Writing skills: theory and practice

didattica della scrittura in inglese come seconda lingua a livello teorico, in un arco temporale che va dagli anni Cinquanta agli anni Novanta del secolo scorso. Successivamente si analizzano i principi organizzativi che governano la teoria della scrittura in inglese come seconda lingua. Di seguito, oltre al materiale usato in aula, si presenta la lezione che introduce la parte del mio corso di inglese dedicato alla scrittura (livello B2 del Quadro Comune Europeo di Riferimento) per gli allievi del primo anno che studiano inglese come terza lingua presso la Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori dell’Università di Trieste. Infine si cercherà di trarre alcune conclusioni sulla base dell’analisi dei temi scritti dagli studenti.The aim of this paper is threefold. First, a diachronic development of ESL (English as a Second Language) composition theory from the 1950s to the 1990s will be outlined. Second, the organising principles relevant to ESL composition theory will be analysed. Third, a survey of the material used in my English classes and a presentation of the introductory unit on writing skills will be given. Finally, some tentative conclusions derived from my students’ compositions will be drawn

Translation and Language Teaching: Translation as a useful teaching Resource

Both language teaching experts and translation theorists have proposed detailed analyses of the advantages and disadvantages of using translation in language teaching. However, in order to make translation a useful teaching resource, they have provided new and challenging insights into the nature of translation itself. Some of the principles among these insights will be outlined and discussed in this paper

Forms of identity. Ireland, Language and Translation

Questo volume include una serie di articoli su lingua, traduzione e identit\ue0 in Irlanda raccolti con un 'call for paper' internazionale e selezionati con un processo di 'double-peer blind review'

Museum Audio Description: Multimodal and 'Multisensory' Translation: A Case Study from the British Museum

This paper first illustrates the major revisions, such as a new view of society, the nation, and education, introduced by the New Museology or Museum Studies in the 1980s and 1990s. These changes certainly favoured the development of museum audio description. As museum audio description can be included in the new forms of interactivity, the change of paradigm of interactivity in new museums is analysed and examples are given. Then, a general overview of audio description and its process creation are briefly illustrated in their strengths and limitations. This overview anticipates the two complementary studies on museum audio description as multimodal and multisensory translation. Both studies see the museum and its audio description as an interactive multimodal communicative event but the former focusses more on the grammar of multimodality, whereas the latter emphasises aspects of artistic fruition and the importance of a creative and interpretative language. The paper concludes with my analysis of a museum audio description from the British Museum, focussing in particular on cohesion and coherence

Brian Friel as Linguist, Brian Friel as Drama Translator

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how linguistic and translation issues have always been Friel’s main concerns. First of all, the language question in Ireland will be investigated in its multi-faceted implications. In particular, Tom Paulin’s A New Look at the Language Question (1985), one of the earliest pamphlets produced within the Field Day activities, will be analysed as it deals with some language topics which Friel dramatises in Translations (1980). At the time when Translations was performed, in fact, translation issues were still a pretext for the social and political reflection on the question of language. In Friel’s play, therefore, language has a twofold value. Language not only allows us to dwell poetically in our world and recollect our past, but it is also a utilitarian weapon to establish a one-to-one correlation between words and objects. Translations is thus based on the idea that translation is only a part of a more general theory of communication, as Steiner claims in After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1975). The second aspect is that will be dealt with in this paper is that Friel uses translation as a powerful means of intercultural exchange in drama. In fact, Friel in his earliest Russian play, Three Sisters (1981), becomes a drama translator, according to Aaltonen’s main tenets. In discussing various translation strategies, Aaltonen shows how theatre productions in translation are always tied to the time and place of the receiving audience. Aaltonen’s conviction is that the translation of a foreign dramatic text, as well as its entire production, unavoidably represents a reaction to the Other when it is chosen for a performance in another culture. Therefore, Friel’s Three Sisters and the strategies adopted in its translation will be seen as an ‘Irish reaction’ to Chekhov’s Russia

Traduzione aperta, quasi spalancata: tradurre Dario Fo

Il concetto di traduzione entra a far parte della storia del teatro molto tardi, poich\ue9 per lungo tempo si prefer\uec ricorrere alla tecnica dell\u2019imitazione e dell\u2019adattamento. A partire dal Settecento e in modo sempre pi\uf9 marcato sino ai nostri giorni, ci si \ue8 posti il problema del rapporto tra traduzione e messinscena, tra traduttore e regista, giungendo alla conclusione che tradurre per la scena richiede implicazioni e abilit\ue0 del tutto diverse da quelle impiegate nel tradurre un lavoro letterario. Al centro dei saggi che compongono questa pubblicazione vi \ue8 il teatro di Dario Fo, uno degli autori contemporanei pi\uf9 rappresentati e tradotti all\u2019estero. Al di l\ue0 delle questioni teoriche e critiche, il libro vuole essere un omaggio non solo a un grande drammaturgo ma a colui che in ogni sua opera ci ha indicato una via alla libert\ue0 di pensiero e al sapere, il cui vero senso risiede nel leggere, interpretare, verificare di persona. Perch\ue9, come ebbe a dire Fo, \u201cla conoscenza ti fa dubitare. Soprattutto del potere. Di ogni potere\u201d

Disability Theatre in Ireland: A Development

The aim of this paper is to trace recent developments in Irish disability theatre, primarily in the light of the theoretical debate that envisions disability theatre at the interdisciplinary crossroads of disability studies and performance studies. I will describe how disability theatre in Ireland was portrayed in Face On: Disability Arts in Ireland and Beyond (2007) edited by Kaite O\u2019Reilly. In particular, many contributors lament the backwardness of disability theatre in Ireland. In 2012, however, the Irish Arts Council revised and formalised its previous policy, which had been ineff ective in supporting artists and audiences with disabilities. In conjunction with Arts and Disability Ireland, their strategic plans brought forth significant changes in Irish disability theatre

Museum AD: interpretative or un-interpretative audio description?

Museum audio description (AD) has emerged as a research topic in Translation Studies only in recent years, especially since AD started to move from being a service for the visually impaired to become a paradigm in Translation Studies. Many AD guidelines have been produced over the years to promote accessibility and support best practices for the visually impaired. From a comparison of AD guidelines available in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, France, Greece and the United States in 2010, it is clear that film and television AD still have priority over museum AD and that only some general features of museum AD are outlined. In this paper I will first introduce museum AD as described in these guidelines and try to show the main features of museum AD in relation to the question of objectivity and interpretation in the major studies available. I will also illustrate the theoretical background that explains how interpretation has become a major issue of museum AD and how this issue of interpretation, which has also engaged theorists in Translation Studies, must be gauged against the wider backdrop of museums as multimodal and multi-sensory spaces. Finally, I will show how cohesion, coherence and the discourse-based notions of microstructures and macrostructures are relevant for a comparison between an early un-interpretative example of museum AD and its later interpretative version