Enhancing Learners’ Critical Thinking Ability Through Pedagogical Translation in English Language Teaching

The paper explores the strategic use of pedagogical translation in English language teaching (ELT) to enhance Chinese learners’ critical thinking ability. Different from the studies on translation theories and the teaching of translation to English majors, the present study assumes that pedagogical translation is a rational activity which can effectively help learners understand the source language and target language precisely. The translation of four different word categories is discussed and analyzed by using examples. It is concluded that learners can improve their critical thinking ability and language competence through designed translation activities

Food Safety Regulatory System of Developed Countries and the Implication for China

The problem of food safety has become a focus in the world. In recent years, because of high frequency of food safety accidents, the problems of food safety have appealed much concern in China. This article introduces the features of the food safety regulation of the developed countries and then offers suggestions and the successful experiences that we should learn from when China is establishing our own food safety regulatory system. Key words: food safety; regulatory system; regulatory mod

Integrating Articulatory Features into HMM-based Parametric Speech Synthesis

This paper presents an investigation of ways to integrate articulatory features into Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based parametric speech synthesis, primarily with the aim of improving the performance of acoustic parameter generation. The joint distribution of acoustic and articulatory features is estimated during training and is then used for parameter generation at synthesis time in conjunction with a maximum-likelihood criterion. Different model structures are explored to allow the articulatory features to influence acoustic modeling: model clustering, state synchrony and cross-stream feature dependency. The results of objective evaluation show that the accuracy of acoustic parameter prediction can be improved when shared clustering and asynchronous-state model structures are adopted for combined acoustic and articulatory features. More significantly, our experiments demonstrate that modeling the dependency between these two feature streams can make speech synthesis more flexible. The characteristics of synthetic speech can be easily controlled by modifying generated articulatory features as part of the process of acoustic parameter generation