scholarly journals Reference switching in sign and speech: grammatical and discourse features across modalities within signed-to-spoken language interpretation

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-310
Author(s):  
David Quinto-Pozos ◽  
Ronice Quadros ◽  
Blake Maynard
Keyword(s):  
Spoken Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Reported Speech ◽  
Semantic Equivalence ◽  
Language Discourse ◽  
Language Interpretation ◽  
Theoretical Premise ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
Role Shift ◽  
Target Languages

Human languages contain a variety of tools for referencing agents, locations, arguments of predicates, and other entities that are introduced, described, and attributed actions within sentences. While there are similarities across modalities, there also exist notable differences. For example, signed languages are articulated with two hands, and sometimes one of them serves referencing functions while the other produces complementary signs. Additionally, signers use role shift and constructed action extensively, whereas there is comparatively less use of reported speech and co-speech enactment in spoken language discourse. Differences across modalities such as these provide areas of focus for studies of interpretation, since a common theoretical premise is that interpreters should disengage from the form of a source-language message in order to provide the meaning in the target language (with its own form). It is open to debate whether an interpretation can achieve complete semantic equivalence, given differences in the grammars, lexical items, and discourse features of the source- and target-languages. We use Libras texts interpreted into Brazilian Portuguese to examine various types of referencing in language and how it occurs in such texts. Our analysis is intended to raise questions about referencing and interpretation that merit in-depth study.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------ALTERNÂNCIA DE REFERÊNCIA NAS LÍNGUAS DE SINAIS E LÍNGUAS FALADAS: CARACTERÍSTICAS GRAMATICAIS E DISCURSIVAS ENTRE MODALIDADES EM INTERPRETAÇÕES DE LIBRAS PARA LÍNGUA PORTUGUESAAs línguas humanas contêm uma variedade de ferramentas para referenciar agentes, locais, argumentos de predicados e outras entidades que são introduzidas, descritas e atribuídas com ações nas sentenças. Embora existam semelhanças entre as modalidades, também existem diferenças notáveis. Por exemplo, as línguas de sinais são articuladas com duas mãos, e às vezes uma delas tem funções de referência enquanto a outra produz sinais complementares. Além disso, o sinalizador usa a alternância de referência e a ação construída extensivamente, enquanto há comparativamente menos uso de cotação e ação construída que co-ocorre com discurso da língua falada. Diferenças entre modalidades como essas fornecem áreas de foco para estudos da interpretação, uma vez que uma premissa teórica comum é que os intérpretes devem se desvincular da forma de uma mensagem na língua de origem a fim de fornecer o significado na língua de destino (com sua própria forma). É possível debater se uma interpretação pode alcançar equivalência semântica completal, dadas as diferenças nas gramáticas, itens lexicais e características do discurso das línguas-fonte e as línguas-alvo. Usamos textos de Libras interpretados para o português brasileiro para examinar vários tipos de referência nessas línguas e como ela ocorre nesses textos. Nossa análise pretende levantar questões sobre referenciação e interpretação que merecem um estudo aprofundado.---Origina em inglês.

An empirical study of temporal variables and their correlations in spoken and sign language relay interpreting

Babel ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 619-635
Author(s):  
Hyun-Hee Han ◽  
Han-Nae Yu
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Word Count ◽  
Sign Language Interpreters ◽  
Temporal Variables ◽  
Language Interpretation ◽  
Temporal Aspects ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Time Variables

Abstract This study describes the temporal aspects of relay interpreting by a mixed team of spoken and sign language interpreters in order to identify the characteristics of spoken and sign language relay interpreting and to help spoken language interpreters better understand the difference between the two types. The study quantitatively analyzes five time variables (speaking time, word count, ear-voice-span (EVS), tail-to-tail span (TTS), and pause), and their correlations. The temporal aspects of spoken and relay interpretation in sign language are as follows: (1) sign language interpretation requires more words to transfer the same amount of information as spoken language interpretation; (2) sign language interpreters have a shorter EVS than spoken language interpreters; (3) the simultaneity of spoken and relay sign language interpretation is more affected by TTS than by EVS, because spoken language TTS has a high correlation with speech time and word count in sign language interpretation; 4) sign language interpreters actively use the pauses between sentences of spoken language interpreters for target language (TL) production; 5) sign language interpreters produce more words for a shorter period of time than spoken language interpreters.

STRUKTUR KOMPLEKS DALAM BAHASA INDONESIA ILMIAH DAN MASALAH PENERJEMAHANNYA KE DALAM BAHASA INGGRIS

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ni Ketut Mirahayuni ◽  
Susie Chrismalia Garnida ◽  
Mateus Rudi Supsiadji
Keyword(s):  
Complex Structure ◽  
General Concept ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Scientific Language ◽  
Logical Relation ◽  
Information Packaging ◽  
Weight Structure ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Target Languages

Abstract. Translating complex structures have always been a challenge for a translator since the structures can be densed with ideas and particular logical relations. The purpose of translation is reproducing texts into another language to make them available to wider readerships. Since language is not merely classification of a set of universal and general concept, that each language articulates or organizes the world differently, the concepts in one language can be radically different from another. One issue in translation is the difference among languages, that the wider gaps between the source and target languages may bring greater problems of transfer of message from the source into the target languages (Culler, 1976). Problematic factors involved in translation include meaning, style, proverbs, idioms and others. A number of translation procedures and strategies have been discussed to solve translation problems. This article presents analysis of complex structures in scientific Indonesian, the problems and effects on translation into English. The study involves data taken from two research article papers in Indonesian to be translated into English. The results of the analysis show seven (7) problems of Indonesian complex structures, whose effect on translation process can be grouped into two: complex structures related to grammar (including: complex structure with incomplete information, run-on sentences, redundancy , sentence elements with inequal semantic relation, and logical relation and choice of conjunctor) and complex structures related to information processing in discourse (including: front-weight- structure and thematic structure with changes of Theme element). Problems related to grammar may be solved with language economy and accuracy while those related to discourse may be solved with understanding information packaging patterns in the target language discourse. Keywords: scientific language, complex structures, translation

scholarly journals Optimizing Tokenization Choice for Machine Translation across Multiple Target Languages

2017 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasser Zalmout ◽  
Nizar Habash
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Performance Enhancement ◽  
Statistical Machine Translation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Context Variable ◽  
Significant Performance ◽  
Morphologically Rich Languages ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
Language Text

AbstractTokenization is very helpful for Statistical Machine Translation (SMT), especially when translating from morphologically rich languages. Typically, a single tokenization scheme is applied to the entire source-language text and regardless of the target language. In this paper, we evaluate the hypothesis that SMT performance may benefit from different tokenization schemes for different words within the same text, and also for different target languages. We apply this approach to Arabic as a source language, with five target languages of varying morphological complexity: English, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese. Our results show that different target languages indeed require different source-language schemes; and a context-variable tokenization scheme can outperform a context-constant scheme with a statistically significant performance enhancement of about 1.4 BLEU points.

scholarly journals Are ideophones translatable? The case of translating isiZulu ideophones in DBZ Ntuli’s short story Uthingo Lwenkosazana (The Rainbow)

Literator ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mthikazi Rose Masubelele
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
To Come ◽  
Target Languages

The meaning of words comes into play when words as units of translation are to be translated from one language into another. Lexical items that are extant in one language but not in others pose enormous problems for translators. The translation of ideophones – which feature very prominently in African discourse – is a case in point in this article. Translators faced with the translation of such forms are required to come up with strategies to aptly express their meanings in the target text. This article seeks to establish how CSZ Ntuli, in his English translation of an isiZulu short story Uthingo Lwenkosazana by DBZ Ntuli, has translated some of the ideophones used by the original author. Translation strategies used by CSZ Ntuli in his translation to express the meanings of the isiZulu ideophones will be brought to light in this article. It will be confirmed that CSZ Ntuli, using different lexical forms in the target language, has effectively changed unfamiliar isiZulu cultural notions to concepts that the English target reader can relate to. It will also be shown that the meanings of the isiZulu ideophones can be expressed in the target language using approximation and amplification as translation strategies provided that the translator has a good command of both source and target languages. The discussion will also look at how various translation scholars view the notion of equivalence at word level, and research on ideophones in isiZulu will also be reviewed.

دور السياق في تحقيق الترجمة الصحيحة

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Nasimah Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Arabic Text ◽  
Intended Meaning ◽  
Semantic Equivalence ◽  
Literal Translation

While the interpretation of the Quran emphasizes the importance of an understanding of the causes, issues and incidents in relation to revelation as well as knowing its time and place, the translation studies concern with the roles of context in ensuring a precise translation. Context is regarded as one of the crucial parts in translating metaphorical connotations as it captures the meaning that transcends its literal translation. This study aims to highlight the importance of context in achieving an exact translation, especially in translating the Quranic metaphorical connotationsinto the Malay language based on semantic equivalence between the source and target text to the closest possible to the meaning of the original Arabic text. This is achieved by an analysis of the descriptive, analytical and comparative methods of selected copies of translations by Mahmoud Younis, Abdullah Basmeih and Zaini Dahalan. The findings show that these translators pay special attention to the importance of context in the translation of the Quranic metaphorical connotations. Evidences also show some flaws in the delivery of the intended meaning in the target language when these translations rely solely on the texts’ literal translation, consequently causing a diversion from the intended meaning of the Quranic message. Therefore, this study suggests that it is not reliable for a study of the Quran nor for the reader of the target language to depend on one absolute translation only, but to refer to and compare different copies of the translation in order to reach the precise connotation. إذا كانت التفاسير القرآنية تهتم بمعرفة أسباب النزول للآيات القرآنية والقضايا والحوادث المتعلقة بها وكذلك وقت ومكان نزول الآية القرآنية بغية الوصول إلى معرفة تفسيرها وفهمها فهما صحيحا، فإن دراسات الترجمة تعتني بدور السياق ) context ( في تحقيق الترجمة الححيحة يع د السياق اانبا م اجووان الي جب ااننتبا إليها نند ترجمة الدانانت المجازية نظرا انشتمالها نلى المعنى الذي يتجاوز المعنى الحقيقي، والذي ان يمك نقله نقلا حرفيا، وإان لفسد المعنى المراد يستهدف هذا البحث إلى إبراز أهمية السياق في تحقيق ال ترجمة الححيحة، نظرا لأهمية مراناته، خاصة في ترجمة الدانانت المجازية القرآنية إلى اللغة الملايوية بوصفها محاولة التقري بالمعنى، ان تبديل له، المبنية نلى نلاقة التكافؤ الدانلي بين النص المحدر، وهو النص القرآني العربي، والنص الهدف، وهو النص المترام إلى اللغة الملايوية ويتم هذا البحث باختيار النسخ الي ترجمها محمود يونس، والشيخ نبد الله بسَميه، والحاج زيني دحلان للقيام بالدراسة التحليلية النموذاية تتم معاجوة الموضوع في هذا البحث بالمنهج الوصفي والمنهج التحليلي والمنهج المقارن فم خلال تحليل بعض النماذج، تلاحظ الباحثة أن المترجمين يرانون السياق في ترجمتهم الدانانت المجازية القرآنية، لكنه ان يخلو م بعض القحور الي تحتاج إلى إنادة النظر فيها؛ منها أن بعض النحوص القرآنية ترجموها ترجمة حرفية مما أدى إلى ضياع المعنى المراد في الرسالة القرآنية لذلك توصي الدراسة بضرورة المقارنة بين التراام المختلفة لأال الوصول إلى المعنى المقحود في الرسالة القرآنية، وان يعتمد القارئ نلى ترجمة واحدة مجردة

Learner Autonomy as Discourse: The Role of the Target Language

10.47908/9/1 ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 13-29
Author(s):  
David Little
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Learner Autonomy ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Language Discourse ◽  
Development Of Language ◽  
Number Of Publications

In a number of publications (e.g., Little 2001, 2004, 2007) I have argued that the exercise and development of language learner autonomy depend on the operationalization of three interacting principles: learner involvement, learner reflection, and target language use. In this article I explore the theory and practice of language learner autonomy from the perspective of the third of these principles. I argue that the most successful language learning environments are those in which, from the beginning, the target language is the principal channel through which the learners’ agency flows: the communicative and metacognitive medium through which, individually and collaboratively, they plan, execute, monitor and evaluate their own learning. I describe in some detail the communicative and metacognitive dynamic that shapes target language discourse in the autonomy classroom at lower secondary level before suggesting ways of creating the same dynamic in other contexts of formal language learning. I conclude by briefly considering the implications of my argument for empirical research.

scholarly journals Enhanced Meta-Learning for Cross-Lingual Named Entity Recognition with Minimal Resources

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (05) ◽  
pp. 9274-9281
Author(s):  
Qianhui Wu ◽  
Zijia Lin ◽  
Guoxin Wang ◽  
Hui Chen ◽  
Börje F. Karlsson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Learning Algorithm ◽  
Named Entity Recognition ◽  
Entity Recognition ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Named Entity ◽  
Meta Learning ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
Cross Lingual ◽  
The Given

For languages with no annotated resources, transferring knowledge from rich-resource languages is an effective solution for named entity recognition (NER). While all existing methods directly transfer from source-learned model to a target language, in this paper, we propose to fine-tune the learned model with a few similar examples given a test case, which could benefit the prediction by leveraging the structural and semantic information conveyed in such similar examples. To this end, we present a meta-learning algorithm to find a good model parameter initialization that could fast adapt to the given test case and propose to construct multiple pseudo-NER tasks for meta-training by computing sentence similarities. To further improve the model's generalization ability across different languages, we introduce a masking scheme and augment the loss function with an additional maximum term during meta-training. We conduct extensive experiments on cross-lingual named entity recognition with minimal resources over five target languages. The results show that our approach significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods across the board.

THE ACQUISITION OF TEMPORALITY IN A SECOND LANGUAGE.Rainer Dietrich, Wolfgang Klein, & Colette Noyau (Eds.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1995. Pp. xii + 288. $59.00 cloth.

1998 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-424
Author(s):  
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Multiple Target ◽  
European Science Foundation ◽  
European Science ◽  
Actual Design ◽  
Target Languages

Imagine a three-year longitudinal study of the acquisition of multiple target languages by learners of different language backgrounds. It may sound like an idealized example from a research-methods lecture, but it is the actual design of the European Science Foundation inquiry into adult second language acquisition and the latest report released by Benjamins, a substantial revision of Volume 5 of the final report on temporality (Bhardwaj, Dietrich, & Noyau, 1988). This volume reports on the acquisition of temporality in five target languages (English, German, Dutch, French, and Swedish) by 21 learners of six source languages (Punjabi, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, and Finnish) with learners from two source languages for each target language. The volume has eight chapters written by the main authors and cooperating contributors: “Introduction” (Dietrich & Perdue), “Frame of Analysis” (Klein), five chapters on the acquisition of temporality by target language—English (Klein), German (Dietrich), Dutch (Klein, Coenen, van Helvert, & Hendricks), French (Noyau, Houdaïfa, Vasseur, & Véronique), and Swedish (Noyau, Dorriots, Sjöström, & Voionmaa)—and “Conclusions” (Klein, Dietrich, & Noyau).

scholarly journals Bimodal code-mixing: Dutch spoken language elements in NGT discourse

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICHARD BANK ◽  
ONNO CRASBORN ◽  
ROELAND VAN HOUT
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Mixing Models ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Language Discourse ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Manual Signs ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Level Analysis

Mouthings, the spoken language elements in sign language discourse, are typically analysed as having a redundant, one-on-one relationship with manual signs, both semantically and temporally. We explore exceptions to this presupposed semantic and temporal congruency in a corpus of spontaneous signed conversation by deaf users of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). We identify specifying mouthings (words with a different meaning than the co-occurring sign), solo mouthings (uttered while the hands are inactive) and added mouthings (words added to a signing stream without their corresponding sign), and make a sentence-level analysis of their occurrences. These non-redundant mouthings occurred in 12% of all utterances, and were made by almost all signers. We argue for the presence of a code-blending continuum for NGT, where NGT is the matrix language and spoken Dutch is blended in, in various degrees. We suggest expansion of existing code-mixing models, to allow for description of bimodal mixing.

scholarly journals Multilingual Dependency Parsing: Using Machine Translated Texts Instead of Parallel Corpora

2014 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-104
Author(s):  
Ramasamy Loganathan ◽  
Mareček David ◽  
Žabokrtský Zdenčk
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Grammar Induction ◽  
Language Resources ◽  
Parallel Corpora ◽  
Similar Performance ◽  
Part Of Speech ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
Cross Lingual

Abstract This paper revisits the projection-based approach to dependency grammar induction task. Traditional cross-lingual dependency induction tasks one way or the other, depend on the existence of bitexts or target language tools such as part-of-speech (POS) taggers to obtain reasonable parsing accuracy. In this paper, we transfer dependency parsers using only approximate resources, i.e., machine translated bitexts instead of manually created bitexts. We do this by obtaining the the source side of the text from a machine translation (MT) system and then apply transfer approaches to induce parser for the target languages. We further reduce the need for the availability of labeled target language resources by using unsupervised target tagger. We show that our approach consistently outperforms unsupervised parsers by a bigger margin (8.2% absolute), and results in similar performance when compared with delexicalized transfer parsers.

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