This thesis is a case study of simultaneous trilingual acquisition examining a child's (S) development of English as she acquires English, Italian and Scottish Gaelic simultaneously from birth. It investigates the effect that the acquisition of three languages from birth has on the development of the child's English. S's trilingual language development is examined to see how it correlates to monolingual and bilingual acquisition. Specifically, this thesis reviews S's MLU development and her general development, whilst focusing on phenomena that are salient in the acquisition literature, and compares it to the language development of monolingual and bilingual children presented in the literature. It is clear that although S's development of English is largely in keeping with that reported in monolingual and bilingual acquisition literature, it differs to her monolingual and bilingual counterparts in relation to target deviance. The target deviance observed in S's data is examined in order to provide evidence for cross-linguistic influence in multilingual language acquisition. The first phenomenon analysed in detail looks at S's data only whereas in the second phenomenon, elicitation tasks involving S and her bilingual peers are carried out to support the target deviance observed in the spontaneous data. Grammaticality judgement tasks testing S's English and Italian are also used to examine target deviance in S's grammar. There are four prominent theories of cross-linguistic influence in multilingual acquisition and this thesis examines the various target deviant phenomena that can help us to understand each aspect of this phenomenon that has received different explanations in the literature. Overall, the results of this case study show that cross-linguistic influence is a characteristic of multilingual language development. I propose that cross-linguistic influence occurs as a result of the three languages in S's triad being activated simultaneously, i.e., when a structure that is grammatical in S's other two languages surfaces in her English at a stage when S's inhibitory control skills are not fully developed.

The vast majority of studies drawing on pragmatics have focused on conversation and face-to-face interaction, with little or no attention paid to written text. Like much of pragmatic theory, Brown and Levinson's politeness theory also focuses on spoken discourse. At the same time, politeness theory claims to offer a universal framework for the study of politeness across different cultures and, one would therefore assume, across different genres of discourse. This study attempts to examine the applicability of the Brown and Levinson model to a particularly challenging genre, namely Disney comics, and to extend the model beyond monolingual and monocultural contexts, to look at politeness strategies in translation between two very different cultures. The study thus sets out to test politeness theory to ascertain whether it can offer credible and coherent explanations of the potential for comics in translation to threaten the face(s) of Arab readers, and whether it can provide a robust framework for describing the pragmatic strategies employed by translators seeking to maintain the face(s) of Arab readers. The study argues that Brown and Levinson's politeness theory can be fruitfully applied to Disney comics translated from English into Arabic, provided we can demonstrate that (a) it is possible to identify a composite speaker and composite hearer in Disney comics, and (b) Disney comics can be read as face threatening texts (FTTs). Disney comics are simply texts that have writers and readers. However, the complex nature of this discourse and the attempt to contextualise it within a totally different culture - Arab culture - point to certain limitations of the Brown and Levinson model. At the same time, they enable us to propose ways in which the model may be refined to read the nuances of complex discourses, such as Disney comics, that are normative and manipulative in nature while presenting themselves as benign entertainment. The data used in this study consists of 278 Disney comic stories: 140 English stories and 138 Arabic stories translated and published by Dar Al-Hilal in Egypt, Al-Futtain/ITP in Dubai, and Al-Qabas in Kuwait. The English stories appeared between 1962 and 2000. The Arabic stories appeared between 1993 and 2003. Most of these comics are aimed at 6-13 year-olds. The starting point of the analysis is a conventional application of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to original and translated Disney comics, looking specifically at three sources of face threat in this context: verbal and/or visual signals that can be considered taboo or at least unpalatable to the reader; the raising of sensitive or divisive topics (e. g., Jewish and Christian imagery and colonial ideologies, stereotyping and ridiculing the target reader); and the use of address terms and other status-marked identifications that may be misidentified in an offensive or embarrassing way, either intentionally or accidentally. Politeness strategies used by Arab publishers and translators in the data examined in this study include all three categories proposed by Brown and Levinson: Don't do the FTA; Do the FTA on record with mitigation; and Do the FTA baldly with no mitigation. However, the study also reveals a number of weaknesses inherent in the Brown and Levinson model and highlights the need to refine politeness theory in order to make it more applicable to the analysis of complex genres such as comics and complex types of face threat encoded in discourses which are normative in nature but which present themselves as benign.

National government translations inform an international audience about an institution’s political positions, policies, and ideologies. In this institutional settings, translation is de facto self-translation (Gagnon 2010a: 254), where producers of the originals and the translations are the same, the institution and the institution exerts control over every stage of the ST and the TT productions. In doing so, institutional images are reinforced and often changed in the translations. Although translational activities are very common in governments, surprisingly, translation issues related to politics and national institutional settings have received relatively little attention (Schäffner 2012), and no detailed research has been undertaken in regard to characteristics of the Korean government translation processes and products. Drawing on corpus-based methodology, this study examines translation processes and products in three Korean government institutions, the art web magazine, Art:Mu, in the National Museum of Contemporary Art, the press briefings by the spokesperson in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the speeches by President Lee Myung-bak, with a view to identifying different agents and procedures involved in institutional translation practices, linguistic and genre features of translations, changes made in translations compared to the ST, and how those different factors in the processes can influence the outcomes. For this study, a specially designed parallel corpus of Korean and English, the Korean Institutional Corpus (KIC), is compiled incorporating 151,546 words. It is shown that the more important the originals and the translation in terms of strategy and diplomacy, the higher degree of control in the process and the bigger changes in terms of frequency are found in the translations. It is hoped that this study will enhance our understanding of how factors of the processes can affect the products and encourage the development of translation practices in Korea.

The gap between theory and practice has long been an issue of discussion in Translation Studies, particularly in the pedagogy of translation. While the teaching of theory has been an integral part of translator education in academic institutions, students and practitioners of translation tend to think that practice should be prioritised over theory. Although scholars have often argued the benefit of theoretical knowledge of translation to practice, the discussions have tended to lack empirical evidence, relying heavily on anecdotal evidence provided by teachers as well as the beliefs of scholars. Against this background, the present study aims to generate a translators’ version of translation theory from working practitioners’ meta-discourse about their professional practice. The main source of data comes from semi-structured interviews with seventeen successful translators who work in the language combination of English and Japanese. Using a methodologically eclectic approach (drawing on grounded theory, narrative inquiry and Discursive Psychology), the translators’ theorisation patterns are explored, which is then compared with various theories of translation that are popular within academia or related to the study outcomes. The study revealed that the major concepts presented in the interviewees’ theorisation are: role of participants and natural/literal translations. Their accounts demonstrated a particular narrative structure involving the concepts of text type, money, feedback and repeated commission. In addition, scarce use of metaphor was identified as their discursive characteristics. By comparing the outcomes with the theories found within academia, I argue that the similarities and differences identified can be fed into translation pedagogy, particularly in relation to the notions presented in the theory of translatorial action, norm theory, skopos theory and dichotomous notions of translation such as foreignising and domesticating translations. Some suggestions of how to use those outcomes in the classroom will be presented too.

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This thesis aims to assess the value of live interpretation as a tool of communication, by treating it as a form of design, and by comparing examples of practice in the field with other contemporary design techniques. Chapter two lists a selection of active practitioners across the field of informal and formal education, and entertainment within the area of Britain's cultural heritage. It provides a taste of the professional industry, and includes information like how many interpreters are employed, what techniques they favour, and what educational programmes they run. Likewise in the voluntary /hobbyist sector, the chapter notes membership numbers, public activities, and training facilities. Chapter three establishes the communication model against which the technique can be assessed. Chapter four concentrates on the practical value of the technique as a tool of communication, assessing its ability to adapt to visitor needs, to establish a communication channel, remain focused, to develop and to cope with visitor orientation. It also questions its practical and mental durability. Chapter five looks at motivation and links the public popularity, both as consumers and practitioners, of live interpretation with the growth of the movement towards 'bottom up' history, which the author phrases as, 'history for the people, about the people, by the people.' One of the main problems governing the quality of practice in the field stems from the uneasy relationship of the two parents of live interpretation: education and entertainment. Both of these areas run as themes throughout the work. Chapter six raises the question of the power invested in interpreters, what it means, where it comes from, and how its subsequent responsibilities are being met. The conclusion asks why should improvements be made, and what sectors are in greatest need of improvement. It includes a suggested agenda for a code of practice for the future.

The aim of the current study is to investigate how participants manage topics in online one-to-one English conversation instruction conducted through synchronous voice-based computer-mediated communication. To date, much work has been done on text-based media in the field of CMC. Recently, researchers have started becoming interested in examining spoken interaction. However, no research has yet been done on topic management in online one-to-one English conversation classes conducted through synchronous voice-based CMC. This study is the first to conduct a micro-analysis of non-verbal elements, such as pitch, volume, intonation, laughter, pauses, inhalations and exhalations, as well as verbal elements, to investigate what sort of interactions participants in online one-to-one conversation classes develop to manage topics during their classes. Thus, this study is expected to play a pioneering role in promoting further research into such classes. In order to illuminate how the participants in the online English classes managed topics during their conversations, four research questions were developed: first, how are topics initiated? second, how are topics maintained? third, how are topics terminated and changed? and fourth, how does trouble and repair in topic management occur? The research findings were obtained through the analysis of the spoken data from the perspective of Conversation Analysis (CA) so that paralinguistic forms as well as the interactional and sequential organisation of talk the participants produce could be analysed in order to answer the research questions. The findings obtained from the analysis revealed various actions associated with topic management that were performed during the online conversation classes. It was found that the participants initiate or proffer topics using questions and statements including topical items, that they maintain topics by employing two fundamental strategies: giving a preferred response or giving a response showing interest, and that they change topics mainly by engaging in collaborative topic transitions forming a topic boundary. It was also found that trouble and repair in topic management occurs: that is, inadequate lexical knowledge, rejection of a proffered topic, and technical problems and other interference affect the sequence of topic management. The findings of the current study will therefore contribute to current research into social interactions that occur during the management of topics in online English one-to-one conversation classes, since this is a subject that has not previously been studied in the fields of either CMC or CA. Accordingly, this study is also expected to fill a gap in these areas of research.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of self-regulated learning in the development of expertise in conference interpreting for trainee interpreters. It aims to identify and quantify the learner factors affecting the development of expertise in interpreting and their interrelationships, chart their changes over time, and specify their relationship to interpreting performance. Participants were thirty Stage-1 students and eleven Stage-2 direct-entry students admitted into the MA in Translating and Interpreting Programme (Chinese strand) at Newcastle University in September 2009. Quantitative data were collected at three time points over the course of the academic year with the aid of a self-designed questionnaire. Trainee interpreters’ motivational beliefs and metacognitive knowledge of strategies were found to be major influences on their use of self-regulated learning strategies. Motivational beliefs and strategy use predicted interpreting performances. In turn, interpreting performances were found to influence subsequent motivational beliefs, metacognitive knowledge and strategy use. Student entry characteristics such as level of language on entry and age played a moderating role in the relations between the cognitive and motivational factors and the development of self-regulation, as well as in the relations between self-regulated learning and the development of expertise in interpreting. These findings can be seen in the context of a model of expertise development in interpreting. The findings highlight the role of modifiable learner factors in interpreter training theories, as well as the role of unmodifiable learner factors in deliberate-practice or self-regulated learning approaches to the learning of interpreting. The key implication of the study for interpreter training practice is that teaching and learning need to focus more on the adaptive use of self-regulated learning strategies, rather than solely emphasizing time spent practising. At the same time, strategy use needs to be taught as part of a framework of motivational and cognitive factors, rather than in isolation.

This thesis explores questions of functional morphology in morphosyntactic theory and in second language acquisition. The work develops Emonds' (2000) notion of a Syntacticon as the store of grammatical lexical items in the Lexicon and it explores the interaction between morphology and syntax in syntactic derivation. The focus of the work is the resultative construction (e.g. She painted the table red). As a resultative, the string conforms to a regular syntactic structure and gives rise to an interpretation in which there is an agent that acts upon some object so as to effect some change of state. In this work, resultative formation in English is contrasted with resultative formation in Korean because the latter, but not the former, includes an obligatory functional result morpheme, -key. The proposed analysis of the resultative accounts for both the morphological and syntactic facts in English and Korean. Additionally, traditional notions of subcategorization are developed, using a Feature-based approach in order to explain the lexical restrictions associated with resultatives. The thesis also includes an experimental study of the acquisition of English resultatives by native Korean and Mandarin Chinese speakers. These languages were chosen in order to highlight the mismatch between Korean and English resultative formation in terms of functional morphology. Accepting the Full Transfer/Full Access model of Schwartz and sprouse (1996), the whole of the native language is assumed to transfer to form the initial state of second language acquisition. The results of the experimental study provide support for the claim that functional morphology, like that implicated in Korean resultative formation, transfers from the native language to affect the development of the Interlanguage in second language acquisition.

This thesis presents a project-based syllabus as an innovative approach to translator training in higher education. The learner-centred syllabus raises the awareness of translation skills and competences among trainee translators and can provide an enhanced all-round translator training in higher education, from an academic as well as a vocational perspective. The project-based syllabus was trialled in the module Translation and Technology of the Master’s degree in Translation Studies at Durham University (UK), which aims to familiarise students with internet-based and computer-aided translation tools. A three-year study conducted between 2009 and 2012 was an inquiry into the impact of the syllabus on students’ translation competences and skills. The quality and quantity of literature since the 1980s have shown that Translation Studies has become an independent discipline, partly thanks to scholars who have mapped the discipline, such as Holmes (1988) and Toury (1995, 2012), and others who have directed the spotlights on didactics, such as Kiraly (1995) and Pym (1993 - present) among others. The discussion of didactics and pedagogy, particularly in relation to translation technology, is to be found mainly in articles, chapters in collected volumes, or in conference papers. Against this background, the project-based syllabus is put forward as a suitable and complementary teaching method which helps students meet academic as well as professional requirements. In the thesis, I will place the project-based syllabus in context, describe its origin, discuss the rationale for its implementation, and the outcomes of the study.