The aims of the current study are threefold. The first aim is to investigate how writing reflective journals may facilitate student interpreters’ learning process in becoming more reflective and in assessing their own interpreting performance. The second aim is to investigate the relationship between self-assessment and reflection. The third aim is to explore how different scaffolding tools may have influenced the development of students’ reflective thinking and their approach to self-assessment. Initially, educational theories, theoretical constructs on reflection and learner self-assessment were reviewed to examine the concepts of reflection and self-assessment in the context of interpreter training. Empirical studies on the functions of reflective journals and on self-assessment, particularly those carried out in the field of interpreting were explored to help the researcher design the theoretical framework. As a case study, logbooks were collected from students taking introductory interpreting courses in a translator and interpreter training institute in a British university. The main method adopted for the analysis of the logbooks collected was thematic analysis. The themes which emerged from the data enabled the researcher to explain how writing reflective journals can shape student interpreters’ learning process and how scaffolding tools used in the study influence students’ self-assessment and reflection. The study found that the student interpreters in this case study focused more on self-assessment of their interpretation performance in their logbooks. However, this study also found evidence showing that writing logbooks have indeed helped students to become more reflective. The scaffolding tools provided, according to the result of this case study, appear to have significant influence to help some participants to move beyond reflecting on individual learning experience and to think about the learning experience from a long-term perspective.

Narratives are increasingly intermedial nowadays and adaptation is prominent in the performing arts (e.g. theatre, opera) and in various forms of media (e.g. film, television, radio, video games). The process of adaptation has been paralleled to that of translation, as both deal with the transfer of meaning from one sociocultural context to another. In a similar vein, translation has been viewed as a process of adaptation when the communicated message needs to be tailored to the values of the target culture. Nevertheless, a framework building on the affinities of translation and adaptation remains relatively under-researched. A model for a systematic adaptation analysis seems to be currently missing in Adaptation Studies. Translation Studies can also benefit from a closer look into the workings of cultural production. An analysis of adaptation as intersemiotic and intermedial translation can give rise to the factors that condition the flow of narratives across media and cultures. Such an analysis can also shed light on the relationship between cultural products and the socio-temporal context that accommodates them. To this end, the present project aims at examining the film adaptation process from a hermeneutic point of view, looking into both textual and contextual parameters that monitor the adaptation process. A model towards the systematic analysis and interpretation of the changes occurring in the adaptation process (i.e. adaptation shifts) is also developed to fulfil this aim. The model draws upon insights from Translation Studies, Film Studies and Narratology and has a descriptive/comparative and an interpretive component. The former is used to examine adaptation as an audiovisual text in relation to its source material and the latter deconstructs the adaptation process in relation to the agents and contexts involved. The model can thus contribute to a systematic study of adaptations and to a better understanding of the adaptation/translation process.

Although translation memory systems have become one of the most important computer-assisted translation tools, the development of systems able to retrieve Translation Memory (TM) files on the basis of semantic similarity has hitherto been limited. In this study, we investigate the use of Explicit Semantic Analysis (ESA), a semantic similarity measure that represents meanings in natural language texts by using knowledge bases such as Wikipedia, as a possible solution to this problem. While ESA may be used to improve TM systems, at present the evaluation of semantic processing techniques in the context of TM is not fully developed because the use of semantic similarity measures in TM systems has been limited. The study hence aims to evaluate ESA for its specific application in TM systems. The evaluation is performed within a knowledge management framework as this provides a suitable technical context. A software platform called the ESA Information Retrieval platform was designed to test the performance of ESA in TM system tasks using three different text genres: technical reports, popular scientific articles and financial texts. The aim of the evaluation was not only to improve our understanding of how ESA can be applied to TM systems, but also to examine certain textual factors that may have an impact on their performance. It was found that the use of ESA was able to create different ways of utilising translation suggestions. On the basis of the results obtained, both the existing problems of using ESA in TM systems and the future perspectives of TM systems are discussed. This study not only contributes to our understanding of employing semantic processing techniques in TM systems but also presents a new knowledge management perspective for the development of translation technology.

Drawing on a number of theoretical frameworks in second language acquisition, the current study investigates a group of American learners of Spanish (N=73) as they spend a semester in Spain, studying in either Barcelona or Granada. Individual differences such as pre-program L2 proficiency, attitudes and motivational perspectives are examined in order to determine if they have any relationship with the students’ development of social relationships while abroad, with a particular focus on the students’ interactions, or lack thereof, with Spanish speakers. The study also employs a longitudinal approach in order to trace any changes in these affective variables. Data from observations and informal interviews are utilised to support the analysis and uncover any emergent themes which can be seen to impact on the residence abroad. The findings indicate that the students’ experiences are extremely varied, especially when comparing those who study in Barcelona with those who study in Granada. Attitude and motivational orientations also change dramatically throughout the SA program, with most tending to decline over the period of time abroad. The results suggest that such changes are largely dictated by the individual experiences of the learners, with social interaction playing a key role in linguistic development. The results demonstrate that both cultural and linguistic motives prove key in explaining learner behaviours abroad, thus providing support for analysis of second language acquisition abroad from a Dynamic Systems Theory perspective.

Translation into and between foreign languages has become a common practice in the professional setting. However, this translation directionality has yet to be thoroughly explored, especially when post-editing is involved. The present study conducts experiments on the application of machine translation (MT) and translation memory (TM) in a translation classroom setting. A group of Malay speakers, who are non-native speakers of Arabic and English, used MemoQ 2014 to translate technical Arabic and English texts by post-editing raw MT and modified TM outputs containing several errors. The non-native trainee translators’ productivity was measured and the quality of the translation was assessed through error analysis approach based on the MeLLANGE error typology so that it could provide a comprehensive analysis of the types of errors commonly found in the non-native trainee translators’ translations. The error annotation also aims to provide guidelines for translators who work with the Arabic-English language pair and non-native translators. The present study revealed that the translation technologies helped improve the non-native translators’ speed and quality. The study also discovered that syntactic and lexical errors are the most problematic in the PE tasks. The trainee translators tend to overlook the errors that were caused by cross-linguistic influence, such as articles, gender, number and the conjunction “wa”. However, this could have been avoided if the participants revised their translations thoroughly because most of the errors are minor. The study also revealed that the non-native trainee translators could be as productive as the professional native translators because they managed to reach the average daily productivity for professional translators, which is at least 5,000 words per day.

The changing British economic climate and the austerity-led contractualism across public services have brought the role of interpreting agencies to the fore. Drawing on conceptual frameworks derived from the sociology of professions, knowledge-based organisations and institutional theory, this study documents the institutional work of a number of interpreter-turned-managers aimed at creating new practices against the corporatisation logic in the field of public service interpreting (PSI). Through closely observing the everyday managerial operations of interpreting work processes, these findings reveal that interpreters’ ‘professional project’ at the local level is carried out through the institutionalisation of their professional jurisdictions and knowledge claims. The micro-tactics employed by frontline managers constitute important forces of resistance against the procurement logic and sharply contrasts against the outcome of senior-level professionalisation strategies. Therefore, this thesis has made the following contributions. Theoretically, it challenges the traditional ‘association-centred approach’ to modelling the trajectory of PSI and highlights the role of commercial agencies in engineering the work practices of interpreters and the formation of organisational professionalism. It argues that agencies have gone beyond the traditional role of an information broker to a key institutional gatekeeper and central arena for inducing field-level change. An alternative hybrid model is proposed in order to reflect that PSI is changing from a technical profession towards a managed profession, in which traditional values are increasingly merged with business principles and market tenets. Empirically, it provides novel insights into the organisation of interpreting services in practice and opens up the unexplored field of interpreting agencies as a fruitful research site. A wider implication of the research is the need to extend the notion of the interpreting workplace beyond the space where communication-mediation tasks are performed, to where interpreting services are planned, organised and managed. Importantly, professional interpreters should be consulted in the procurement process rather than being treated as numbers by mainstream agencies for contract-bidding purpose.

No description available.

This thesis focuses on tracking the development of 17 tertiary English language learners (ELLs) studying how to write job application letters. The research took place within the context of a Business Writing in English module, in which the pedagogy was informed by a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach to genre. While much genre-based research in educational settings examines pedagogic practices, Cheng (2006) urges genre researchers to focus on learner development. In this project, learner development in writing job application letters was of interest for two reasons: (a) the letters were new to the learners, in the project's national context and (b) the letters required the complex task of both: demonstration of suitability for jobs and maintenance of appropriate social relations with presumed readers. Within their coursework, the 17 learner-participants wrote three job application letters, in response to three job advertisements, at three points in time. For the 17 participants, demonstration of suitability for the jobs was examined. For three of these participants, a mor.e detailed analysis was carried out, concerning their management of social relations with their presumed readers. Analysis for tracking development was informed by SFL and focussed on the lexicogrammatical and register strata, in relation to the generic staging of a job application letter. Participant interviews and feedback from Human Resources professionals supplemented the linguistic analyses. From the findings, three main conclusions are drawn and presented with reference to Halliday's (2004) language learning triad: (a) 'learning language' - genre development can be seen through the participants' appropriate expansion, organisation, and variation of repertoire; (b) 'learning through language' - genre development can be seen through the participants' 'resemiotisation' (ledema, 2003) of themselves as job applicants; (c) 'learning about language' - genre development can be seen through the participants' demonstration of 'practical' and 'discursive' knowledge (Giddens, 1984). Based on insights from the research, policy and practice implications are offered. Finally, further research directions are suggested.

No description available.

This project examines the ways in which missionary periodicals served as a vehicle for ideas about India in the first half of the nineteenth century. Focusing on Baptist missions in Bengal, it traces the parallel themes of 'the family' and 'the heathen' in published missionaries' accounts and explores how they served pragmatic and rhetorical functions throughout the period. By reconstructing these narratives and following these themes over time, we can get a better sense of the role they played in developing the connections between missionaries and converts, metropole and periphery. Beginning with the establishment of the Serampore mission in 1800, 1 utilize the parallel stories of the 'Serampore mission family' and two families of converts to show how these concepts underpinned the structure and organization of the mission and were incorporated into the missionaries' narratives. As the years progressed, these themes-often closely interrelated-assumed more rhetorical value as missionaries became more conscious of the role of their own narratives in generating support among their home audiences, especially women and children. From Serampore 1 broaden the perspective from individuals to communities. With the establishment of 'Christian villages' for converts and the development of what I call 'spotlight' mission stations, many missionaries became keenly aware of the central role of their narratives in the maintenance and extension of missions. From communities 1 shift to institutions, examining the increasingly rhetorical nature of these themes in connection with the Baptists' schools in Calcutta. The study ends with the 1855 conference of Baptist missionaries in Bengal, which represented a turning point in both management and narration as both became more centralized, and as these themes had fully evolved from structural to rhetorical.