrical levels.Junta de Castilla y León (2005–2007) - Project (UEMC01A05)Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (HUM2005-01215

Writing Abstracts: Technological Applications from a Corpus-Based Study

Paper (RP), have often been analyzed in order to observe how information has been rendered for translation or contrastive analysis purposes. However, in this genre, as in many others, “while there is a wealth of descriptive research, generally speaking, the information is not directly amenable to applied endevours” (Rabadán, 2008: 103). The aim of this paper was to describe the methodology and the tools devised by the ACTRES research group to bridge the transition between linguistic description and procedural information. The first step of this process was to design a small special corpus of scientific abstracts, the BioAbstracts_C-ACTRES. The macro and microlinguistic characteristics of this corpus were analyzed in order to find the most prototypical rhetorical, grammatical and lexical features of this genre. Then, we identified the “anchors” (Rabadán: in press) relevant for the native speakers of Spanish. Finally, a prototype of a writing application, the Scientific_Abstract_Generator, has been designed. Still under development, it aims at helping native Spanish users who are non-linguist field experts, to write scientific abstracts in English

Contrasting the rethoric of abstracts.

Contrasting the rethoric of abstracts

Cell Microencapsulation Technologies for Sustained Drug Delivery: Latest Advances in Efficacy and Biosafety

The development of cell microencapsulation systems began several decades ago. However, today few systems have been tested in clinical trials. For this reason, in the last years, researchers have directed efforts towards trying to solve some of the key aspects that still limit efficacy and biosafety, the two major criteria that must be satisfied to reach the clinical practice. Regarding the efficacy, which is closely related to biocompatibility, substantial improvements have been made, such as the purification or chemical modification of the alginates that normally form the microspheres. Each of the components that make up the microcapsules has been carefully selected to avoid toxicities that can damage the encapsulated cells or generate an immune response leading to pericapsular fibrosis. As for the biosafety, researchers have developed biological circuits capable of actively responding to the needs of the patients to precisely and accurately release the demanded drug dose. Furthermore, the structure of the devices has been subject of study to adequately protect the encapsulated cells and prevent their spread in the body. The objective of this review is to describe the latest advances made by scientist to improve the efficacy and biosafety of cell microencapsulation systems for sustained drug delivery, also highlighting those points that still need to be optimized