Translation corpora in contrastive research, translation and language learning

This article looks at the role of translation corpora in all fields of comparative language studies. Over the last decade, corpus linguistics has expanded into a new, powerful and easily accessible methodology, which has brought new impulses to many older sub-disciplines of linguistics. Thus, translation corpora have revitalised all comparative or cross-language studies, since they can be used profitably in contrastive linguistics and translation studies as well as in language teaching and learning. Translation corpus studies are particularly popular among non-native speakers of English, as they offer a sound basis for language analysis that does not depend on introspection. Because they combine a qualitative and a quantitative perspective, they are particularly interesting for gradient phenomena, like the auxiliary-catenative-full verb cline that provides the empirical test field in much of this contribution. The opportunities offered by translation corpora are illustrated using examples from the Chemnitz English-German translation corpus, mainly in three case studies of auxiliary help, catenative appear/seem, and modal may/might.O presente artigo analisa o papel de corpora de tradução em todos os âmbitos da pesquisa lingüística contrastiva. Na última década, a Lingüística de Corpus se transformou numa metodologia nova, poderosa e de fácil acesso, que impulsionou a maioria das disciplinas tradicionais da lingüística. Assim, os corpora de tradução revitalizaram todas as áreas de estudo comparativas, já que podem ser usados, com proveito tanto nos estudos lingüísticos contrastivos quanto na tradução e no ensino e aprendizado de língua. Estudos baseados em corpora de tradução são bastante difundidos entre os falantes não-nativos de inglês, uma vez que constituem uma fonte confiável para a análise da língua, que não depende da introspecção. Por agruparem uma perspectiva tanto quantitativa quanto qualitativa, são particularmente interessantes no caso de fenômenos que indicam gradação, como a escala verbo auxiliar-de ligação-pleno, que fornece o campo de teste empírico para a maior parte deste trabalho. As possibilidades oferecidas por corpora de tradução são ilustradas com o uso de exemplos extraídos do Corpus de Tradução Inglês-Alemão Chemnitz, que focalizam em especial três estudos de caso: o uso de help como auxiliar, os verbos de ligação appear/seem e o modal may/might

Translation and Cognitive Structures

This project is based on a corpus of English and German source and target texts, ranging from contemporary literature to scientific textbooks. We try to create a machine-readable and aligned corpus which will allow us to discover and categorize translation equivalents for a number of linguistic items, such as prepositions, subordination, deictic elements, metaphors or culture-specific structures. On this basis we look for regularities in the configuration of factors that influence equivalent choices for each of the phenomena in question. Apart from theoretical insights into contrastive language structures as well as cognitive aspects of the translation process, the purpose of the project is to discover and categorize prototye and non-prototype equivalents in two closely related languages. Research results could, for instance, be applied to bilingual lexicography or other language learning and translation aids

LIMITS OF DISCOURSE: EXAMPLES FROM POLITICAL, ACADEMIC, AND HUMAN-AGENT INTERACTION

This contribution looks at modern discourse from two perspectives. It tries to show that the term ‘discourse’ has been expanded over the last few decades to include more phenomena and more disciplines that use it as a basis for their analyses. But it also tries to show that discourse in the sense of effective interaction has met its limits. The fundamental question is: When is discourse real discourse, i.e. more than a series of unrelated utterances and when is it coherent interactive communication? This paper does not intend to provide a new overall theoretical-methodological model, it uses examples from political discourse to demonstrate that popular discourse is often unfortunately less interactive than seems necessary, examples from academic discourse to illustrate that community conventions are being standardised more and more, and from humanoid-human discourse to argue that it is still difficult to construct agents that are recognised as discourse partners by human beings. Theoretical approaches to discuss these limits of discourse include coherence andintentionality. They can be applied to show where lack of cohesion in discourse indicates lack of cohesion in society

“A Terrible Beauty Is Born”: Opportunities and New Perspectives for Online Teaching and Assessment

Even though the use of digital tools as an alternative to or in support of more traditional methods is no longer considered a novelty in the context of language learning, as a consequence of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, what used to be an opportunity was transformed into a pressing and inevitable necessity that led all the actors involved in the training and evaluation process to radically change their way of teaching and assessing. Within a matter of days, educators around the world scrambled to shift their practice from in-person to remote teaching. The need to maintain social distancing prompted the transition to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). Even though globally the emergency posed by Covid-19 popularized ERT as a temporary intervention to complete a higher education academic year, ERT has undoubtedly proved to be a feasible alternative for “students unconventionally dispersed, either locally or abroad, when only limited contact to educational facilities and instructional materials for their learning needs is available” (Nokukhanya et al. 2021, 9). Indeed, since in remote teaching the participants in the communicative act mainly interact via a screen, and sometimes even without full access to video facilities, at times there may be the tendency to de-emphasize person-to-person contact. Therefore, if we want remote teaching to provide new opportunities and stimuli in the future, it is essential to draw on the examples of good practice emerged during the pandemic, bearing in mind that teachers and educators should first and foremost promote interactive activities at the most efficient and realizable rate, with a view to encouraging the attendees’ notivation and participation

HOT SPOTS IN TURBOEXPANDER BEARINGS: CASE HISTORY, STABILITY ANALYSIS, MEASUREMENTS AND OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE

Case StudyHOT SPOTS IN TURBOEXPANDER BEARINGS: DESCRIPTION OF THE MACHINE. ROTORDYNAMIC BEHAVIOR (ANALYSIS AND TEST). THE HOT SPOT PHENOMENON. ANALYSED AND TESTED MODIFICATIONS. CONCLUSION

Hedges in specialised vs. popular academic interaction: A case study of medical text

Academic interaction requires information and language management and part of good language management includes information on the speakers’ or writers’ use of hedges to indicate their stance on a scientifi c claim, ranging from total support to rejection. Although hedges are a complex phenomenon in function and form, they are considered central to academic interaction. This study analyses lexical hedges in two types of academic writing, specialised academic texts from international Anglo-American journals and web servers and corresponding popular academic texts from a popular science magazine, the New Scientist. Medical English was used in this pilot study to investigate whether popular versions contain either more or less hedging than their specialised originals. Different types of hedges were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively

Academic writing and new Englishes: Unifying the contrasts

This contribution tries to unify two recent research strands in English linguistics: studies in academic writing and in New Englishes. This is useful because, in line with the prominent theory of social constructionism, discourses in both strands can be seen as practices of communities that negotiate their cultural norms. The relationship between language, cognition, and (national) culture is illustrated on the basis of several models, research and its application in teaching is discussed. A proposed socio-cognitive model offers new insights into old concepts and stimulates exchange in academic discourses between researchers from different cultures

Kooperationsprojekt

Der interuniversitäre Bachelor-Studiengang Energy Efficiency and Englishes hat die Zielsetzung, dass Studierende zum einen ingenieurs- und technikwissenschaftliche Kompetenzen und zum anderen kultur- und sprachwissenschaftliche Kompetenzen erwerben und somit für den Arbeitsmarkt bessere Voraussetzungen mitbringen. Ziel des Ko- Pi-Projektes war es, die Module „Einführung Energietechnik“ und „Applied Linguistics“ besser an die Bedürfnisse der Studierenden anzupassen und gleichzeitig die Verknüpfung von technikwissenschaftlichen mit sprachwissenschaftlichen Kompetenzen zu schaffen, um diese praktisch im Unterricht anzuwenden und weiterzuentwickeln