Armonía Somers (Uruguay 1917 – 1994) ha sido clasificada dentro de la llamada Generación del 45 de Uruguay, sin embargo, muchos críticos aseguran que su obra difiere de la estética del período en que escribió. Mientras Ángel Rama sugiere que la narrativa de Somers pertenece a la tradición de los raros y malditos, que desciende del extraño linaje del Conde franco-uruguayo y poeta Lautréamont, otros la colocan en el ámbito de la narrativa imaginativa y de lo fantástico. La crítica contemporánea se aproxima a la obra de Somers a partir del concepto de lo extraño o “Unheimlich”, abordando las novelas de la autora desde una perspectiva freudiana, lacaniana o heideggeriana. No obstante, ninguna de estas investigaciones ha determinado a qué género u orientación literaria se aviene, ni han indagado en profundidad sobre su contribución a los estudios metaficcionales. En esta tesis propongo que las novelas de Armonía Somers, “La mujer desnuda” (1950), “De miedo en miedo. Los manuscritos del río” (1965), “Un retrato para Dickens” (1969), “Viaje al corazón del día. Elegía por un amor secreto” (1986), y “Solo los elefantes encuentran mandrágora” (1986), transgreden los géneros y tendencias literarias dominantes en su época por medio de una imaginación excesiva y de una trama anti-dramática, asociada primordialmente con la experiencia del terror sublime y la representación de lo inexpresable o irrepresentable, ambas nociones correspondientes a la poética expresionista de vanguardia y al gótico postmoderno. Las novelas analizadas en este trabajo presentan en su estructura una amplia gama de formas ambiguas e inorgánicas, cuya función desestabiliza los aspectos formales del realismo y subvierte los postulados epistemológicos e ideológicos en que se apoyan las culturas afirmativas, las cuales legitiman solo cierto concepto de realidad, desentendiéndose del resto de las experiencia humanas que no encajan en sus esquemas. La desacralización, la disolución moral, la muerte simbólica y la naturaleza fluida de la identidad junto con una marcada autorreflexividad, son algunos de los temas más relevantes de este conjunto de obras, que he categorizado como un ejemplo del expresionismo gótico postmoderno del siglo XX.

Moderna språk är oftast lågt prioriterade i dagens skola av både elever och av personalen, trots att mycket i samhällsutvecklingen idag pekar på att det blir en allt mer eftertraktad egenskap att kunna behärska flera språk. Lärarnas riksförbund har pååekat detta dilemma i en rapport om moderna språk som gjordes i 2016. Syftet med detta arbete är att med utgångspunkt i en diskussion kring elevers avhopp från ämnet moderna språk bidra till en djupare förståelse av vad skolan kan göra för att undvika sådana avhopp. Med andra ord är syftet att svara på frågan hur skolan kan påverka elevens motivation så att lusten att lära sig ett nytt språk kvarstår under grundskolans gång? Undersökningen är genomförd med en metod som utgår ifrån en kvalitativ analys av data vars insamling delvis har gjorts med hjälp av en kvantitativ metod. Enkäter delades ut bland elever i en grundskola åk 6-9 och därefter genomfördes kompletterande intervjuer av personal som arbetar med moderna språk: språklärare, specialpedagog, studie-och yrkesvägledare (SYV) och en rektor. Det analytiska arbetet med insamlade data har sin teoretiska grund i Zoltán Dörnyeis arbete Motivational Strategies in the Language Classrom (2001) och i Alastair Henrys arbete Tredjespåksinlärning och motivation (2016). Undersökningens enkätresultat visar att prestation och betyg är viktigare för eleverna och att det kan vara avgörande när det gäller att fortsäta eller inte med moderna språk. Resultatet från intervjuerna upplyser att informanterna är väl medvetna om problematiken kring avhopp av moderna språk. Samtidigt som både elever och personal på skolan inser att nyckeln för att förebygga avhopp ligger i undervisningsformen. Slutsatsen är att vuxna informanterna behöver ta del av de nya rön inom språkinlärnings motivationsteorier för att det ska reflekteras i hur undervisningen bredrivs.

In the past century, grammar instruction has aroused debate among scholars and instructors in the field of second language teaching and acquisition without absolute consensus. However, for the acquisition of Chinese grammar by adult L2 learners, there is wider acceptance that grammar should be taught due to the unique Chinese grammatical features. The issue in question is merely on how to teach Chinese grammar effectively. Hence, inspired by many other comparative studies on explicit and implicit instruction methods for teaching Western languages such as English, French, Spanish and so forth, the researcher conducted an empirical study to investigate the effectiveness of the two instruction methods on Chinese grammar acquisition. The current study consisted of two experiments, involving two target forms: Affirmative-Negative Questions (A-Not-A Questions) and the perfective aspect particle LE (了). The participants were beginning level Chinese language learners who studied Chinese as a second language in two class sections of the Elementary Non-intensive Chinese Class at a large public university. They formed two comparative groups naturally. During the two experiments, the explicit group was provided with explicit knowledge of grammar patterns, examples carrying the patterns and opportunities to practice with the teacher’s explicit corrective feedback, while implicit group received input without any grammatical knowledge or explanation. The teacher would give recast feedback (implicit) if students made mistakes in their practice. Importantly, the explicit and implicit teaching groups were reversed in the second experiment, in order to enable each group to be exposed to both the explicit and the implicit teaching conditions. Analysis of the results obtained from immediate-tests and delayed post-tests yielded three main findings: first, learners who had received explicit grammar instruction treatment overall gained greater improvement in their knowledge of, and their ability to use the target forms in the short term; second, when it comes to longer-term effects, both groups in the two experiments showed loss, in varying degrees, in the knowledge of and the ability to use the target forms; third, explicit instruction was of more advantage for L2 Chinese learners when they are learning more complex rules.

Para hacer este estudio de los tipos y costumbres en los Sueños de Quevedo, he tomado la edición de Julio Cejador y Frauca, titulada Quevedo: Los Sueños. Esta edición es una de dos tomos en los Clásicos castellanos. Así, al pintar a los muchos tipos que hay en la obra, el explicar y mostrar la sátira de Quevedo, tengo que aludir mucho a Los Sueños. Hablo en estas páginas mías de oasi todos los tipos que satiriza Quevedo, pero ni incluyó a los herejes; y esto por varias razones. Primero, no son ellos tipos que podemos apreciar hoy, ni son tan interesantes como los tipos de la vida diaria. Además, al hablar de ellos, Quevedo cuenta la historia de varios herejes, y casi todos los nombres y los incidentes los sacó de varios libros acerca de los herejes que se habían publicado en aquellos tiempos cuando la cuestión era de muy gran importancia. Los tipos de oficiales, de trabajadores, de caballeros y de mujeres, y las costumbres que había entre este grupo me parecen interesantes y muy realistas, aunque muy exagerados en las pinturas de Quevedo.

El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha sits at the crossroads of two defined Spanish early modern contexts, combining Renaissance ideals with Baroque elements into one Golden Age masterpiece. The theme of duality present throughout the work finds true expression in Cervantes’ well-educated protagonist, Alonso Quijano. In him, the reader glimpses the struggle between antiquity versus early modernity, ideality versus reality, instability versus sanity, and unhealthiness versus healthiness. These medical themes and the underlying sociocultural facets will be investigated by thoroughly evaluating Cervantes’ treatment of human consciousness. In doing so, this study aims to explore the following questions: to what extent does Cervantes present relevant medical knowledge applicable to the Renaissance and Baroque periods of Spanish history? How do these medical allusions and references influence the reader’s perception of Don Quixote as insane? Could/Would a medical diagnosis of some neurologically or psychologically based disorder be applied? Finally, to what extent of the protagonist’s behavior may be medically attributed and to what extent may be the result of sociocultural disconnection? Following an in-depth review of Spanish literature and medical knowledge, it will be necessary to examine the work for episodes in which Don Quixote experiences pronounced fatigue, forgetting spells, head trauma, sleep disturbances, and headaches. This psychoanalytical process of interpreting Spanish medicine through the lens of literature illuminates the scientific background inherent in the novel and establishes a foundation for uncovering the connections between medicine, culture, and literature in Golden Age Spain.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the subject modern languages in 2022 is conceived by students and teachers in Swedish secondary school at present. This study makes use of a variety of motivational strategies and theories that together form the framework for the analysis of the participants’ answers. This study aims to provide recent research in the field of students’ motivation and how it is influenced by their surroundings and by intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors. This investigation concludes that the status of the subject “modern languages” in 2022 does not differ much compared to what the Dannvik Duregård found in her article (2010). Modern language teachers perceive their subject as having low priority, and they wish for the subject to be non-replaceable to other languages in school such as Swedish and English. Students report that they would not work with the subject in other ways if the subject was not mandatory. Furthermore, the investigation shows that student motivation contingent upon the fact that the subject is replaceable and that they perceive the subject to be more difficult than other school subjects. Finally, the investigation also reports that students use the opportunity to drop out of language studies for other reasons than the need for more teaching in Swedish and English, which was the main purpose from the beginning.

Thesis (M.Litt.) - University of Glasgow, 2008. / M.Litt. thesis submitted to the Department of Education, University of Glasgow, 2008. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Selected forms of three Isle Royale fishermen’s folklife expressions – material folk culture, social folk custom and narrative folklore – were documented and analyzed. The informants are representative of the group of Scandinavian fishermen who operated commercial fisheries on Isle Royale from the 1880s to date. Documentary and analytical emphasis centered on occupational aspects of their folklife expressions and the fishermen’s perception of the island archipelago. Accordingly, special interest was focused on the fishermen’s interplay with the Lake Superior and Isle Royale environs. Selected folklife expressions were analyzed to uncover fishermen’s cognitive and affective responses to their insular environment. Analysis of their folklife expressions revealed the depth of fishermen’s knowledge, interest and acceptance of “the island” environment. Complicating the documentary and analytical goals of this study were two major influences that have disrupted the fishermen’s livelihood: namely, Isle Royale became a national park and the depletion of lake trout numbers in Lake Superior. The continued existence of commercial fishing on Isle Royale is threatened, as is the fishermen’s folklife expressions. Consequently, the change brought about by outside influences has changed fishermen’s perception of Isle Royale.

This thesis is an empirical and interdisciplinary investigation into the consecutive conference interpreter’s (CCIr) role as intercultural mediator. It seeks to determine whether there is a case for intercultural mediation in conference interpreting despite the greater degree of cultural transparency that characterises discourse in conference interpreting situations (CISs) when compared with other settings such as community and/or court interpreting. It also proposes an account of the CCIr’s role as intercultural mediator as an alternative to other accounts of the interpreter’s role in the literature on conference interpreting because those accounts do not explain clearly the CCIr’s role or are in conflict with very well-established concepts and principles associated with translation/interpreting such as faithfulness, accuracy, neutrality or accessibility. The account of the CCIr’s role as intercultural mediator is derived from the principles of a theoretical framework that draws on the findings of the theory of sense (Seleskovitch and Lederer 1995) and Sperber and Wilson’s (1986; 1995) relevance theory of communication (RT). The account provides the basis for formulating a clearer definition of the concept of intercultural mediation in the context of consecutive conference interpreting (CCI). Analyses of two types of data underpin the investigation: data from authentic examples from interpreters’ actual performance and data from 295 responses to a worldwide survey of professional conference interpreters conducted by this researcher for use in this thesis. Results of both analyses confirm the case for intercultural mediation in CISs and the validity of the proposed account of the CCIr’s role as intercultural mediator though situationality has been found to play an important role in the extent to which intercultural mediation is needed. Results also shed light on CCIrs’ use of cultural mediation procedures and the role of interpreters’ professional status, experience and language direction on their ability/willingness to perform intercultural mediation.

Translation evaluation is one of the main concerns of translation theorists, members of translation revision boards, and most importantly it is the concern of translator trainers. Translation quality has often been associated with the correctness of the grammatical structure and the appropriateness of the lexical item. Little concern has empirically been given to units larger than the sentence, i.e. text. This seems to be the result of the prevailing linguistic trend that has put more emphasis on a -context-free' sentence, rather than on text in context. This study proposes to investigate, discuss and develop a translation quality assessment model that takes text, not a sentence as the ultimate aim of analysis. The study will also attempt to explore the theoretical and practical implications of the model to be developed for the training of translators in the Arab world. The model to be developed should be based on the definition that translation is the replacement of a text in the source language by a semantically, pragmatically and textually equivalent text in the target language. Text, then, is the focus of interest in this study. Therefore, the model will be developed within the framework of text lingui4Vics for which text is regarded as a communicative occurrence. The developed model will serve as a means to evaluating the quality of Arabic-English translations of a particular type of texts, argumentative text type. Therefore, two argumentative texts in the form of newspaper editorials, selected from two Moroccan quality newspapers will be analyzed along the dimensions of what will be known in this study as a Situational/Textual model. The resultant "textual profile" will, then, be taken as a "yardstick" against which will be measured 81 translations collected from Fand School of Advanced Translation (FST) and 5 from the department of modern languages, Salford University (SU). The first introductory chapter lays out the main arguments of the thesis. Chapters two and three present and discuss sentence-oriented translation models, and text-oriented translation models respectively. Chapter four presents and discusses the following: a) the three aspects of meaning: semantic, pragmatic, and textual, b) language function vs. text function, and finally C) House's (1981) model of translation quality assessment. Chapter five presents the method of operation, discusses the decision criteria needed to deal with the dimensions linguistic correlates, and finally illustrates the extended situational/textual model for translation quality assessment. Chapter six is the application of the model on the two Arabic argumentative texts. In addition, argumentative text structure will be discussed and the difference between Arabic and English argumentative texts will be explained. Finally, chapter seven includes the source language text (SLT), and the target language text (TLT) statement of comparison and statement of quality, and a discussion of the theoretical implication of the model for the training of translators in the Arab world.