scholarly journals Semantic contrastive linguistics theory and dialectological studies

2015 ◽  
pp. 79-92
Author(s):  
Danuta Roszko

Semantic contrastive linguistics theory and dialectological studiesTheoretical contrastive studies (hereinafter referred to as TCS) emerged with a view to compare and contrast natural languages on the basis of a logical interlanguage. The idea of making the TCS guidelines available to science resulted in discontinuing the division into the original language and the target language when comparing and contrasting two (or more languages), and at the same time, terminating the dependence of the resulting material (i.e. form indexes in the target language) on the formal structures in the original language. The TCS essence is included in the interlanguage, which is used as tertium comparationis in the studies. To get more on this topic see Koseska, Korytkowska, R. Roszko (2007). Till now, TCS have not been applied in dialectal studies. There are a lot of reasons for this conjuncture. First of all, dialectal studies usually concentrate on one code (i.e. only a single local dialect is being specified), whilst in TCS, a comparison and contrast between (at least two) languages is provided. Moreover, research on the dialectal differentiation of a specific language (i.e. at least two dialects (/ local dialects) are being specified together) is based on demonstrating the features shared and differentiated on the level of (a) lexis, (b) morphology (most often narrowed to demonstrate differential morphological features) and (c) syntactic (relatively most rarely). Thus, dialectal studies are essentially a description of the formal conjuncture, whereas semantic aspects are out of the area of researchers interest. With this article, I am going to break the current patterns and prove that dialectal studies can be conducted in accordance with the TCS guidelines. The advantage of such dialectal studies is not only a different/new look at a specific local dialect, but also a possibility of an instant comparison and contrast between the local dialect and the standardized language or other local dialects (of one language or another) on the semantic level providing the highest standard of the relevances demonstrated (i.e. similarities and differences).

Author(s):  
Aleksandra Erić-Bukarica

The aim of this paper is to examine and describe similarities and differences in the use and distribution of modal verbs by contrasting English and Serbian legal texts. The corpus consists of an English version of The Convention on the Rights of the Child and its official Serbian translation. We started from an assumption that modal verbs are more frequent in legal texts in English than in Serbian, where we expected to find examples of lexical items with modal meanings instead. In addition, we assumed that due to its specific use in legal texts of this kind, the English modal ‘shall’ will show the highest frequency of occurrence. A total of one hundred and twenty six (126) modal verbs and a semi-modal ‘need not’ were found in the source text. The results of the analysis support the initial presumption that ‘shall’ will stand out as the most frequent of all modal verbs (60% of all occurrences). Despite the high occurrence rate of the legalistic ‘shall’ in the source text, translation solutions in the target language only rarely take the form of the modal verb. Most often deontic notions of imperative directness and necessity in Serbian legislative writings are expressed by means of the present indicative. The analysis also indicates that translation solutions for the remaining English modal verbs most often take the form of a modal verb or a modal lexeme with a corresponding meaning in Serbian.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Aderton ◽  
Shiva Nandan

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">In this paper we compare and contrast the branding strategies of traditional and on-line companies. To illustrate the similarities and differences between the two, we examine four well-established traditional brands and four successful on-line brands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>We then offer recommendations for successful branding in the ever-evolving business and technological environment of the future.</span></span></p>


Author(s):  
Tetiana Stoianova ◽  
Ksenia Chernenko

The article is devoted to the study of the features of reproducing English humor in the Ukrainian language. The relevance of the work is due to the urgent need for a comprehensive study of English-language humor as a text-discursive education and the features of its translation. The aim of the study is to analyze the specifics of reproducing English-language humor. As a result of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the reproduction of English humorous discourse should take into account the national characteristics of the people, culture and traditions. Translation of humorous discourse requires the use of various transformations: lexical, grammatical (including syntactic and morphological), semantic, and stylistic. Often these types of transformations appear in a mixed form. The most effective transformations are: lexical, grammatical, and complex lexical and grammatical ones. The subject of research of this work is humor — the most common modern type of comic. The concept of humor is defined as a comprehensive phenomenon, a way of seeing, a way of life. The nature of humor depends on the linguistic and cultural characteristics of the country to which it belongs, which means that this phenomenon reproduces the national picture of the world. According to this, the translator should take into account the peculiarities of ethnic worldview in order to reproduce the content of discursive humorous education adequately. It is also necessary to be able to know at least something about the cultures involved in the translation in order to understand the original and be able to reproduce it. During the analysis, we determined that it is necessary to take into account the national nature of humor, because in different societies the same thing can cause different reactions, which leads to inadequate units of reproduction of the source language to the target language. Based on the fact that it is not always possible to fully reproduce the content and expressive-emotional coloring, compensation is considered the best lexical and semantic means of transmitting humor in the source language in the translation language. A necessary condition for translation is the selection of appropriate phonetic, lexical and phraseological means for transmitting not only the semantics of the humorous formation of the original language, but also their expressive and functional features


2021 ◽  
pp. arabic cover-english cover
Author(s):  
فتحي أبو مراد ◽  
ناصر حسن يعقوب

حاولت الدراسة، استكناه حقيقة مصطلح (objective correlative) المعادل الموضوعي، ورصد ترجماته المختلفة إلى اللغة العربية، حسب تسلسلها الزمني، وتتبع الاختلافات والائتلافات في هذه الترجمات، وتعليل أسباب هذا وذلك، وبيان إشكالات الترجمة في فهم معنى المصطلح ودلالاته. ومن ثم شرعت الدراسة في كشف طبيعة هذا المصطلح، ومفهومه ومكوناته الأساسية، وجوهره القائم على إيجاد معادلات موضوعية حسية لمكنونات عالم الشاعر الداخلي المجرد، ومحاولة تجسيد هذا العالم المجرد عبر صور وأشكال فنية حسية قابلة للمعاينة، وفي الآن نفسه قادرة على إثارة حالة شعورية في المتلقي تشبه إلى حدٍ كبيرٍ تلك الحالة التي يعانيها الشاعر نفسه. وقد اتكأت الدراسة على معطيات المنهج التكاملي، واستعانت بكثير من وسائله، وآلياته في الوصف والتحليل في مقاربتها لموضوع الدراسة، استجابةً لطبيعة الموضوع نفسه الذي تمتدّ أوصاله وشرايينه في سراديب مسائل عدة؛ فمنها ما يتصل بلغة (المصدر) اللغة الأجنبية، وإشكالات الترجمة. ومنها ما يتصل بلغة (الهدف) اللغة العربية، وقضايا الترادف والمشترك اللفظي، وقضية الاختيار. ومنها ما يتصل في الجانب التطبيقي لبعض النصوص الذي تضمنتها الدراسة، وما يستدعيه النص الشعري من نظرة تكاملية شمولية. وخلصت الدراسة إلى نتائج عدّة منها: أن مفهوم هذا المصطلح يتبأّر حول إيجاد معادلات حسية خارجية لحالات الشعور الداخلية للشاعر، وأن الممارسات العملية المختلفة لمعطيات المعادل الموضوعي، تتمحور حول استقطاب أدوات فنية وأسلوبية قادرة على التعبير والتشكيل والتصوير في آنٍ واحدٍ، وما إلى ذلك من استعمالات اللغة، استعمالًا خاصًا قادرًا على تجسيد المجرد الداخلي للشاعر، عبر صور حسّية تبوح بعواطف الشاعر وأفكاره، وترسم لها صورةً مشابهةً في وعي القارئ. This study tries to find out what is meant by the expression "objective correlative" and to follow its different translations into Arabic according to its chronology. It also tries to show similarities and differences in those translations by giving reasons for each of them، and the obstacles that face readers to understand the meaning and semantics of the expression. Then، the study proceeds to discover the nature، the conception، and the main components of this expression، and its main aim to find out objective and sensitive correlative for the hidden feelings of the poet’s world through art and sensory images and forms that are reviewable and which are able to stimulate an emotional state for the receiver which is similar to that of the poet himself. The study depends on the data taken from the integrated approach and borrows many of its means and procedures to describe and analyze the data in this study in response to the nature of the subject whose components stretch to contain matters. Some relate to the source language (English) and obstacles in translation، others relate to the target language (Arabic) and the issues of tandem، verb al joint،echoic and its effect on translating the expression. Some relate to the practical aspects of some texts which were included in the study and the integrated and comprehensive view needed for poetry. This study comes to some conclusions، such as: The expression "objective correlative" focuses on the external sensitive correlative of the inner feeling of the poet. The different practical experiences are polarizing on constructive and stylistic forms that are able to express forms، and give images at the same time. The uses of language for certain propose are able to represent the inner abstract feeling of the poet through sensitive images that reveal the poet’s feelings and thoughts and to draw a similar image in the reader's awareness.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela C. Carpenter

AbstractIn an artificial language-learning task, two groups of English and French participants learned one of two language rules: 1) stress the first heavy (CVC) syllable, else the first syllable, or, 2) stress the first light (CV) syllable, else the first syllable. French and English participants were chosen to compare learning outcomes by speakers of different native stress systems, fixed and variable. Participants were trained on the target language by listening to a set of nonsense familiarization words exemplifying the stress rule. This was followed by a forced-choice task to choose the correct version of the words they had just learned. Following the training procedure, participants were tested on novel words with the same stress pattern to which they were familiarized. The result of the novel word testing was that the natural rule with stress on heavy syllables was learned significantly better than the unnatural, stress light syllables, rule. To account for the learnability of both the natural and the unnatural rules, I argue for the interaction of a general cognitive mechanism that facilitates learning in general and a domain-specific language mechanism that can access universal phonological principles to aid in learning a natural language rule.


Author(s):  
Ingo Kregel ◽  
Nadine Ogonek ◽  
Benjamin Matthies

Purpose Requirements for business improvement professionals depend on different job characteristics. By focussing on lean management, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a comprehensive conceptualisation of competencies relevant for lean professionals by comparing them to an existing project management competency framework; and second, to identify their similarities and differences in three different analysed countries. Design/methodology/approach This paper investigates 2,701 online published job advertisements in the USA, UK and Germany by means of a content analysis to compare and contrast the respective job profiles. Findings Main findings are similarities and differences in the specification and perception of lean professional’s roles among the three countries. Strikingly, four out of eight considered competency categories comprise 74 per cent of the profiles’ most relevant keywords. Additionally, with the help of a latent semantic analysis, 16 specific competencies can be summarised in a lean professional’s competency taxonomy. Research limitations/implications The collected data only represent a snapshot of lean professionals’ advertisements. Also, text mining results from job profiles could largely differ from other techniques like recruiter interviews or company surveys. Further research could use different methods or combine them to construct a more complete model. Practical implications Lean education and training as well as the respective candidate selection processes can benefit from these studies’ results. Originality/value Requirements and job contents for lean professionals have not been empirically researched on a comparable in-depth level before, even though their expertise is in high demand in any kind of business sector.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Elmes

  Purpose: This study sought to analyze the instructional discourse of top-level coaches to identify the specific language content of coaching discourse in practice. Methodology: The study analyzed the recorded discourse of four coaches of the West Coast Hockey Prep Camp in Port Alberni, BC, Canada, between 2012 and 2016. Transcriptions of on-ice instructions were analyzed using Provalis QDA Miner v5.0.1 and Provalis WordStat v7.1.6 software to determine word-type and frequency.  Main findings: The processed corpus of 21,376 words produced 1,022 quantifiable words which were classified into one or more of the categories of single-category language (i.e. General (G), General Slang (GSl), Sports Specific (SS), and Sports General (SG)), or the eight additional multi-category sub-categories (i.e. G/GSl, G/SS, G/SG, SS/SG, GSl/SG, G/SS/SG, G/GSl/SG, and GSl/SS/SG).  Analyses revealed that single-category vocabulary (i.e. G, GSl, SS, and SG) made up 75.2% of the categorized language, with SS (4.6%) and SG (11.1%) making up 15.7% of the total. Applications: An understanding of the linguistic framework of instructional language in short-term training camps allows athletes to invest greater focus in their athletic performance in camp.  The results offer athletes contextual reference for preparatory language study and authentic linguistic insight for the counter of potential target language anxiety. Novelty/Originality: Results indicate that top-level coaches relied significantly less on sports-specific word-type to facilitate their instruction and suggest that a general comprehension of English can provide a strong foundation for understanding top-level coaching discourse.  This provides significant insight for athletes harboring concerns for English proficiency and coach-player miscommunication.


2001 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Ghadessy ◽  
Yanjie Gao

A common belief among a number of applied linguists working with parallel texts (texts from a source language, L1, and their translations into a target language, L2) is that “translated language is different from the original language” (Mauranen 1998: 160). A related research question is “Are translated texts different from comparable texts in the target language as well?” One way to answer the above question is to establish “translation universals” which make translated texts different from comparable texts in the target language. The process of simplification of translated language has been mentioned as one such universal feature (Baker 1993, 1995; Laviosa-Braithwaite 1996). The purpose of the present study is (a) to investigate one of the consequences of the process of simplification, i.e. reduction in lexical density, in a number of texts and their translations from English into Chinese. It will also be hypothesized that (b) translated texts into English and (c) translated texts into Chinese, in comparison with similar monolingual texts in the two languages, will be less lexically dense. A Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) model will be used for defining and calculating lexical density. Some implications of the findings for teaching translation will also be discussed.


Babel ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-360
Author(s):  
Clara Ho-yan Chan

The main purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the English-Chinese translated financial terms of Mainland China and Hong Kong in light of the necessary criteria for special communication terminology, and explore the feasibility of standardisation. Some distinctive linguistic properties and translation methods of the two regions’ Chinese financial terminology will be illustrated based on data from an industry glossary and major bank annual reports. The present situation is that Mainland China and Hong Kong display both similarities and differences in their Chinese translation of financial terms. With the increasing contact since the 1997 handover, the two regions appear to have been influencing each other, especially in that Mainland China has been adopting Hong Kong’s Chinese translations. In view of the fact that some translation scholars and practitioners advocate the standardisation of Chinese financial terminology in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for the sake of better economic development, this paper outlines the main properties of the two regions’ terminologies and evaluates how such standardisation might possibly proceed. Limited research has been done with regard to the translation of Chinese financial terminology and this exploratory study will fill that gap and attract similar studies in the translation and terminology fields.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-121
Author(s):  
Milana Andreevna Morozova

Based on the translations of a bidirectional English-Portuguese parallel corpus, this paper examines some English discourse markers (henceforth ‘DMs’, such as well, you know, I mean). The goal is twofold: firstly, the analysis of the translations establishes functional equivalents of the English DMs in European Portuguese, thus complementing the existing studies on translation of DMs in parallel corpus. Secondly and most importantly, this paper aims to approach the phenomenon of DMs omission frequently observed in translations from the empirical, rather than theoretical point of view. In particular, the study focuses on omission of DMs in the target languages. The corpus analysis resulted in the identification of three most common types of omission: DM deletion (i.e. a common DM deletion or omission in the target language), partial DM deletion (i.e. when one of the two DMs in the original language drops, resulting in translation of only one of them in the target language), DM addition (i.e. when there is no DM in the original language, but the translator has added it).


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document