Jan Nepomucen Józef Braun (1926–2015), filolog klasyczny, orientalista, kartwelista, sumerolog

Jan Braun, born on 15th May 1926 in Łódź, studied classical philology and classical archaeology at the University of Lodz (years 1947–1951). His MA thesis (1951) was devoted to the ethnogenesis of the Etruscans. He also worked as junior assistant at the Department of Classical Archaeology, University of Lodz (from May 1949 do September 1950) and later as junior lecturer at the Department of Classical Philology of the same university (from October 1950 to September 1951). In October 1951, Braun left for Georgia in order to complete his doctoral studies. From there he returned to Poland as PhD, specializing in Georgian and other oriental languages, especially the ancient languages of the Near East. In the years 1955–2002, he worked at the University of Warsaw, initially as assistant professor. In 1970, he became associate professor. In 1991, he received the higher doctoral degree (habilitation), and in 1995 he obtained the position of full professor. He studied the genetic relations of ancient and modern languages, including a suggested Basque-Kartvelian connection. During his habilitation colloquium, he gave an interesting lecture entitled Basic problems of historical-comparative research over the ancient languages of the Mediterranean area (Warsaw, May 28th, 1991), which is presented in Appendix No. 1 (with some comments and bibliographical references). The paper presents Braun’s main fields of research and his achievements made in Łódź (Poland), Tbilisi (Georgia) and Warsaw. According to Braun’s view, suggested as early as 1951, Etruscan represents an external member of the Anatolian languages (deriving from Luwian), so that it belongs to the Indo-European language family. In his opinion, Basque is a western member of the South Caucasian (or Kartvelian) family.

"First Among Shepherds": Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching Series from an Arthurian Perspective

<p>Throughout his career writing on the Discworld, Terry Pratchett employed what he referred to as ‘white knowledge’; a wide spectrum of intertextuality and allusiveness that pervaded the structure of his stories, the dialogue, the narration, and that was even discussed in scenes constructed to comment on the very absurdity of its existence. In my MA thesis, I examine closely the allusive qualities of the white knowledge present in Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series: The Wee Free Men (2003), A Hat Full of Sky (2004), Wintersmith (2006), I Shall Wear Midnight (2010) and The Shepherd’s Crown (2015). Specifically, I analyze Pratchett’s use of the Arthurian tradition and his references to our understanding of the Arthurian tradition, as constructed by Malory, Tennyson and T. H. White. My aim is to demonstrate how Pratchett constructs Tiffany Aching as an Arthurian palimpsest, alluding to what came before whilst subverting and challenging the very texts from which she is imagined. In my first chapter I analyze the third Tiffany Aching book, Wintersmith, as an example of the Arthurian story of the Fisher King. I also argue for Tiffany Aching herself, in the first two books, existing as a subversive, humanist, reversed Fisher King, who draws strength and power from the land rather than inflicting sterility upon it. In the second chapter I examine the Arthurian tradition of love triangles, and examine from a feminist, genderqueer perspective Pratchett’s habit of placing characters in roles outside of their traditional gender binaries. In the third chapter I look at Letitia Keepsake, a character introduced in I Shall Wear Midnight, and examine her subversive relationship to the Tennyson poem “The Lady of Shalott”.</p>

"First Among Shepherds": Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching Series from an Arthurian Perspective

<p>Throughout his career writing on the Discworld, Terry Pratchett employed what he referred to as ‘white knowledge’; a wide spectrum of intertextuality and allusiveness that pervaded the structure of his stories, the dialogue, the narration, and that was even discussed in scenes constructed to comment on the very absurdity of its existence. In my MA thesis, I examine closely the allusive qualities of the white knowledge present in Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series: The Wee Free Men (2003), A Hat Full of Sky (2004), Wintersmith (2006), I Shall Wear Midnight (2010) and The Shepherd’s Crown (2015). Specifically, I analyze Pratchett’s use of the Arthurian tradition and his references to our understanding of the Arthurian tradition, as constructed by Malory, Tennyson and T. H. White. My aim is to demonstrate how Pratchett constructs Tiffany Aching as an Arthurian palimpsest, alluding to what came before whilst subverting and challenging the very texts from which she is imagined. In my first chapter I analyze the third Tiffany Aching book, Wintersmith, as an example of the Arthurian story of the Fisher King. I also argue for Tiffany Aching herself, in the first two books, existing as a subversive, humanist, reversed Fisher King, who draws strength and power from the land rather than inflicting sterility upon it. In the second chapter I examine the Arthurian tradition of love triangles, and examine from a feminist, genderqueer perspective Pratchett’s habit of placing characters in roles outside of their traditional gender binaries. In the third chapter I look at Letitia Keepsake, a character introduced in I Shall Wear Midnight, and examine her subversive relationship to the Tennyson poem “The Lady of Shalott”.</p>

A Corpus-Based Study of the Linguistic Errors Committed by the Iranian EFL Learners in English Translation of MA Research Abstracts of Educational Management Based on Liao’s (2010) Model

Given the importance and the precision required in the translation of research abstracts, this descriptive quantitative research made an attempt to investigate the analysis of the type and frequency of the linguistic errors occurring in the English translations of 40 academic MA research abstracts in the field of educational management. To this end, 40 academic MA thesis abstracts in the field of educational management from 2009 to 2019 were gathered from Shiraz Azad University through the saturation method. Then, the errors were categorized based on the classification of error types adapted from Liao’s model (2010). The results of the study revealed that based on Liao’s categorization (2010), the frequencies of possible linguistic errors by educational management include grammatical mistake or ungrammatical syntax of target language (F = 190), excessive literal translation, which leads to ambiguous translation (F = 30), awkward expression, including ambiguous meaning, mismatch, redundant words, and unnecessary repetition, (F = 29), incorrect character, improper punctuation marks, or inconsistency in term translation (F = 26), excessive free translation, which differentiates the translation from the original text (F = 6), and inappropriate register (F = 6).

How Is Meaning Constructed Multimodally?—A Case Study of PowerPoint Presentations in an MA Thesis Defense

Taking the theory of multimodal analysis as the theoretical basis and 7 ppts in an MA thesis defense as the research data, this paper uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the distribution and realizations of types and modalities of PPTs in this MA thesis defense. The results show that the analyzing type accounts for the highest proportion to make sure the PPT defense presentation is academic and serious. The use of connecting, persuading, and prompting types has a strong personal tendency, varying from person to person. The visualizing type takes up the lowest proportion among them, indicating that pictures are the last modality that demonstrators tend to use. The paper further explores how meanings of MA thesis defense are constructed multimodally, and investigates the characteristics of PPT as a thesis defense genre, aiming to give some suggestions and instruction on ppt presentation for thesis defenses.

INFLUENCE OF THE PERFORMANCE OF NATIONAL POLICE SERVICE IN PREVENTION OF ORGANIZED CRIMES IN MOMBASA COUNTY, KENYA

This paper uses data collected for an MA Thesis on influence of the Performance of National Police Service in Prevention of organized Crimes in Mombasa County, Kenya. The study was necessitated by continued rise of criminal gangs despite police service efforts to contain the problem. The study was guided by three specific objectives, but for this paper first and second objectives will be discussed. First, the examined the influence of resource capacity on the performance of national police service in prevention of organized crimes in Mombasa County. Secondly, the study examined the influence of motivation on the performance of national police service in prevention of organized crimes. Thirdly, the last objective assessed the influence of external environment on the performance of National Police Service in prevention of organized crimes in Mombasa County, Kenya. The survey utilized Expectancy theory and Crime Pattern Theory and adopted a descriptive research design employing a mixed method paradigm. The study sample size comprised 306 National Police Service officers (NPS); Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officers, Kenya Police service (KP), and Administration Police (AP) officers both senior and junior. Qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis derived from the study objectives. On the other hand, quantitative data was analyzed through descriptive statistics. According to the findings, 17% of the police officers still undertake operations without intelligence briefing, and that despite the availability of criminal intelligence. Besides, access to criminal intelligence was still a major challenge to 45% of the officers while inter-agency coordination was a rare part of the fight against organized crime to 56% of the officers who were not involved. The findings also revealed that despite the importance of training towards the prevention of organized crime, 33% of police officers did not have access to these trainings. Furthermore, 53% of the officers, cited lack of recognition and motivation that could go a long way in raising performance of the police officers. The study makes two major recommendations; special attention to training and curriculum review that addresses the demands of emerging global security challenges. Secondly, officer’s welfare remains a thorny issue which can potentially stifle any crime prevention initiative. Welfare issues of concern such as merit and fairness in promotions, rewards and other incentives, and better compensation were said to be an integral part of any serious police reform agenda.

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>

Size, allomorphy and guttural-final stems in Modern Hebrew

There is a tendency for syncretism between future and infinitive stems in Modern Hebrew. Verbs with final orthographic gutturals do not follow this trend in one verbal type. In another, they do follow it, but their exponent is different from that of regular verbs. Previous studies have claimed that (i) gutturals are represented in Modern Hebrew as a vowel /a/ (Faust, Noam. 2005. The fate of gutturals in Modern Hebrew. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University MA Thesis); (ii) Infinitives are derived in two cycles (Faust, Noam & Vered Silber-Varod. 2014. Distributed Morphology and prosody: The case of prepositions. In Burit Melnik (ed.), Proceedings of IATL29 (MITWPL 72), 71–92. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press); and (iii) stems seek to be no shorter than two syllables (e.g. Bat-El, Outi. 2003. The fate of the consonantal root and the binyan in Optimality Theory. Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes 32. 31–60.). Relying on these claims, an analysis is proposed involving two allomorphs with a priority relation. Phonological considerations of multiple correspondence, word size and cyclicity may nevertheless override the effect of priority, leading to the selection of the non-default allomorph. In the last section I briefly discuss two alternatives to the priority relation: the autosegmental alternative and the gradient alternative.

The pedagogy of participatory video.

The primary objective of my MA thesis project is to examine the possibilities of fostering a critical sensibility amongst Toronto urban youth by use of popular education activities and then to put these critical skills to work in the form of documentary production. I was able to perform this practical aspect of my project as part of a field placement in the Spring and Summer of 2009. During this placement I was able to provide youth (aged 14-19) in the Lawrence Heights community of Toronto, Ontario, Canada (colloquially known as "Jungle") with both the critical and technical skills necessary to create a documentary about their community and the issues that exist therein. Having these videos in hand, I am now able to reflect on both the process and the theoretical grounding of my fieldwork (which is done in this paper) as well as create an interactive and virtual home for the videos created last summer and any more that, in the future, might come ·out of the model that I implemented (www.whatisjungle.org). With my primary objective in mind, the greater, long-term, goal of my project is to help youth become more engaged with their community and begin to ask questions about their, and other, so-called "at-risk communities". I do not intend on this project '· being the final say on such an objective. Rather, it is only the beginning of a larger objective to help foster a positive sense of community in neighbourhoods negatively portrayed in the media and to help these residents become more civically engaged in order to create social change.