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CTISS
Centre for Translation and
Interpreting Studies in Scotland
POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH
IN LANGUAGES AND INTERCULTURAL STUDIES, 2005
Lubna Al-Jayrudy
Applying Methods of
Critical Discourse Analysis in Detecting Language Manipulation in Arabic
and English News reports: the Study of Nominalization, Theme and Rheme, and
Passivization. (Dr. Y. McLaren) The approach of language analysis which is
adopted in this research is critical discourse analysis or CDA. The
approach is critical in the sense that it is both linguistically-oriented
and socially-oriented. It is not a mere description of language and the
formal features of discourse but it aims at explaining the connections
between language, society, and ideology. In other words CDA investigates
the role of language in social contexts and the relations of power and
hegemony in society. The concept of language needed for CDA is discourse as
a social practice determined by social structures. Critical discourse
analysis can be classified into three Stages: description, interpretation
and explanation. However, the focus of the research will be mainly on the
interpretation stage of CDA where attitudes and ideological significances
and relations of power and control in language are revealed. To investigate
the role of language in detecting manipulation and revealing dominant
ideologies, critical linguists focuses on certain linguistic tools drawing
upon Halliday's functional model of language. A linguistic toolkit will be
presented as a helpful means to analyze the language in the news and to
unveil the ideological stances and language manipulation adopted by
different newspapers which involves the study of nominalization, theme and
rheme and passivization. The framework presented in this study depends on
the works of Fairclough, Fowler, Hodge and Kress and many other CD
analysts. The framework will help to create a coherent analytical toolkit
for studying news reports in both Arabic and English in their social and
political contexts.
Maryam Juma
Al-Manqoosh
Literary Translation: a
semiotic approach (Prof. B. Hatim)
Omar Al-Najjar
Discourse analysis
models in the training of translators: an empirical approach. (Prof. B.
Hatim)
Morven Beaton
Intertextuality in
Interpreter-mediated Communication: The Case of the European Parliament
(Prof. I. Mason and Prof. C. Grant). Completed in 2007.
Abstract
This doctoral thesis explores
simultaneous interpreting (SI) as a social practice by investigating EU
institutional hegemony and interpreter axiology in the institutional
setting of the European Parliament (EP).
Theoretical research is complemented by a corpus study of the
interplay between these two forces in SI-mediated EP plenary debates. A multilayered understanding of discourse
as a set of practices is developed before exploring the relationship
between
ideology and axiology manifest
in discourse manifest in text.
Bakhtin?s term dialogised
heteroglossia is used in this context to
refer to the centripetal forces
and centrifugal forces of language.
The Gramscian theory of hegemony
as shifting alliances is applied to EU institutional hegemony, before the
concept of axiology is
introduced to address subjective
interpreter ethics and evaluation.
Corpus analysis concentrates on
intertextuality (manifest and latent intertextuality), lexical repetition
of key institutional terms, and metaphor strings characteristic of EU
institutional hegemony. Results
suggest that EU institutional hegemony is strengthened by SI, and that
interpreter mediation in the form of interpreter axiology occurs and is
constrained by institutional hegemony.
This ?socially orientated?
approach therefore contradicts
the conduit view of communication.
In this study, the simultaneous interpreter is shown to be an
additional subjective actor in heteroglot communication.
Chakib Bnini
Translation studies in
translator training curriculum design: an empirical approach. (Prof. B.
Hatim)
Theo Buchelos
Interpreting: a
training perspective informed by text linguistics (with reference to
Greek/English). (Prof. B. Hatim)
Jules Dickinson
Language, Power and
Oppression: The Impact and Implications of Sign Language Interpreters in
the Workplace (Prof. G. Turner) This research project takes an ethnographic
approach to examining sign language interpreting within the workplace,
focussing on issues of language, power and oppression. The aim at this
stage has been to generate a detailed description of how interpreters
function in the workplace. The key research questions are: *How do Sign
Language Interpreters (SLIs) employ their knowledge of workplace culture
and how does this affect the dynamics of everyday interaction, norms of
discourse and communication between Deaf and hearing employees, and their
employers? *How do SLIs influence the outcomes of oppressor/oppressed
communication? *If social identities are constructed through workplace
interaction (Holmes 2002), how do SLIs reflect this in their
interpretation? The research to date has been primarily qualitative in
nature. One hundred and ten questionnaires were issued to SLIs based in the
U.K, to try and identify the way in which SLIs currently work, highlighting
the problems and difficulties experienced by practitioners in the field. A
total of 57 questionnaires were returned. A further 40 SLIs volunteered to
keep journals over a three month period and 24 of these have been returned.
The questionnaire and journal data has been thematically analysed and will
provide a background to the primary data for the study, the video evidence.
Between April and August 2005 a total of nine video samples of authentic
work-based interpreted interaction were collected. This data collection
process was conducted in collaboration with Nottinghamshire Sign Language
Interpreting Service. This data will be analysed during January to April
2006. A small number of samples will be selected as case studies and
primary participants will be given the opportunity to examine, explore and
comment on their actions. The outcomes will be considered with reference to
existing interpreting theory and will be evaluated from the perspective of
the interpreter, deaf client and employer. The subsequent aim will be to
explore the potential for change in current interpreting practice.
Publications in 2005
Dickinson, J. (2005)
'Boundaries, Boredom and Bad Habits- the Trials and Tribulations of the
'Office Interpreter', NEWSLI 54. 10- 12.
Forthcoming
Publications
Dickinson, J. &
Turner, G. H. (forthcoming) 'Sign Language Interpreters and Role Conflict
in the Workplace'. In Valero, C. & Martin, A. (eds.)
Role conflict and the
limits of intervention by public service interpreters and translators. John
Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Conference
Presentations and Invited Lectures 2005
3rd March 2005- 'The
Grit in the Oyster- Working with Sign Language Interpreters.' Presentation
to NHS employees, Leicester
19th- 21st March 2005-
Public Service Interpreting and Translating conference, Heriot-Watt University.
Presented joint paper: 'Forging alliances: the role of the sign language
interpreter in workplace discourse.'
5th- 7th May 2005-
Translating and Interpreting as a Social Practice, Graz, Austria.
Presented paper: 'Interpreters in the Workplace: Informed Decision Making'
14th- 15th May 2005-
Interpreting Under the Spotlight, ASLI conference, London. Presented a plenary paper: 'An
Interpreter is for Life, not just for Christmas' (The human interpreter -
establishing and maintaining your identity and role in the workplace).'
Also presented a workshop 'Boundaries, Boredom and Bad Habits'.
10th June 2005- Deaf
Professionals Day, Nottinghamshire Deaf Society. Presented paper: 'Deaf
People in the Workplace - the Role of the Sign Language Interpreter'.
21st June 2005- UK Council on Deafness 'Deaf People in the
Workplace' Conference, London.
Presented paper: 'Deaf People in the Workplace: Interpreting Issues. Trust,
confidence and mutual understanding -strategies for improving working
relationships'
e-mail: julesdickinson@hotmail.com
Samia Bazzi Donovan
Irony and other
pragmatic matters in translation (Prof. B. Hatim)
Isabel Hui Liu
A Corpus-based study of
terms of address and politeness strategies in Interpreted Press Conference
Texts (Prof. I. Mason, Dr. U. Böser)
My PhD study is based
on a corpus of the transcription of three interpreted press conferences. In
the corpus there is one foreign minister press conference and the other two
are all prime minister's press conferences. The interpreters for those
three press conferences are three different interpreter since the diversity
of interpreters may bring more insight into what is happening in the
process of interpreting in the context of those press conferences. Those
press conferences were held after National Congress meeting and they serve
as a platform between the media and the government to communicate with each
other. Correspondents from China
and other countries have chances to ask questions to the minister and will
get explanations. The starting point of this study is the shifts discovered
in the interpreter-provided texts as compared to the literal translation of
those press conferences. The description of those shifts does not aim at
judging or commenting the quality and accuracy of the interpretation. Since
'translating is a purposeful activity' (Nord 1997) the study aims at
finding out why the interpreters make such conscious decision of shifting.
The analysis focuses on terms of address, conjunction, turn-taking, issues
of face. Theoretical framework includes Gricean pragmatics, Skopos, notion
of footing, participation framework, audience design, speech act theory,
politeness theory.
e-mail: hl33@hw.ac.uk
Min-Hsiu Liao
A Corpus-based Study of
Interactive Features in the Translation of Popular Science Texts. (Prof. I.
Mason, Dr. R. de Pedro Ricoy); Graduated in 2008.
This study aims to
investigate interactive features in the popular science genre. The study is
based on the hypothesis that popular science texts intend to communicate
with the general layman and to involve them in the scientific world. A
corpus consists of texts from the magazine Scientific American in English
and its translation in Chinese is constructed. Several linguistic
parameters such as conjunctions and personal pronouns will be defined as
interactive features and their norms in the corpus will be investigated.
Quantitative findings obtained from the corpus will be further related to
the ethnographic study (e.g. interviews with the editors and translators),
the paratextual features of the publications, and the wider socio-cultural
contexts that might account for the strategy and the motivation of the
writer/reader interaction taking place in the texts.
Pablo Romero Fresco
A corpus-based study on
the idiomaticity of the Spanish language used in dubbing. (Dr.
R. de Pedro, Dr. V. Jung, Dr. Y. McLaren)
Over the past ten years
there have been several publications on the peculiarity of the language
used in dubbing, especially with English as a source language. Most authors
working on this subject agree that there is such thing as a dubbing
language (often called fiction register, audiovisual translationese or
dubbese) and that it sometimes sounds unnatural and contrived. The aim of
this thesis is to study the idiomaticity (or lack of it) of the Spanish
dubbing language. In spite of the importance of dubbing in Spain and the
vast amount of films dubbed into Spanish every year, literature on this
specific issue is still scarce. Besides, most authors seem to adopt the
same approach: if the Spanish used in dubbing sounds stilted, it must be
due to the influence of the source text and the source language, thus
limiting their scope to the analysis of calques and anglicisms. This thesis
adopts a broader perspective, thus assessing the idiomaticity (ie
nativelike selection of expression) of the dubbed text by using different
parameters: the study of phraseological translation, calques and
anglicisms, tenor and tone, etc. Three different corpora will be used for
this purpose. The first one is a parallel corpus consisting of a number of
transcripts of the American TV series Friends and their dubbed versions in
Spanish. Given the peculiarity of both the dubbing process and the dubbing
language, a very specific model of analysis will be applied: one that can
account for a language that is presented as oral but has a written origin,
that has to abide by certain film dialogue conventions, that is subject to
different kinds of synchronization and other audiovisual constraints, etc.
Secondly, a comparable corpus will also be used, consisting of the dubbed
versions of Friends and a number of scripts of a similar Spanish sitcom:
Siete Vidas. The analysis of this second corpus will therefore enable a
comparison between a dubbed text (Friends) and similar source texts in
Spanish (Siete Vidas) that are thus not subject to audiovisual translation
constraints but that still feature a fake, prefabricated orality, as they
have been written to be read as if not written. Finally, in order to be
able to assess the idiomaticity or nativelikeness of the dubbed text, a
third corpus will be used -the spontaneous speech section of the Spanish
corpus CREA, elaborated by the Real Academia Española.
Papers and Posters
(2005)
"The analysis of
phraseological translation in a parallel audiovisual corpus - a proposal
for a dictionary of idioms in use (English-Spanish)', poster presented at
the conference Phraseology 2005 (Louvain-la-Neuve, October 13-15)
'The translation of
phraseology in a parallel (English-Spanish) audiovisual corpus', paper
presented at the conference Corpus Linguistics 2005 (University of Birmingham,
July 14-17).
Publications (2005)
'The Spanish dubbese -a
study of phraseological translation as a parameter to assess the
idiomaticity of the Spanish language used in dubbing: The case of Friends',
Journal of Specialised Translation (forthcoming).
'The translation of
phraseology in a parallel audiovisual corpus', Proceedings from the Corpus
Linguistics Conference Series, Vol. 1, no. 1 (www.corpus.bham.ac.uk/PCLC/).
e-mail: pr27@hw.ac.uk
Maria Tillmann
The Pragmatics of Dialogue
Interpreting in a German Asylum Interview (Prof. I. Mason)
It is now widely
acknowledged that the pragmatic dimension is of crucial importance to
success in face-to-face interpreting. This study sets out to examine issues
of pragmatics in an authentic asylum interview, a field yet
underrepresented in dialogue interpreting research. Taking a descriptive
stance, the study addresses how certain speech features, such as modal
particles, politeness expressions and particular question types, which may
have been carefully employed by the immigration official, are dealt with in
the interpretation. Changes of tenor in the interpreting process,
relevance-theoretical issues, turn-taking patterns and minimal responses
are also examined.
e-mail: mag2@hw.ac.uk
Christine Wilson
The influence of the
medium of communication in sign-language mediated interaction: face-to-face
encounters and distance encounters by video-conference link. (Prof. I.
Mason)
Svenja Wurm
Translating or
Interpreting? An investigation of translation between written and signed
languages. (Prof. G. Turner)
While employing a
translation studies framework, this study explores the characteristics of a
fairly recent kind of sign language text: New technology enables us to
record texts in channels other than writing and therefore allows us to
record languages which lack a written modality, such as sign languages.
Within the British Deaf community we find a growing body of such recorded
texts, which are both of a literary and non-literary nature and frequently
constitute translations from written texts. The focus of this research lies
on how we can translate between these two distinct modalities, writing and
signing, and how a visual, spontaneous language can represent written
texts, which traditionally are more formal, objective and stylistically
elaborated (Halliday 1989:61-62) than spontaneous modes such as spoken and
signed language. What characterises the mode of recorded sign language?
Will the signed target text fulfil a similar function and will it have a
similar effect on its audience as the source text? Might such media even
serve as a substitute for written texts in a language that lacks an
established written modality? My findings will be based on an analysis of
children's stories translated from written English into recorded British
Sign Language. Existing translation theories concentrating on discourse
analysis and accommodating intermodal translation as well as current sign
linguistic research will be applied.
Presentation in 2005
"Film Characters
in Subtitles: A Discussion of the Medium and Mode in Film
Translation." Paper presented at the Second Dublin City University
Postgraduate Conference In Translation Studies, Ireland, 1-2 April 2005.
Forthcoming publication
"Intralingual and
Interlingual Subtitling. A Discussion of the Mode and Medium in Film
Translation." In The Sign Language Translator & Interpreter.
e-mail: sbw1@hw.ac.uk
Xiao Yuan
Politeness in
Subtitling (Prof. I. Mason)
Brown & Levinson's
(1978, 1987) linguistic politeness theory, based on the notion of the
'face' of a Model Person, elaborates comprehensively on the Face
Threatening Acts (FTA) in politeness and the negative as well as positive
politeness strategies to help mitigate the FTAs and preserve 'face'. Although
claimed as universally applicable, B & L's theory received various
critiques from Far East scholars (including Yoshinko 1988; Gu 1990 etc.) on
the basis that the theory has failed to explain the negative face issue and
other politeness phenomena in the Far East
cultures, which demonstrates the culturally varied nature of politeness
issues. This study, through the comparison of politeness in films and its
representations in subtitles, intends to examine how the expression of
politeness affects different audience groups' response to and understanding
of films. In the study, two groups of audiences, British and Chinese, will
be gathered to watch the same sequences of two English and two Chinese
movies with Chinese and English subtitles, after which they will be
requested to fill in questionnaires based on selected film sequences.
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