Unveiling the Tausug Culture in Parang Sabil through Translation

Translation communicates through language and facilitates the spread of information and culture.It is a conscious semantic transfer of culturalitems from one culture to another. In this paper, it aims to unveil the culture of the Tausugs, the people of Sulu, Philippines, in doing the jihad (holy war) through the translation of the parang sabil, a folk narrative song. Anchored on the interpretative theory of translation, this study translates the contemporary parang sabil titled Kissa sin Pagbunu ha Zambo written in Bahasa Sug, a language spoken among the Tausugs, into English. Performed by the Tausug lady named Indah Anjam, Kissa sin Pagbunu ha Zambo (The Story of War in Zambo) talks about the heroic act of Ustadz Habir Malik during the Zamboanga siege in 2013. By mobilizing the researchers’ knowledge in Bahasa Sug, English, and Tausug history and culture, linguistic and cultural issues were addressed in the English translation to maintain the sense or culture of doing the Tausug jihad. The researchers faithfully expressed in the English translation the culture of the Tausugs by maintaining the identity of the Tausugs as Muslims, by showing that the Tausugs are in unity to defend their homeland and religion, and by projecting that they are brave warriors in defense of Islam. Hence, translating this particular Tausug parang sabil placed in its cultural context is an urgent work to do in order to enlarge our consciousness on Tausug culture and history.

Sama Culture and Folk Narratives Structures

The understanding of a folk narrative lies in the underlying principles that govern its composition. This study focuses on structures and culture found in the folk narratives of Sama, an indigenous group in Island Garden City of Samal, Philippines. The paper uses the theory on narratology by French-Lithuanian literary theorist, Algirdas Julien Greimas, and cultural theory by Bronislaw Malinowski to analyze the selected Sama folk narratives. The study reveals that the ten (10) Sama folk narratives collected do not completely follow the theory on narratology of Greimas. This is because the theories used are foreign and the folk literature collected are of local origin. Regardless of this, the study shows that Sama folk narratives reflected the ways of their people. Consequently, Sama folk narratives exemplify their cultural practices. They present social, economic, political, and religious practices. The leaders from the Sama folk were requested to validate the cultural texts gathered for this study. This research highlights the structure of Sama literature and illustrates Sama’s cultural heritage by gathering and analyzing their folk narratives so that the rest of the population (the new generation) could have the chance to experience their culture and appreciate it. Also, the researcher further emphasizes the relevance of gathering and using local literature to prevent it from vanishing into oblivion.

The trappings of order

This study builds off of previous research into Caribbean Standard Englishes (which has largely used newspaper genres) by comparing the rates of features found in corpora of Bahamian, Jamaican, British, and American administrative writing, paying particular attention to whether and how the noted formality of Caribbean Standard Englishes manifests itself in administrative writing. The study employs expanded versions of ICE administrative subcorpora for the analysis. Features analyzed include lexis, orthography, as well as different morphosyntactic constructions such as be-passives and modals of obligation and necessity. The study finds that the contemporary British administrative writing corpus contains the most informal lexical choice of the national corpora studied, problematizing a Caribbean folk narrative that associates formality in administrative language and practice with Britishness.

RITUAL DALAM CERITA RAKYAT DI MUKIM BEBAR, PEKAN, PAHANG, MALAYSIA

Abstrak Cerita rakyat berkembang dari generasi ke generasi dan disampaikan melalui lisan sehingga cerita rakyat dikenali sebagai sastera rakyat naratif nusantara. Cerita rakyat dianggap sebagai media hiburan pada zaman dahulu yang sarat dengan nilai-nilai pengajaran. Namun begitu, jika cerita rakyat difahami dan diteliti ia mempunyai hubung kait antara kehidupan masyarakat dengan kebudayaan masyarakatnya seperti kepercayaan, sistem kekeluargaan dan ekonomi. Namun, kini cerita rakyat semakin kurang mendapat tempat di hati generasi kerana kewujudan teknologi moden. Lantaran itu, kajian ini bertujuan mengenalpasti dan membincangkan ritual yang terkandung dalam cerita rakyat di Mukim Bebar Pekan, Pahang. Seterusnya, kajian ini juga menggunakan landasan teori fungsionalisme bagi analisis perbincangan. Metodologi kajian adalah secara kualitatif melalui kajian kerja lapangan iaitu kaedah temu bual berstruktur yang melibatkan tukang-tukang cerita di Mukim Bebar Pekan, Pahang. Hasil kajian mendapati ritual yang terdapat dalam cerita rakyat di Mukim Bebar Pekan, Pahang mempunyai hubung kait yang rapat dengan kebudayaan masyarakat Melayu dan masih diaplikasikan dalam kehidupan sesetengah masyarakat di kampung tersebut hingga ke hari ini. Abstract Folklore grows from generation to generation and is conveyed orally until it is known as folk narrative literature of the archipelago. Folklore was known as an entertainment medium in ancient times laden with teaching values. Folklore has a relation between the life of the community and the culture of the community, projected through beliefs, family system and economy. However, folktales are now less appreciated as among the younger generation, mostly due to the modern technology advancement. This study aims at identifying and discussing the rituals contained in the folklore collected at Mukim Bebar Pekan, Pahang. This study also uses the theoretical foundation of functionalism in the discussions and analyses. The research methods employed are qualitative and a fieldwork involving a structured interview method of the storytellers in Mukim Bebar Pekan, Pahang. It can be concluded that there is a close relation between the community and its culture where some rituals are still being practiced in the lives of some people in the village, even up to now.

INTONATION OF NARRATIVE UTTERANCES OF THE ALTAI LANGUAGE (ON THE MATERIAL OF THE ALTAI-KIZHI FOLKLORE)

В статье исследуется интонация алтайского языка в повествовательных высказываниях, выражающих событийные пропозиции. Материалом послужили повествовательные высказывания из алтайских народных сказок и несказочной прозы академической серии «Памятники фольклора народов Сибири и Дальнего Востока» в исполнении сказителей — носителей диалекта алтай-кижи, проживающих в Республике Алтай, Россия. Интонация повествовательных высказываний сопоставлялась с интонацией модальных вопросов, изученных ранее также на материале сказочной и несказочной прозы Алтая. В своих исследованиях мы опираемся на методы компьютерной обработки сигнала в программе Praat, а также на аудитивное восприятие. Нами рассматривались следующие интонационные компоненты: направление движения частоты основного тона в отдельных синтагмах и в высказывании, максимальные и минимальные значения частоты основного тона, характер реализации интенсивности, максимумы интенсивности в высказывании, темп речи. Анализ наиболее типичных интонационных контуров повествовательных высказываний алтайского фольклора позволил обнаружить следующие особенности интонации: максимальной частотой основного тона характеризовались слоги тех слов, которые являлись ремой (новым) высказывания, или же слов, относящихся к фольклорным метатекстовым показателям композиционной принадлежности высказывания. Минимальные значения основного тона обычно приходились на сказуемое, выраженное глаголом. Композиция устного текста (зачин — развитие сюжета — концовка) фольклора алтай-кижи поддерживается интонационно: глобально нисходящие контуры частоты основного тона наблюдались в части развития действия и концовке произведений, почти отсутствуя в их начале (зачине). Развитие сюжета характеризуется более разнообразным движением тона, чем можно наблюдать в зачине и в концовке произведения: встречались синтагмы, оформленные как восходяще-нисходящим, так и нисходяще-восходящим контуром ЧОТ. Наиболее типичный интонационный контур повествовательных высказываний алтайской сказочной и несказочной прозы — восходяще-нисходящий. Глаголы, передающие смысловую нагрузку высказывания, а также особый глагол речи де- характеризуются понижением основного тона высказывания. В некоторых случаях смысловые глаголы в составном сказуемом выделяются интенсивностью. In this paper, we have studied the intonation of the Altai language spoken by the native Altai people living in the Altai Republic, Russia. The frame of our work was the Altai-kizhi folk narrative stories. We focused only on declarative statements. The results obtained were compared with the ones given by our primary study, where the interrogative intonation of the same folk texts was under consideration. In our works, we rely on the auditive and computer (Praat) analysis. So, the unique intonation features of the folk statements with action propositions were found out. Firstly, when describing the fundamental frequency (f0) patterns, f0 maxima of an utterance were found on the syllables of words which are the information focus of an utterance or belong to the folk clichés. Secondly, we studied the relevant literature on the linguistics of folk texts and followed the folklore composition structure when sorting the statements for the further analysis. The typical folklore text is structured as follows: beginning–plot development–ending; intonation variations are most significant in the plot development part, beginning and ending being more invariant. Generally, the Altai folklore statements are characterized by rising-falling or falling intonation. To conclude, not only the intonation of the folk statement with f0 marking the folk clichés reveals its text position, but propositions realized in the speech of the Altai-kizhi speakers as well.

Birth, Initiation and Death Elements in the Folk Narrative of the Tambunan Dusun of Sabah, Malaysia

Rich in culture as reflected in their material culture, the Dusun ethnic group of Sabah (previously known as North Borneo) possess a wealth of folktales in the form of oral narratives that are rapidly fading along with the storytellers themselves. This research project has been initiated to reverse this threat towards the non-material folk culture by collecting and analyzing the folk narratives, popularly referred to as tangon among the Dusun ethnic group in the district of Tambunan, Sabah. This paper also hopes to demonstrate a method of interpretation that takes into consideration the social and cultural background of the respondents (storytellers) and the influences that affect the narrated tales. The method involved the collection of 20 tangon from 13 storytellers who are Dusun ethnic informants residing in Kampung Sunsuron, Tambunan. The analysis demonstrates an attempt to understand the Dusun ethnic group's perspective on the cycle of life, especially the elements of birth, initiation and death that are contained in their folk narratives. It is the objective of this paper to encourage a method of interpretation and collection that emphasizes on the storytellers' social and cultural background and the integral part played by them in the creation of their folk narratives.