scholarly journals “In un placete de La Mancha of which nombre no quiero remembrearme”: Don Quijote en spanglish y los desafíos de la traducción bilingüe

Author(s):  
Marco Kunz

Spanglish, the mixing of Spanish and English in oral and written communi-cation, has an increasing importance as a literary code. Challenged by derogatory comments on the poor aesthetic possibilities of Spanglish, Mexican American scholar Ilan Stavans translated the first chapter of Cervantes’ Don Quijote into a mixed language made of English, Spanish and hybrid words. The result provoked the hilarity of many readers, but also the indignation of Castilian purists who opposed the invasion of their mother tongue by a foreign language and the desecration of the most out- standing monument of the Hispanic Culture, while American Chicanos criticized the quality of the translation, arguing that Stavans ’ Spanglish fails to reflect accurately the reality of bilingual speech in daily life. In my paper I propose some reflections about this controversy and I try to analyse Stavans’ intentions and strategies in this translation of a canonical classical text into a non-normative and highly stigmatized variety of spoken language. As it is directed to a bilingual audience, this translation loses its principal raison d’être, that is to make the text understandable for foreign readers, but it fulfils other functions.

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 223-230
Author(s):  
Urška Sešek

In most of today’s courses of English as a foreign language, the learners and teacher share the same mother tongue, but English is the language used to carry out all activities as far as the learner level allows. This means that the teacher’s level of target language mastery plays a significant role in the quality of language teaching and the resulting learning. The paper looks at the functions of teacher talk as a source of input and model language use as well as a tool for managing classroom processes. Based on that, an argument is made for ‘teacher English’ as a case of English for specific purposes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 238
Author(s):  
Ajoy Kumar Karnati ◽  
Janani Vaidhyanathan

<p class="3ABSTRAK">While teaching Russian as a foreign language to undergraduate and postgraduate students in India, we observed that the learners quickly pick up writing skills, whereas their spoken language skills are not at the same level. There are many issues which need to be sorted out in order to improve spoken language skills. As written and spoken skills are different, we need to use different methods of teaching for each one of them. </p><p class="3ABSTRAK">Since the first thing that is taught to students, who are learning a language, are alphabets, hence, initially the whole attention is turned towards improving their writing skills. Though, in the beginning, the students also do pick up an elementary level of spoken language, in the intermediate and advanced levels of learning, their spoken language skills suffer due to various factors. One of the main factors being the lack of exposure to the foreign language once the learners are out of the classroom. Since they continue to do homework, they keep in touch with the written skills. However, once they are out of the classroom, the learners and people around them use their own mother tongue or other native languages to speak. As a result, their spoken skills of the foreign language do not improve.</p><p>Measures need to be taken for improving spoken skills: showing feature, as well as animation films; involving the students in discussions with the help of native speakers; providing audio books; showing them TV programs after class hours; involving learners in enacting Russian plays, etc. On the whole, artificial foreign language surroundings need to be created. Let us see how to motivate learners to speak as well as to write foreign language of their choice.</p><p> </p><strong>Keywords: </strong><em>spoken skills, teaching Russian as a foreign language, learning problems</em>


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 155-167
Author(s):  
Penny Brown

This paper considers the merit of manga versions of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Cervantes' Don Quijote de la Mancha which employ the impressionistic techniques of the Japanese comic format to create new, dynamic texts. Such multimodal texts demand different verbal and visual skills to decode the synergy between word and image and elements like the page layout, the size and shape of images and speech balloons and the style of lettering. Far from debasing the cultural authority of the originals by blurring the boundaries between high and popular culture, these versions can be seen as an act of salvage of the original texts from the perceived difficulties of challenging language and content, reinvigorating them with a vibrant immediacy. By making demands on the imagination and intellect in exciting ways, they may also salvage the act of reading itself by encouraging a young or reluctant readership, as well as the already enthusiastic, to explore new ways of engaging with a text.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-118
Author(s):  
Manuela Svoboda

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyse any potential similarities between the Croatian and German language and present them adopting a contrastive approach with the intent of simplifying the learning process in regards to the German syntactic structure for Croatian German as foreign language students. While consulting articles and books on the theories and methods of foreign language teaching, attention is usually drawn to differences between the mother tongue and the foreign language, especially concerning false friends etc. The same applies to textbooks, workbooks and how teachers behave in class. Thus, it is common practice to deal with the differences between the foreign language and the mother tongue but less with similarities. This is unfortunate considering that this would likely aid in acquiring certain grammatical and syntactic structures of the foreign language. In the author's opinion, similarities are as, if not more, important than differences. Therefore, in this article the existence of similarities between the Croatian and German language will be examined closer with a main focus on the segment of sentence types. Special attention is drawn to subordinate clauses as they play an important role when speaking and/or translating sentences from Croatian to German and vice versa. In order to present and further clarify this matter, subordinate clauses in both the German and Croatian language are defined, clarified and listed to gain an oversight and to present possible similarities between the two. In addition, the method to identify subordinate clauses in a sentence is explained as well as what they express, which conjunctions are being used for each type of subordinate clause in both languages and where the similarities and/or differences between the two languages lie.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2319-2324
Author(s):  
Rina Muka ◽  
Irida Hoti

The language acquired from the childhood is the language spoken in the family and in the place of living. This language is different from one pupil to another, because of their social, economical conditions. By starting the school the pupil faces first the ABC book and then in the second grade Albanian language learning through the Albanian language textbook. By learning Albanian language step by step focused on Reading, Writing, Speaking and Grammar the pupil is able to start learning the second language on the next years of schooling. So, the second language learning in Albanian schools is related to the first language learning (mother tongue), since the early years in primary school. In our schools, the second language (English, Italian) starts in the third grade of the elementary class. On the third grade isn’t taught grammar but the pupil is directed toward the correct usage of the language. The textbooks are structured in developing the pupil’s critical thinking. The textbooks are fully illustrated and with attractive and educative lessons adequate to the age of the pupils. This comparative study will reflect some important aspects of language learning in Albanian schools (focused on Albanian language - first language and English language - second language), grade 3-6. Our point of view in this paper will show not only the diversity of the themes, the lines and the sub-lines but also the level of language knowledge acquired at each level of education. First, the study will focus on some important issues in comparing Albanian and English language texts as well as those which make them different: chronology and topics retaken from one level of education to another, so by conception of linear and chronological order will be shown comparatively two learned languages (mother tongue and second language). By knowing and learning well mother tongue will be easier for the pupil the foreign language learning. The foreign language (as a learning curriculum) aims to provide students with the skills of using foreign language written and spoken to enable the literature to recognize the achievements of advanced world science and technology that are in the interest of developing our technique. Secondly, the study will be based on the extent of grammatical knowledge, their integration with 'Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing' as well as the inclusion of language games and their role in language learning. The first and second language learning in Albanian schools (grade III-VI) is based on similar principles for the linearity and chronology of grammatical knowledge integrated with listening, reading, writing and speaking. The different structure of both books help the pupils integrate and use correctly both languages. In the end of the sixth grade, the pupils have good knowledge of mother tongue and the second language and are able to write and speak well both languages.


2003 ◽  
Vol 139-140 ◽  
pp. 129-152
Author(s):  
Paul Bogaards ◽  
Elisabeth Van Der Linden ◽  
Lydius Nienhuis

The research to be reported on in this paper was originally motivated by the finding that about 70% of the mistakes made by university students when translating from their mother tongue (Dutch) into their foreign language (French) were lexical in nature (NIENHUIS et al. 1989). This was partially confinned in the investigation described in NIENHUIS et al. (1993). A closer look at the individual errors suggested that many problems were caused by words with more than one meaning which each require different translations in the target language. In the research reported on in this paper, we checked our fmdings in the light of what is known about the structure of the bilingual lexicon and about the ways bilinguals have access to the elements of their two languages. On the basis of the model of the bilingual lexicon presented by KROLL & Sholl (1992) an adapted model is proposed for the processing of lexical ambiguity. This leads to a tentative schema of the mental activities that language learners have to perfonn when they are translating from their mother tongue into a foreign language, The second part of the paper describes two experiments we have carried out in order to find empirical support for such a schema. The last section of the paper contains a discussion of the results obtained as well as the conclusions that can be drawn.


Author(s):  
Ghil'ad Zuckermann

This seminal book introduces revivalistics, a new trans-disciplinary field of enquiry surrounding language reclamation, revitalization and reinvigoration. The book is divided into two main parts that represent Zuckermann’s fascinating and multifaceted journey into language revival, from the ‘Promised Land’ (Israel) to the ‘Lucky Country’ (Australia) and beyond: PART 1: LANGUAGE REVIVAL AND CROSS-FERTILIZATION The aim of this part is to suggest that due to the ubiquitous multiple causation, the reclamation of a no-longer spoken language is unlikely without cross-fertilization from the revivalists’ mother tongue(s). Thus, one should expect revival efforts to result in a language with a hybridic genetic and typological character. The book highlights salient morphological, phonological, phonetic, syntactic, semantic and lexical features, illustrating the difficulty in determining a single source for the grammar of ‘Israeli’, the language resulting from the Hebrew revival. The European impact in these features is apparent inter alia in structure, semantics or productivity. PART 2: LANGUAGE REVIVAL AND WELLBEING The book then applies practical lessons (rather than clichés) from the critical analysis of the Hebrew reclamation to other revival movements globally, and goes on to describe the why and how of language revival. The how includes practical, nitty-gritty methods for reclaiming ‘sleeping beauties’ such as the Barngarla Aboriginal language of Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, e.g. using what Zuckermann calls talknology (talk+technology). The why includes ethical, aesthetic, and utilitarian reasons such as improving wellbeing and mental health.


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