School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
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ItemTranslators as breakers of norms?(John Benjamins, 1995)
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ItemTranslation Error Analysis and the Interface with Language Teaching(John Benjamins, 1992)
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ItemIn Search of a New Rationale for the Prose Translation Class at University Level(Brussels Translation School, 1992)In view of labour-market demands, greater flexibility is required of translators. This includes active translational competence in their foreign language(s), especially in domains where oral communication is more important than written communication. The present study investigates how to give a new rationale to prose translation classes, in the wake of a long-standing tradition whereby prose translation was given an ancillary status as a didactic means in foreign-language teaching. The increasing presence of foreign exchange students in translation classes creates an excellent opportunity to increase the importance of A-B directionality. The prose class (thème, traducción inversa, Hinübersetzung) is ostensibly involved with teaching translation from the students’ mother language to the students’ second language (A-B). However, it has traditionally been little more than a rather laborious way of checking on B language acquisition, surviving as a relic from the days when translation was itself taught as little more than a mode of language learning. This traditional background creates serious problems when, as in Spain, prose classes exist in specialist translation institutes at university level. Although the old model would appear to be no longer valid (since translation students are now supposed to learn translation, not just languages), little thought has been given to the development of a new rationale. Indeed, most contemporary theories talk about translation as if directionality were not important; even theoretically developed syllabus projects like that of Amman & Vermeer (1990) give scant attention to directionality, preferring instead to consider “the translational problems of language pairs” where exercises are presumably to be carried out indifferently both to and from the mother language. This indifference on the level of theory might itself indicate the demise of the traditional rationale. But it leaves three very basic questions unresolved: [74] 1. Should one conclude that the prose class within the university translation institute has permanently lost its traditional specificity? 2. What relation might such classes have to the professional practice of trained translators? 3. Is there any correlation or contradiction between these two aspects? If a new rationale is possible, it will depend on coherent answers to all three questions.
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ItemShortcomings in the historiography of translation(John Benjamins Publishing, 1992)A l'heure où les relations internationales subissent de profonds changements, l'historiographie de la traduction réveille un nouvel intérêt. Or, les méthodes qu'elle utilise sont-elles à la hauteur des circonstances? Nous voudrions, dans cet article, formuler une hypothèse sur l'effet historique des traductions, non pas pour la justifier empiriquement mais afin de voir comment certaines approches contemporaines pourraient la vérifier. Nous constatons que, du point de vue de notre hypothèse, ces approches comportent sept inconvénients méthodologiques: a) l'accumulation archéologique de données qui ne répondent à aucune problématique explicite, b) la dépendance générale du matériau anecdotique, c) la périodisation indiscriminée, d) les traductions vues comme expressions plutôt que comme facteurs de changements historiques, e) le privilège axiomatique accordé aux cultures cibles, f) des hypothèses infalsifiables, g) peu d'espace systémique pour l'interculturalité du traducteur.
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ItemA Grammar of Wambaya, Northern Australia(Pacific Linguistics Publishers, 1998)PREFACE Wambaya is a non-Pama-Nyungan language originally spoken in the Barkly Tablelands region of the Northern Territory, Australia. There are perhaps 8 -10 fluent speakers remaining, most of whom live in Tennant Creek and Elliott ...
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ItemNo Preview AvailableHandbook of Western Australian Aboriginal Languages South of the Kimberley Region(Pacific Linguistics Publishers, 1993)An annotated bibliography and guide to the indigenous languages of part of Western Australia. Information on individual languages can be found via a geographic, alphabetic, or language family index.
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ItemPhonological length and phonetic duration in Bolognese: are they related?( 1994)The phonetic basis of a reported phonological correlation between stressed vowel and post-tonic consonant length in Bolognese (Italo-Romance, N. Italy) is examined for the first time. Whilst a vowel length distinction is confirmed for all subjects, a correlation between vowel and consonant duration is not universal.
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ItemNatrausuen ni Pastor Sope ni nafsan ni ntau 1950 mana/Storian Blong Pastor Sope long lanwis blong Saot Efate we oli bin kamaot samples long yia 1950(Ms, 1999-10)This is a collection of 21 stories reproduced from a handwritten manuscript found in the estate of Arthur Capell. The original has been typed, translated into present-day South Efate and Bislama, the national language of Vanuatu. The original can be seen here: http://paradisec.org.au/fieldnotes/VEFAT.htm#VEFAT25
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ItemThe Road Less Travelled: Recording and Teaching Aboriginal Languages in Western Australia(Edith Cowan University, Claremont: Institute of Applied Language Studies, 1991)This paper discusses the treatment of Aboriginal languages in Western Australia. A brief historical overview is followed by an account of the more recent changes in approach to indigenous language work in Western Australia.
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ItemInnovating assessment in an Italian language course: first experiences(HERDSA, 1999)This paper examines a new academic's initial foray into the realms of innovative assessment. The paper begins by outlining the principle reasons for innovating the assessment scheme which include:- a desire to promote deep learning in students;- the necessity to have a more transparent connection between the aims and objectives of the course and assessment tasks;- the need to challenge the notion that language is easily compartmentalised into distinct skills - writing, reading, speaking, listening, metalinguistic. - implicitly conveyed by traditional assessment tasks. The unit in question was a full year ab initio Italian class. Students were cleanly divided into two camps: mature age and non-mature age with the former showing significant reservations in the face of non-traditional assessment methods. I discuss both the successes and failings of the new scheme from my perspective as well as from that of students. Notably, by the end of the unit, some of the students' initial responses to innovative assessment have been challenged in such a way as to have effected a change in thinking.