Aesthetically Appreciating Animals: On The Abundant Herds

This is an essay in appreciation of The Abundant Herds, a study of the amaZulu’s naming practices for their Nguni cattle. The book reveals an aesthetic vision in which contemplative and practical attention are intertwined and a complex classificatory system does not undermine an appreciation of the individuality of the cattle. The book and the practices it celebrates permit a richer account of the beauty of farm animals to the standard functionalist approach.

Sharing Knowledge

Assertion is the central vehicle for the sharing of knowledge. Whether knowledge is shared successfully often depends on the quality of assertions: good assertions lead to successful knowledge sharing, while bad ones don't. In Sharing Knowledge, Christoph Kelp and Mona Simion investigate the relation between knowledge sharing and assertion, and develop an account of what it is to assert well. More specifically, they argue that the function of assertion is to share knowledge with others. It is this function that supports a central norm of assertion according to which a good assertion is one that has the disposition to generate knowledge in others. The book uses this functionalist approach to motivate further norms of assertion on both the speaker and the hearer side and investigates ramifications of this view for other questions about assertion.

INTANGIBLE HERITAGE TOURISM: THE NEPALESE DIASPORA IN MALAYSIA

Who are you? Where are you from? How did you end up in Malaysia? These are the common questions that the Nepalese community here in Malaysia has had to respond to many a time. We cannot blame the naïve attitudes that our Malaysians possess but it is a matter of regret that most Malaysians from other ethnic groups are not aware of the Nepalese community here, simply because there has been no exposure to their presence. The intangible heritage of one’s ethnicity and culture play a crucial role in pointing out one’s origin, identity and existence. In the context of tourism, it is essential to sustain this minority group as it may arouse the interest of the Nepalese not only in their motherland but also around the globe. Tourists will be interested to learn about how the Nepali diaspora is able to preserve their unique traditions despite the influence of urbanisation and other culturalisations. The authors would apply the functionalist approach to discuss how the intangible tourism not only benefits the nation’s economy but also functions to prevent the extinction of the Malaysian Nepalese customs. The research questions that are posed for this paper are as follows i) How do the Nepalese Malaysians sustain their intangible heritage? ii) What measures are this minority group taking to safeguard their tradition? and iii) In what way will the preservation be able to benefit the country and themselves? In-depth interviews with 15 informants will be conducted along with consensual audio-recording. Transcriptions of the interviews will analyse the thematic patterns coupled with peer checking to reduce bias for the data to be credible and trustworthy. The outcome of this research will be presented.

New Zealand Novel Auē by Becky Manawatu in German Translation

<p>This MA thesis explores a functionalist approach to literary translation of contemporary New Zealand prose fiction through my original German translation of an excerpt from Becky Manawatu’s Auē (2019) and a commentary comprising an analysis of linguistically hybrid features and their translation challenges. The excerpt chosen for translation consists of three and a half chapters to cover all four of the book’s narrative perspectives. I argue that there are three predominant features that give the novel its linguistically hybrid character and challenge the literary translator with their cultural specificity: borrowing and codeswitching into te reo Māori, colloquial speech in dialogues and the four different narrative voices. With a functionalist analysis based on Nord’s skopos theory, I highlight functions and effects of these features and examine why they challenge the German translator. Three specific problems, which arose during the translation process of Auē, further illustrate that a decision between foreignization and domestication tactics is highly dependent on respective functions in the source text and can vary from case to case. Ultimately, the translator needs to aim at a balanced target text that both encourages the readers to engage with the newness of foreign aspects and facilitates access to such aspects where needed. With my translation and commentary, I contribute to the research of cultural specificity in Literary Translation Studies with an example of a balanced German translation and a functional analysis of a contemporary work of New Zealand prose fiction and its linguistically hybrid features.</p>

New Zealand Novel Auē by Becky Manawatu in German Translation

<p>This MA thesis explores a functionalist approach to literary translation of contemporary New Zealand prose fiction through my original German translation of an excerpt from Becky Manawatu’s Auē (2019) and a commentary comprising an analysis of linguistically hybrid features and their translation challenges. The excerpt chosen for translation consists of three and a half chapters to cover all four of the book’s narrative perspectives. I argue that there are three predominant features that give the novel its linguistically hybrid character and challenge the literary translator with their cultural specificity: borrowing and codeswitching into te reo Māori, colloquial speech in dialogues and the four different narrative voices. With a functionalist analysis based on Nord’s skopos theory, I highlight functions and effects of these features and examine why they challenge the German translator. Three specific problems, which arose during the translation process of Auē, further illustrate that a decision between foreignization and domestication tactics is highly dependent on respective functions in the source text and can vary from case to case. Ultimately, the translator needs to aim at a balanced target text that both encourages the readers to engage with the newness of foreign aspects and facilitates access to such aspects where needed. With my translation and commentary, I contribute to the research of cultural specificity in Literary Translation Studies with an example of a balanced German translation and a functional analysis of a contemporary work of New Zealand prose fiction and its linguistically hybrid features.</p>

PECULIARITIES OF TRANSLATING CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

The article focuses on the analysis of children’s literature translation. The definition of children’s literature is researched in the article, taking into account its purpose, audience and content, which makes it an interesting subject for studying. The function of the translated text in the target culture may also differ from the one intended by the author. The current study will take into account all of the mentioned factors (purpose, audience and content), taking a functionalist approach to the analysis. While translating children’s literature, the translator is not only the mediator between two systems of language and culture, but he also becomes the second writer of the work. Not only he is to transfer the meaning of the ST (source text) message, but also make it comprehensible for the target audience, which, thus, makes him bear in mind all the features of children’s book.. In the article the special attention is paid to the techniques of translating and its specific issues. The main approaches of translating for children and the features of children’s literature have been also researched.

Piguvianism vs. Coasianism: Who Wins?

The main characteristics of approaches to the discussion of the sufficiency of grounds for the introduction / cancellation of state regulation due to the identification of failures in the price mechanism are revealed. The comparison of approaches is presented on the basis of the problem of externalities. In this regard, the provisions from the theory of externalities have been clarified in terms of their definition and correlation with the conditions for optimal allocation of resources, and certain types of external effects are presented. The key types of correction of price mechanism failures are considered, including regulatory intervention, setting up the price mechanism (including the creation of missing markets), maintaining the status quo with externalities. On this basis, the main properties of the Pigouvian and Coasian approaches in economics are determined in relation to the problems of this form of market failure. The features of Coasianism as a functionalist approach to research in contrast to fundamental liberalism are revealed. Taking into account the importance of values, the opportunities for designing of compensatory transactions and the supply and demand of economic knowledge, assessments of the prospects of functionalism and fundamentalisms are presented as a guide to action in the field of discussion and political decision-making. The comparative advantages of functionalism and fundamentalisms in the intellectual traditions of discussing the role of the state in the economy are shown.

Kinship through the Twofold Prism of Law and Anthropology

Legal practitioners have much to gain by drawing on findings and insights from anthropological studies of kinship. This chapter first sketches the background of kinship studies in anthropology (including criticisms of the functionalist approach that led to a turn away from kinship studies), summarizes key questions that have preoccupied kinship scholars, and draws two important lessons that can help inform legal practice. The first is the profoundly social and cultural nature of kinship (as opposed to biological); the second is the observation that what may nowadays, at first glance, appear as new ways of organizing and expressing kinship ties in fact show more continuity than disruption. The author illustrates these lessons on the basis of four examples: (a) blended families; (b) same-sex unions; (c) the role of fathers in childrearing; and (d) sexual permissiveness. The chapter next details two specific contexts in which attention to an anthropological approach to kinship can productively inform legal practice. The first involves new advances in assisted reproductive technologies (ART) that challenge the more ‘traditional’ understandings of what constitutes a family as expressed in many state legal systems. The second is the enduring importance of kinship as a form of support that provides reliable protection against the increased vulnerability caused by globalization, marginalization, and persecution. The chapter concludes with some thoughts on the inherent tension between the idea of universal human rights and the constraints on individual self-determination that are often part and parcel of the social support that kinship systems provide.

Literaire dynamiek, anders bekeken. De heropstanding van de poëzie in Vlaanderen na de Tweede Wereldoorlog

This article discusses the ongoing crisis in the field of literary studies, relating these problems and challenges to the problem of writing literary histories. It advocates a functionalist approach to literary phenomena, taking into account institutional frames and discursive strategies which are developed in order to structure and legitimize literary practices and literary evolution. These theoretical and methodological premises are applied to the very complex years immediately after the Second World War in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). In particular, it is demonstrated how the very notion of ‘classicist poetry’ as a defensive practice clearly reveals an intricate variety of conceptions aimed at tackling the problems poets are confronted with in a new era.

Leveraging emotion-behavior pathways to support environmental behavior change

Many global environmental threats are driven by human behavior and require behavioral solutions. Researchers in the environmental field have recently begun seeing the behavioral sciences as core to changing behavior for conservation; yet leveraging human emotions remains an underused tool for behavior change compared to others like social norms. Humans experience a range of emotions that each cause distinct patterns of behavior depending on unique contexts; this presents an opportunity to leverage emotions to support behavior change goals. The existing literature offers minimal guidance about which specific emotions to use in which contexts and how those emotions might lead to certain behaviors. In the environmental field specifically, there have been mixed results on using emotions, resulting from an incomplete understanding of the causal relationship between particular emotions, contexts, and environmental behaviors. We propose that adopting a functionalist approach, which describes emotions as functional states designed to produce particular outcomes in specific contexts, will help to unlock emotions as a tool for conservation. To demonstrate this approach, we identify fear, joy, hope, anger, pride, interest, and the prospect of shame as particularly relevant for environmental behavior change. Based on an understanding of each emotion’s function, we developed an emotion-behavior pathway that describes the expected outcome of using an emotion in a particular context. Applying these emotional-behavior pathways can allow both researchers and practitioners to advance the science of shifting environmental behavior through emotion.