A New York Leśmian: The Translation Strategy of Marian Polak-Chlabicz

The aim of this article is to identify and outline the strategy applied by Marian Polak-Chlabicz in translating the poetry of Bolesław Leśmian into English. The examination begins with the preliminary norm as refl ected in text selection, and the initial norm, which proves to be oriented toward recreating the strangeness of the author’s poetics. Examination of particular elements of the poetics includes the translator’s attitude to Leśmian’s neologisms and other creative language deviations, issues of syntax and of poetic form, and ideational contents of the poems. Also discussed are editorial problems and issues connected with paratexts.

BELENGGU RASIONALITAS DALAM TAFSĪR BI AL-MA’THŪR

The Interpretation with transmitted text (riwāyah) which uses to get meaning far away from the influence of ratio (al-ra'y) still cannot occur. Various different narrations for interpreting the same verse in the exegesis via narration (al-tafsīr bi al-ma'thūr) can be evidence of the use of ijtihad in that interpretation model. In this context, this study aims to find evidence and reconceptualize the terms to prove the existence ratio on exegesis via narration. This study uses a qualitative method with the type of study that uses literature research and uses content analysis as an analytical tool. This study finds that the interpreters in the category of exegesis via narration used ratio in the form of transmitted text selection to strengthen the meaning desired. The unawareness of the existence of rationality in the exegesis via narration is caused by the confusion of the terms used which are borrowed from the term of hadith study (muṣṭalah al-ḥadīth). Based on this, this study proposes to redefine that term to illustrate that dichotomy does not refer to the use of transmitted text or ratios in interpretation, but that dichotomy occurs from the proximity of the resulting message to the literal meaning content in interpretation.

Literary Translation behind Bars in the Late Soviet Union: Contextual Voices of Vasyl' Stus and Ivan Svitlychnyi

Translation in captivity is nothing new, nor is it restricted to a particular place or historical period. However, this social and cultural phenomenon is marked by a far more frequent occurrence in totalitarian societies. This article examines the practice of literary translation in Soviet labour camps, where, as a result of political repression, Ukrainian scholars, writers, translators, and lexicographers (aka prisoners of conscience) constituted a large part of the incarcerated population. The fact that translation activity thrived behind bars despite brutal and dehumanizing conditions testifies to the phenomenon of cultural resistance and translators’ activism, both of which deserve close scholarly attention. This study provides insights into practical, historical, psychological, and philosophical aspects of translation in extreme conditions. It seeks answers to the questions of why prisoners of conscience felt moved to translate, and how they pursued their work in situations of extreme pressure. Through the lens of translation in prison, the article offers a wide perspective on the issues of retranslation, pseudotranslation, translation editing, text selection, and the functions of literary translation. The focus of the paper is on Soviet Ukraine in the 1970s-80s, when a wave of political repressions led to the appearance of a new generation of prisoners of conscience. Case studies of Vasyl' Stus and Ivan Svitlychnyi are discussed, drawing on their letters during the incarceration period and the memoirs of their inmates.

Skolēnu pārspriedumu korpusa izveide

The popularity of teaching Latvian as a mother tongue has always been of great importance. Although various teaching materials have been developed over time, corpus-based learning materials are becoming more and more popular nowadays. Since December 2018, the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Latvia has carried out the Latvian State Research Programme “Latvian Language”, agreement No. VPP-IZM-2018/2-0002 (subproject “Acquisi-tion of Latvian Language”). During the project, “The Corpus of Students’ Essays” will be created. With the help of the Corpus, it will be possible to create new teaching materials and also carry out different Latvian grammar studies, etc. Based on the Corpus, it will also be possible to analyse different aspects of Latvian language acquisition of students from different Latvian schools, find out what is most difficult for students, and later work with various Latvian language acquisition issues. “Corpus of Student’s Essays” is a specialized language corpus that contains texts limited to one or more subject areas, domains, topics, etc. The corpus includes 468 essays from a class 12 Latvian language exam (approximately 185 000 running words). These are works by students of Latvian-language secondary schools, minority schools, and state gymnasiums from Kurzeme, Latgale, and Riga. “Corpus of Student’s Essays” contains uncorrected texts, retaining all typing, punctuation, etc. mistakes made by students. The corpus is automatically morphologically tagged. “Corpus of Student’s Essays”, like other language corpora, is developed in several stages. The beginning of the creation of any corpus is related to the definition of text selection criteria, then the selection of texts for the corpus, digitization, if necessary, editing, morphological annotation, creation and addition of a metadata set, etc. Since the corpus is not just texts, there is also an infrastructure for the collecting and processing of corpus data, as well as an interface for the use of the corpus. This article will deal with the structure and development stages of the “Corpus of Student’s Essays”, as well as the problems and solutions associated with it.

Readability formulas: An analysis into reading index of prose forms

Text comprehension will suffer if the readability level is not accessible to the students. Readability formulas predict text complexity, assisting in appropriate text selection that complements students’ reading abilities to improve their language development. Therefore, the study aims to find out the reading index of the prose forms in the literature component catered to lower secondary school students ages 13 and 14 years old in Form One (seventh grade) and Form Two (eighth grade) classrooms in Malaysia. The reading index is measured by using four readability formulas which are Dale-Chall, Fog, SMOG, and Flesch-Kincaid that focuses on the words, sentences, syllables, and polysyllable words. These formulas are used to predict the level of difficulty of the prose forms. The reading index calculated from these readability formulas reveals the grade level of the prose forms. The grade level indicates the best age for reading and understanding the prose forms. Two prose forms were chosen as samples in the study. A passage is chosen from each prose form to be uploaded using the online tool. The indices obtained from the readability formulas predicted that both of the prose forms were below students’ reading age. The study implicates reading index must be taken into consideration in literary texts selection because it is an indicator of the years of education that an individual requires to comprehend the literary text clearly. Suitable reading material at students’ age level can enhance literature learning and teaching in the ESL classroom.

The Effect of the Implementation of a Negotiated Syllabus on the Reading Achievement of Iranian Intermediate-level EFL Learners

The present study investigated whether or not the implementation of a selective procedural Negotiated Syllabus has any effect on the reading achievement of Iranian intermediate-level EFL learners. The hypothesis assumed in this study was that the treatment would accrue no effect. The study was conducted with the participation of 61 female intermediate-level EFL learners. The participants were grouped into four classes serving the Experimental Group (EG; n = 32) and the Control Group (CG; n = 29). The learners shared a homogenous English proficiency level and background (as well as in terms of materials and instruments). The classes were randomly assigned to EG and CG. The selected element of negotiation in this study was based on the interest areas of the EG learners. An interest areas survey (IAS) based on Likert scale (from value 1 as least interesting to value 5 as most interesting) was constructed and conducted to elicit EG learners’ areas of interest on the basis of which passages with reading ease of ±2 standard deviations (by Flesch Reading Ease score) were selected. Items scoring highest on the IAS were selected for the purpose of text selection. Interest areas were not polled in the CG and the texts given to them were arbitrarily selected. In order to observe any change in learners’ reading achievement, both groups were pretested at the outset of the experiment and post-tested at the end of the experiment with a valid reading comprehension (RC) test comprising 22 multiple-choice items. A two-way two-sample t-test was conducted to compare the means difference between the gain scores of the EG and CG over the two administrations of the RC test. The results indicated that the groups had performed equally well on the experiment and no statistically significant result was observed. This study was based on the natural-occurring pre-experimental intact groups framework of research design.