scholarly journals Beyond Translating French into English: Experiences of a Non-Native Translator

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Harriett Namukwaya
Keyword(s):  
Communication Skills ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Academic Setting ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Academic Qualification ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Translation Services

This paper documents a non-native translator’s experience in an academic setting, focusing on the challenges of translating different kinds of texts from French into English at the Institute of Languages, Makerere University. Makerere Institute of Languages (MIL) is composed of four clusters: Foreign Languages, African Languages, Communication Skills and Secretarial Studies, Service Courses and Soft Skills (Wagaba 97). The services offered include teaching language skills and culture to university students and the general public; communication skills to people who want to improve in English, French, German, Arabic, Swahili and local languages; and translation and interpretation in the languages mentioned above. These services are offered at this institute because there is no other well-recognised institution in Uganda that engages in translation or interpretation, yet there is always a big demand for them. The emphasis in this study is on teachers of French who also render translation services to a wide range of clients at the Institute of Languages. The main focus is on the experiences and opinions of non-native translators. The aim is to highlight the challenges a non-native translator encounters in the process of translating different categories of documents from French into English for purposes of validation of francophone students’ academic documents and their placement in Uganda universities, verification of academic qualification of teachers from francophone countries who come to Uganda in search of teaching jobs, and mutual understanding at international conferences held in Uganda whose delegates come from francophone countries. Selected texts will be critically examined to illustrate the specific challenges a non-native speaker encounters while translating from and into a language or languages which are not his/her first language or mother tongue. The paper deals with the following questions: What does the process of translating involve? What are the challenges encountered? Does every fluent French language teacher qualify to be a competent translator? What factors determine ‘competence’ in translation? What are the limitations faced in an academic setting? The discussion is based on the premise that competence in translation requires linguistic and intercultural competence, among other competencies. The outcome contributes to the understanding that translation in any setting is ultimately a human activity, which enables human beings to exchange information and enhance knowledge transfer regardless of cultural and linguistic differences.

Returning to the homeland

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Sachiko Noguchi
Keyword(s):  
Communication Skills ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
First Language ◽  
Listening Skills ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Tertiary Institutions ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Changes Over Time

Abstract Research on the issues of the learners of Japanese outside Japan has increased with the expansion of Japanese language teaching worldwide, but research on those who teach them has received less attention. This paper focuses on one of the issues which Japanese instructors overseas face, in particular, that of native speakers. An individual’s competence in his/her first language in a foreign environment changes over time. The changes become more obvious when first language speakers find themselves in their own country after spending some considerable time overseas. In this study the speakers of the first language were thirteen native speaker instructors teaching at tertiary institutions in Australia. They were interviewed while on a visit to Japan regarding their communication skills in Japan both at the linguistic and non-linguistic levels. The results of the study show a wide range of changes observed; some features are common to many of these instructors while other changes are not. Changes in reading, writing, speaking and listening skills are reported. Associated aspects include skills for determining politeness levels. Non-linguistic features include socio-cultural aspects of Japanese society such as gift-giving customs, and appropriate dress. These changes in communication skills were detected and evaluated by the speakers themselves based on their own encounters while in Japan. The implications for their role as language instructors outside Japan are also discussed.

Impact of Environmental Degradation on Human Health

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
_______ Archana ◽  
Charu Datta ◽  
Pratibha Tiwari
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Population Increase ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The People ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Economic Institute ◽  
Day By Day

Degradation of environment is one of the most serious challenges before the mankind in today’s world. Mankind has been facing a wide range of problem arising out of the degradation of environment. Not only the areas under human inhabitation, but the areas of the planet without human population have also been suffering from these problems. As the population increase day by day, the amenities are not improved simultaneously. With the advancement of science and technologies the needs of human beings has been changing rapidly. As a result different types of environmental problems have been rising. Environmental degradation is a wide- reaching problem and it is likely to influence the health of human population is great. It may be defined the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water, and soil. The destruction of ecosystem and extinction of wildlife. Environmental degradation has occurred due to the recent activities in the field of socio-economic, institute and technology. Poverty still remains a problem as the root of several environmental problems to create awareness among the people about the ill effect of environmental pollution. In the whole research it is clear that all factors of environmental degradation may be reduced through- Framing the new laws on environmental degradation, Environment friend policy, Controlling all the ways and means of noise, air, soil and water pollution, Through growing more and more trees and by adapting the proper sanitation policy.  

scholarly journals Bio-Inspired Modality Fusion for Active Speaker Detection

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 3397
Author(s):  
Gustavo Assunção ◽  
Nuno Gonçalves ◽  
Paulo Menezes
Keyword(s):  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Validation Process ◽  
Detection Approach ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Speaker Detection ◽  
The One ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Fusion Ability

Human beings have developed fantastic abilities to integrate information from various sensory sources exploring their inherent complementarity. Perceptual capabilities are therefore heightened, enabling, for instance, the well-known "cocktail party" and McGurk effects, i.e., speech disambiguation from a panoply of sound signals. This fusion ability is also key in refining the perception of sound source location, as in distinguishing whose voice is being heard in a group conversation. Furthermore, neuroscience has successfully identified the superior colliculus region in the brain as the one responsible for this modality fusion, with a handful of biological models having been proposed to approach its underlying neurophysiological process. Deriving inspiration from one of these models, this paper presents a methodology for effectively fusing correlated auditory and visual information for active speaker detection. Such an ability can have a wide range of applications, from teleconferencing systems to social robotics. The detection approach initially routes auditory and visual information through two specialized neural network structures. The resulting embeddings are fused via a novel layer based on the superior colliculus, whose topological structure emulates spatial neuron cross-mapping of unimodal perceptual fields. The validation process employed two publicly available datasets, with achieved results confirming and greatly surpassing initial expectations.

Red-hot faces and burnt hearts

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 482-516
Author(s):  
Sérgio N. Menete ◽  
Guiying Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Heat Source ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Target Domain ◽  
Bodily Experience ◽  
Source Domain ◽  
African Languages

Abstract People from different languages draw from the knowledge they have from the domain of heat (source domain) and apply it to the domain of anger (target domain) through metaphor. This was also found to be the case with Amharic and Changana. Our study investigates how anger is metaphorically conceptualized in these two languages. Many similarities were found even though variations do exist cross-linguistically. It is suggested that the similarities between these languages in conceptualizing anger lie in the fact that human beings share the same bodily experience: (physiology) embodiment, even though variations may arise due to the differences in cultural embodiment (race, values and geographical localization, etc). The study seeks to demonstrate how these two dimensions contribute to the overall conceptual structure of anger is heat metaphor in these two (unrelated) African languages.

Accessibility vs. Feasibility: Optimizing Function Allocation for Accommodation of Heterogeneous Populations

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Benjamin Knisely ◽  
Monifa Vaughn-Cooke
Keyword(s):  
Optimization Model ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Heterogeneous Populations ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Potential System ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Need To Evaluate ◽  
Design Case Study

Abstract Human beings are physically and cognitively variable, leading to a wide array of potential system use cases. To design safe and effective systems for highly heterogeneous populations, engineers must cater to this variability to minimize the chance of error and system failure. This can be a challenge because of the increasing costs associated with providing additional product variety. Most guidance for navigating these trade-offs is intended for late-stage design, when significant resources have been expended, thus risking expensive redesign or exclusion of users when new human concerns become apparent. Despite the critical need to evaluate accommodation-cost trade-offs in early stages of design, there is currently a lack of structured guidance. In this work, an approach to function modeling is proposed that allows the simultaneous consideration of human and machine functionality. This modeling approach facilitates the allocation of system functions to humans and machines to be used as an accessible baseline for concept development. Further, a multi-objective optimization model was developed to allocate functions with metrics for accommodation and cost. The model was demonstrated on a design case study. 16 senior mechanical engineering students were recruited and tasked with performing the allocation task manually. The results were compared to the output of the optimization model. Results indicated that participants were unable to produce concepts with the same accommodation-cost efficiency as the optimization model. Further, the optimization model successfully produced a wide range of potential product concepts, demonstrating its utility as a decision-aid.

scholarly journals Microwave-Hydrothermal Rapid Synthesis of Cellulose/Ag Nanocomposites and Their Antibacterial Activity

Nanomaterials ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lian-Hua Fu ◽  
Qing-Long Gao ◽  
Chao Qi ◽  
Ming-Guo Ma ◽  
Jun-Feng Li
Keyword(s):  
Antibacterial Activity ◽  
Antimicrobial Properties ◽  
Silver Ions ◽  
Heating Time ◽  
Diffusion Method ◽  
Dilution Method ◽  
Agar Dilution Method ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Microwave Hydrothermal ◽  
Wide Range

Silver-based antimicrobial nanomaterials are considered as the most promising antibacterial agents owing to their outstanding antimicrobial efficacy and their relatively low toxicity to human beings. In this work, we report on a facile and environment-friendly microwave-hydrothermal method to prepare cellulose/Ag nanocomposites using hemicellulose as the reductant. The influences of the microwave-hydrothermal heating time and temperature, as well as the hemicellulose concentration on the formation of cellulose nanocomposites, were investigated in detail. Experimental results indicated that the hemicellulose was an effective reductant for silver ions, with higher temperature and longer heating time favoring the formation of silver with higher crystallinity and mass content in the nanocomposites. Moreover, the antimicrobial properties of the as-prepared cellulose/Ag nanocomposites were explored using Gram-positive S. aureus ATCC 6538 and Gram-negative E. coli HB 101 by both disc diffusion method and agar dilution method, and the nanocomposites showed excellent antibacterial activity. These results demonstrate that the as-prepared cellulose/Ag nanocomposites, as a kind of antibacterial material, are promising for applications in a wide range of biomedical fields.

Minds and brains: angels, humans, and brutes

1982 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-315
Author(s):  
Mortimer J. Adler
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Animal Behavior ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Conceptual Thought ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Fine Print

✓ In his 1982 Cushing oration, a distinguished philosopher, author, and discerning critic presents a distillate of his phenomenally wide range of personal experience and his familiarity with the great books and teachers of the present and the past. He explores the differences and relationships between human beings, brute animals, and machines. Knowledge of the brain and nervous system contribute to the explanation of all aspects of animal behavior, intelligence, and mentality, but cannot completely explain human conceptual thought.

scholarly journals A case of necrotizing fasciitis due to Klebsiella following local application of steroids

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 97-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suhaib Rehaman Abdul ◽  
Robin George
Keyword(s):  
Necrotizing Fasciitis ◽  
Local Application ◽  
Causative Organism ◽  
Site Infection ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Medical Sciences ◽  
Abdominal Infection ◽  
Clinical Syndromes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Intravascular Devices

Klebsiella organisms are known to cause a wide range of clinical syndromes in human beings which include pneumonia, urinary tract infection, abdominal infection, surgical site infection, soft tissue infection and infection of intravascular devices. The incidence is higher among immunocompromised individuals and those with chronic debilitating diseases like diabetes, alcoholism etc. This case report is regarding an elderly diabetic male who developed necrotizing fasciitis of leg following local application of steroids. The causative organism was Klebsiella, which is an unusual pathogen.Asian Journal of Medical Sciences Vol.7(5) 2016 97-99

scholarly journals Is automation changing the translation profession?

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Pym ◽  
Ester Torres-Simón
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Market Segments ◽  
Interactive Communication ◽  
Neural Machine Translation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Translation Services ◽  
Translation Systems

Abstract As a language-intensive profession, translation is of frontline interest in the era of language automation. In particular, the development of neural machine translation systems since 2016 has brought with it fears that soon there will be no more human translators. When considered in terms of the history of automation, however, any such direct effect is far from obvious: the translation industry is still growing and machine translation is only one instance of automation. At the same time, data on remuneration indicate structural wage dispersion in professional translation services, with some signs that this dispersion may increase in certain market segments as automated workflows and translation technologies are adopted more by large language-service providers more than by smaller companies and individual freelancers. An analysis of recent changes in discourses on and in the translation profession further indicates conceptual adjustments in the profession that may be attributed to growing automation, particularly with respect to expanding skills set associated with translation, the tendency to combine translation with other forms of communication, and the use of interactive communication skills to authorize and humanize the results of automation.

scholarly journals A Needs Assessment for Indigenous African Language-Based Programming Languages

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Ezekiel K. Olatunji ◽  
John B. Oladosu ◽  
Odetunji A. Odejobi ◽  
Stephen O. Olabiyisi
Keyword(s):  
Needs Assessment ◽  
Programming Languages ◽  
Programming Language ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
African Languages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
To Come ◽  
High Degree

AbstractThe development of an African native language-based programming language, using Yoruba as a case study, is envisioned. Programming languages based on the lexicons of indigenous African languages are rare to come by unlike those based on Asian and / or European languages. Availability of programming languages based on lexicons of African indigenous language would facilitate comprehension of problem-solving processes using computer by indigenous learners and teachers as confirmed by research results. In order to further assess the relevance, usefulness and needfulness of such a programming language, a preliminary needs assessment survey was carried out. The needs assessment was carried out through design of a structured questionnaire which was administered to 130 stakeholders in computer profession and computer education; including some staffers and learners of some primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions in Oyo and Osun states of Nigeria, Africa. The responses to the questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The analysis of the responses to the questionnaire shows that 89% of the respondents to the questionnaire expressed excitement and willingness to program or learn programming in their mother tongue-based programming language, if such a programming language is developed. This result shows the high degree of relevance, usefulness and needfulness of a native language-based programming language as well as the worthwhileness of embarking on development of such a programming language.

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