Translatology: Interrogative Musings on the Grid

This essay attempts some regurgitation of what has been happening in TS these days. It argues that Translatology has culpably failed to address issues and has instead moved around without quite getting things into a rational perspective. It argues that the putative opposition of the ‘linguistic turn’ and the ‘cultural turn’ in TS is misplaced, by spotlighting the language-nonlanguage dialectic. (Rajendra Singh (2005) argues for a ‘re-turn’). Translatology has culpably failed to work toward the rigour that characterizes, or should characterize, all academic disciplines. This piece is a plea for more rigour and less hyperactivity in TS. That there is as yet no theory of translation is unarguable. None is there to be sighted on the horizon. I don’t agree with Peter Newmark on the other hand that there can be no laws or theory of translation. That is too strong a position to take it seems to me. (Equally obvious is the averral that there is no theory of literature. ‘Theory’ is too strong a word to use for whatever exists as a set of organizing or underpinning principles that govern the phenomenon of literature.) Whatever TS theory may be said to exist lacks muscle tone in a way in which Nuclear Physics, for example, does not. That Nuclear Physics is a physical or natural science and TS is Humanities is no argument. The point is that anything that is unconstrained in an absolute sense, in a transcendent sense cannot be piquant in any meaningful sense. Unbridled or barely bridled creativity cannot be meaning-making. Absolutely untrammeled centrifugality where everything and anything ‘goes’ is in point of fact an intellectually vacuous exercise. The ‘cultural turn’ in its strong version effects a radical change in the ‘enabling function’ of translation and converts the ‘traces’ of the translator’s presence into a massively visible one. At the least the ‘cultural turn’ is misstated and, in a sense, which I hope to make clear, overstated in the sense of throwing the floodgates open, which isn’t a hallmark of an academic discipline. Attempting an elucidation of why things are the way they are in TS the note concludes that TS must strive toward a crosslinguistically and crossculturally valid discourse about translation, a discourse grounded in, sanctioned by, driven and underpinned by a well-founded, crossculturally valid but subject-to-rational-change grid. This piece is intended therefore as a corrector and some kind of a reiner. As indicated at places what is said about translation applies equally to literature. The piece would have served its purpose if the interrogatives get home. The answers could take a while to come by.Cet article tente de rendre compte de ce qui se fait dans le domaine des études relatives à la traduction de nos jours. Il affirme que la théorie de la traduction n’a pas réussi à bien cerner sa problématique et elle se sent coupable de ce fait. Cette dernière a été incapable d’atteindre ses objectifs et n’a pu placer les choses dans une perspective rationnelle. L’article soutient que l’opposition putative entre le « tour linguistique » et le « tour culturel » est faite à tort en mettant en relief la dialectique entre la langue et la non-langue( Rajendra Singh (2005) parle d’un « re-tour ». La théorie de traduction est coupable de ne pas mettre en place une rigueur academique suffisante qui doit caractériser toutes les poursuites académiques. Cet article suggère une plus grande rigueur et moins d’hyperactivité dans les études portant sur la traduction. Le fait qu’il n’y ait pas encore de théorie de traduction est inacceptable. Cependant, je ne suis pas d’accord avec Peter Newmark affirmant qu’il ne peut pas y avoir de lois ou de theorie de la traduction. Cette position est trop extrême. Cela est egalement vrai pour la théorie littéraire. « Théorie » est un mot inadéquat pour exprimer ce qui correspond à une série de principes qui régissent le phénomène littéraire et qui les mettent en relief. Ce qui existe de cette rigueur d’approche dans le domaine des études de la traduction est insuffisant par rapport au domaine par exemple de la physique nucléaire. Mais une chose qui est libre et aisée dans un sens absolu ne peut pas être utile d’une manière significative. Une créativité libre ne peut pas aboutir au sens. Une force centrifuge sans contrainte et sans limite où tout s’accomode est en fait un exercice intellectuel creux vide de sens. Le virage culturel dans sa version forte effectue un changement radical dans la fonction de la traduction et rend la trace de la presence du traducteur trop visible. Au moins, ce tour culturel est inexactement rapporté et, dans un sens, ce que j’espère démontrer, exagérément rapporté. En essayant d’élucider l’interrogation pourquoi les choses sont telles qu’elles sont, cet article conclut en disant qu’il faut que les etudes théoriques de la traduction fassent un effort pour arriver à un discours valable sur les plans interlinguistique et interculturel, à un discours qui soit fondé,autorisé, activé et étayé par une grille bien établie, libre de culture mais soumise au changement rationnel. Cet article a donc pour objectif de corriger les choses, du moins les tenir en bride. Ce qui est dit à propos de traduction s’applique aussi à la literature. Cet article aura atteint son objectif si les interrogations sont soulevées. Les réponses pourraient tarder à venir

Art Cannot Own What Reason Disowns: Caste in Kannada1 Literature

As deductivist as it is inductive, as theoreticallymotivated as it is empirically oriented, the paper, a low-down on my view of (literary) art, argues that there has to be a natural adductive-abductive tension in art, which corresponds to how the world is and how you wished it was, or to put it in more picturesque terms, the prose of reality and the poetry of the soul, the outer eye of empiricism, real-worldism and the inner eye of deductivist mentalism and rationalism. There is at the least a three-way typology of indian literature as regards how they deal with caste, for instance, which happens to be one of the slimiest scams of human history. The three ways are: a. caste endorsed and legitimized as a matter of course or justified or assumed as a basic immutable irreducible iron-clad premise. This is the theoretically flawed kind. This subcategorises in two ways: those that assume caste as an ironclad immutably basic premise and then go on to build their worlds. e,g The Death-Rite(sanskaara) and those that legitimise this slimy construct called ‘caste’ after averring that tinkering, rather jibbingly, with this barbaric system would be infructuous. e.g. Crossing-Over (daaTU) b. caste/religion described as it exists and then transcended (Man needs to transcend the manifest to ignite change). e.g. The Inscrutable Mystery (Chidambara Rahasya), The Twilight Narrative (Mussanjeya Kataa Prasanga), The Unbrahmin (Abrahmana) being other possible examples. c. Caste depicted in passing without either endorsing/justifying/legitimising or critiquing it, it being used merely as an incidental and almost irrelevantbackdrop to a different thematic space. e.g. Carvalho,Purushoottama, The Woods (KaaDu), ... The latter twocategories source, nourish, affirm and protect life andcivilization, seeking out fresh new life-narratives of remaking ourselves vis-a-vis caste

Mutual Information in Frequency and its Application to Measure Cross-Frequency Coupling in Epilepsy

We define a metric, mutual information in frequency (MI-in-frequency), to detect and quantify the statistical dependence between different frequency components in the data, referred to as cross-frequency coupling and apply it to electrophysiological recordings from the brain to infer cross-frequency coupling. The current metrics used to quantify the cross-frequency coupling in neuroscience cannot detect if two frequency components in non-Gaussian brain recordings are statistically independent or not. Our MI-in-frequency metric, based on Shannon's mutual information between the Cramer's representation of stochastic processes, overcomes this shortcoming and can detect statistical dependence in frequency between non-Gaussian signals. We then describe two data-driven estimators of MI-in-frequency: one based on kernel density estimation and the other based on the nearest neighbor algorithm and validate their performance on simulated data. We then use MI-in-frequency to estimate mutual information between two data streams that are dependent across time, without making any parametric model assumptions. Finally, we use the MI-in- frequency metric to investigate the cross-frequency coupling in seizure onset zone from electrocorticographic recordings during seizures. The inferred cross-frequency coupling characteristics are essential to optimize the spatial and spectral parameters of electrical stimulation based treatments of epilepsy.Comment: This paper is accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing and contains 15 pages, 9 figures and 1 tabl

Chemical Compositions of Four Metal-poor Giants

We present the chemical compositions of four K giants CS 22877-1, CS 22166-16, CS22169-35 and BS 16085 - 0050 that have [Fe/H] in the range -2.4 to -3.1. Metal-poor stars with [Fe/H] < -2.5 are known to exhibit considerable star - to - star variations of many elements. This quartet confirms this conclusion. CS 22877-1 and CS 22166-16 are carbon-rich. There is significant spread for [$\alpha$/Fe] within our sample where [$\alpha$/Fe] is computed from the mean of the [Mg/Fe], and [Ca/Fe] ratios. BS 16085 - 0050 is remarkably $\alpha$ enriched with a mean [$\alpha$/Fe] of $+$0.7 but CS 22169-35 is $\alpha$-poor. The aluminium abundance also shows a significant variation over the sample. A parallel and unsuccessful search among high-velocity late-type stars for metal-poor stars is described.Comment: 14 pages (text), 4 tables, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in PAS

Type-III supracondylar humerus fracture: functional outcome of open reduction and internal fixation after failed closed reduction

Background: To evaluate results of open reduction and internal fixation with Criss cross k-wires after failed closed reduction in Gartland type III Supracondylar fracture of humerus in our institution.Methods: This prospective study was conducted at the Krishna Rajendra hospital affiliated to the orthopaedic department of Mysore medical college and research institute from December 2018 to December 2019. Twenty-five patients of type-III fracture of supracondylar humerus were included within the study. Consent was obtained from all patients. Under anaesthesia, closed reduction was attempted first. When 2-3 attempts of closed reduction failed, an open reduction and internal fixation with cross k-wires was performed. Fortnightly follow up was applied for the first 8 weeks then monthly for the next 4 months. The clinical outcome was evaluated using Flynn criteria.Results: Out of 25 patients, 16 were male and 9 were female. Left side was involved in 17 patients and right side in 8. Mean age was 6.9 years with age range from 3 to 12 years. Excellent or good results were obtained in 23 (92%) patients and fair or poor in 2 (8%). Conclusions: We conclude that these fractures must be managed aggressively, by a specialised surgeon. Open reduction and internal fixation of severely displaced supracondylar fractures of the humerus is a safe and effective method when a satisfactory reduction can't be obtained by 2-3 attempts on closed method

Thidiazuron induced somatic embryogenesis in Coffea arabica L. and Coffea canephora P ex Fr.

The rapid direct and repetitive somatic embryogenesis in Coffea arabica and C. canephora genotypes was tested on Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) containing thidiazuron (TDZ) (1-phenyl-3-(1,2,3,-thiadiazol-5-yl)urea) in concentrations of 2.27–11.35s M. Segments taken from cotyledon leaf, first leaf and stalk of regenerated plantlets produced clusters of somatic embryos directly from cut portions of explants on TDZ (9.08 M) containing medium within a period of two months. Subculturing of these embryo clusters produced more secondary embryos on reduced TDZ (0.045–0.91M) containing medium and these subsequently developed into plantlets (80–85%) on development medium followed by rooting on MS basal medium. This direct somatic embryogenesis from leaf and hypocotyl explants in Coffea sp. is a strong evidence of cell totipotency. The rapid somatic embryo induction protocol would be useful for the mass propagation, direct regeneration and genetic transformation of selected elite lines

Atmospheric Abundances in Post-AGB candidates of Intermediate Temperature

Detailed atmospheric abundances have been calculated for a sample of A-G supergiant stars with IR fluxes and/or high galactic latitudes. HD 172481 and HD 158616 show clear indications of being post-AGB stars that have experienced third dredge-up. HD 158616 is carbon-rich while the abundance pattern of HD 172481 and its large Li enhancement gives support to the hot bottom burning scenario that explains paucity of carbon-rich stars among AGB stars. HD 172324 is very likely a hot post-AGB star that shows a strong carbon deficiency. HD 725, HD 218753 and HD 331319 also appear to be evolved objects between the red giant and the AGB. HD 9167, HD 173638 with a few exceptions, reflect solar abundances and no signs of post red giant evolution. They are most likely young massive disk supergiants. Further analysis of proto-Planetary Nebula HDE 341617 reveals that He lines show signs of velocity stratification. The emission lines have weakened considerably since 1993. The envelope expands at 19 km s$^{-1}$ relative to the star. Atmospheric abundances, evolutionary tracks and isochrones are used to estimate masses and ages of all stars in the sample.Comment: 19 pages (text), 14 tables, 5 figure