M.A. / The purpose of basal readers is to teach children to read. When a child has the opportunity to learn to read in his native language, his chances on success in learning and reading increase, because the language is known to him. The current policy on education determines that children should receive instruction in their mother-tongue, especially in the first year. Keeping this in view, this study considers the possibility of making translated basal readers available to African languages, and more specifically, to Northern Sotho. Chapter 1 discusses criteria set for proper basal readers and evaluates existing Afrikaans readers accordingly. In Chapter 2, children's literature are discussed in terms of characteristics and background. The development of children's literature in Northern Sotho is briefly discussed as well. Theoretical issues concerning transposition and translation are discussed in Chapter 3 to determine what are involved in transposition and translation and what aspects are transposed and translated. Chapter 4 deals with the empirical application of the theory. Problems transposers and translators are faced with are discussed with the aid of applicable examples.

No abstract available / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / African Languages / unrestricted

No description available.

Studying the last century and a half of Ukrainian linguistic history reveals relentless attempts to stifle the development of Ukrainian as well as to suppress translation activities under both the tsarist and Soviet regimes. Exploring the morphological evolution of the Ukrainian language discloses evidence of terminological inconsistencies due to the lexical russification of Ukrainian during the Soviet regime, leading to inconsistencies between the standard of Ukrainian used in the Soviet Union versus that used in the diaspora. Additional examination of Ukrainian linguistic history discloses political motives for banning translations, refusing the right to translate, censoring translations, and punishing translators who rejected the mandatory Soviet literary norm of Socialist Realism. In order to further understand the implications of translation practices in the Ukrainian SSR, it is important to examine the language policies, political agendas and translation practices prior to and throughout the Soviet regime. This thesis explores and analyses the russification of Ukrainian through translation policies designed to fulfil Soviet political and ideological agendas. It compares power differentials between Russian and Ukrainian, as well as between Russian and other minority languages in translation, and examines the resulting terminological inconsistencies. It shows unequivocally how translation, transliteration, and censorship were used to foster linguicide and assimilate Ukrainian minorities, from the late tsarist era to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

One of the most interesting aspects of Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1999[1946]) is its dual address. The illustrated narrative is at once a charming story for children and an allegory inviting adults to consider philosophical questions. In the graphic-novel adaptation of the book by Joann Sfar (2008), this allegory is obscured:; the abstract, philosophical ideas recede to the background while the material details of the story become more prominent. But this recession of the allegory does not mean that the adaptation turns its back on adult readers completely. The graphic novel creates a web of intertextual references, which, among other things, amplify the suggestion in the source text that the protagonist is Antoine de Saint-Exupéry himself. It thus displaces the adult interest from allegory to autobiography and the mechanism of adult address from allegory to intertextuality, restricting its adult audience. For those adult readers who remain addressed by the graphic novel, however, the text identifies itself explicitly as a translation, which has consequences for we should think about the “voice” of the translator. Un des aspects les plus intéressants du livre Le Petit Prince d’Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1999 [1946]) tient au fait que le récit illustré est une histoire charmante pour les enfants en même temps qu’il invite les adultes à réfléchir à des questions philosophiques. Dans l’adaptation du récit en bande dessinée par Joann Sfar (2008), les éléments abstraits du livre s’estompent derrière les détails concrets de l’histoire. Cet effacement de l’allégorie ne signifie pourtant pas que la bande dessinée tourne le dos aux adultes : elle crée un réseau intertextuel qui renforce l’impression donnée par le texte source que le véritable protagoniste est Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Ainsi, l’intérêt pour les questions philosophiques se reporte sur l’autobiographie et, passant de l’allégorie à l’intertextualité, la bande dessinée sollicite alors moins les adultes. Cependant, pour les adultes auquelles la bande dessinée s’addresse toujours, le texte s’identifie explicitement comme une traduction, ce qui implique une réévaluation du concept de la “voix” du traducteur.

Understanding translation efficiency is crucial to pharmaceutical companies that have invested substantial time and effort in engineering bacteria to produce recombinant proteins. While translation initiation and elongation have been studied intensively, much remains obscure in the subprocess of translation termination. We aim to understand how stop codons and the first 3’ flanking (+4) base affect translation termination efficiency. In chapter two, we hypothesized that stop codon usage of UAG and UGA is dependent on the abundance of their respective decoders, RF1 and RF2. We predicted and observed that bacterial species with high relative proportions of RF1 uses UAG more, and vice versa for UGA. In addition, the usage of UGA, not UAG, is always avoided in highly expressed genes. Thus, we argued against the claim made by a recent study that UAG is a minor stop codon in bacteria. The claim is incorrect because UAG does not meet the two criteria of a minor codon: i) it is most avoided in highly expressed genes, and ii) it corresponds to the least abundant decoder. Interestingly, we found that the proportion of RF2 decreases rapidly towards zero in species with high AT contents; this explains why UGA is reassigned to a sense codon in bacterial lineages with high AT content. In chapter three, we examined the role of the first downstream (+4) base Uracil in bacterial translation termination. The +4U is associated with a decrease in stop codon read-through in bacteria and yeast. We hypothesized that i) +4U enhances the termination efficiency of stop signals, and ii) +4U may serve to prevent stop codon misreading by near cognate tRNAs (nc_tRNAs). We predicted that i) +4U is preferred in highly expressed genes (HEGs) than lowly expressed genes (LEGs), and ii) +4U usage increases with the frequency of stop codon nc_tRNAs. We found +4U consistently over-represented in HEGs in contrast to LEGs; however, +4U usage in HEGs decreases in GC-rich species where most stop codons are UGA and UAG. In addition, +4U usage increases significantly with UAA usage in the known highly expressed ribosomal protein genes. These results suggest that +4U is a strong stop signal enhancer for UAA, not UAG or UGA. Furthermore, in HEGs, +4U usage also increases significantly with the abundance of UAA nc_tRNAs, suggesting that +4U increases UAA termination efficiency presumably by reducing misreading of UAA by nc_tRNAs.

Identifying exploitable differences between cancer cells and normal cells has been ongoing since the dawn of cancer therapeutics. This task has proven difficult due to the complex genetic makeup of cancers. Tumours, however, share a low oxygen (hypoxic) microenvironment that selects for malignant cancer cells. It has recently been shown that cells switch from eIF4E to eIF4E2-mediated protein synthesis during periods of hypoxia, similar to those found in tumour cores. We hypothesize that this hypoxic translation complex is required for cell survival in hypoxia and can be targeted by inhibiting the eIF4E2 cap-binding protein. Here, we show that genetically diverse cancer cells require the cap-binding protein eIF4E2 for their growth, proliferation, and resistance to apoptosis in hypoxia, but not in normoxia. Furthermore, in vitro and in vivo eIF4E2-depleted tumour models cannot grow or sustain hypoxic regions without the reintroduction of exogenous eIF4E2. Thus, tumour cells could be targeted over somatic cells by selectively inhibiting their protein synthesis machinery, much like the function of antibiotics that revolutionized medicine.

Guided by the hypothesis that translation is a language contact situation that can influence language change, this study investigates a frequency shift from hypotactic to paratactic constructions in concessive and causal clauses in German management and business writing. The influence of the English SVO word order is assumed to cause language users of German to prefer verb-second, paratactic constructions to verb-final, hypotactic ones. The hypothesis is tested using a 1 million word diachronic corpus containing German translations and their source texts as well as a corpus of German non-translations. The texts date from 1982–3 and 2008, which allows a diachronic analysis of changes in the way English causal and concessive structures have been translated. The analysis shows that in the translations, parataxis is indeed becoming more frequent at the expense of hypotaxis, a phenomenon that, to some extent, also occurs in the non-translations. Based on a corpus of unedited draft translations, it can be shown that translators rather than editors are responsible for this shift. Most of the evidence, however, suggests that the shift towards parataxis is not predominantly caused by language contact with English. Instead, there seems to be a development towards syntactically simpler constructions in this genre, which is most evident in the strong tendency towards sentence-splitting and an increased use of sentence-initial conjunctions in translations and non-translations. This simplification seems to be compensated for, to some extent, by the establishment of pragmatic distinctions between specific causal and concessive conjunctions.

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo propor o acesso a uma parte ainda pouco conhecida da obra de Francis Ponge por meio da tradução de quinze textos selecionados, extraídos da antologia de textos inéditos e manuscritos intitulada Pages dAtelier 1917 1982, em diferentes formatos e escritos em diferentes períodos, aqui organizados em torno de quatro temas centrais: Reflexões sobre a literatura, Autorreflexões poéticas, Objetos textuais e Em torno do surrealismo. Considerando a abordagem pretendida, buscamos apresentar as principais características da obra do escritor francês, a saber, as questões da linguagem, a materialidade das palavras e a ausência de formas, além de contextualizar sua obra, discutindo suas influências e trazendo alguns dos diálogos estabelecidos em seus textos com escritores e filósofos franceses. Além disso, o trabalho traz a discussão da tradução e da antologia como espaços de reescrita, importante para se pensar a recepção de Ponge no Brasil. Por se tratar de uma tradução comentada, trazemos ainda uma discussão sobre os tipos de notas possíveis nessa prática. / This dissertation aims at allowing the access to a little known portion of Francis Ponges works by means of the translation of fifteen selected texts, extracted from his anthology of unedited works and manuscripts titled Pages dAtelier 1917-1982, written in different formats and periods, that are here organized around four central themes: Reflections on literature, Poetic self-reflections, Textual objects and On Surrealism. Considering the intended approach, we seek to present the main characteristics of the french writers work, namely, language issues, the materiality of the words and the absence of form, as well as contextualizing his work, discussing its influences and bringing some of the dialogues established in his texts with french writers and philosophers. In addition also, this work brings a debate about the translation and the anthology as places of rewriting, something that is important when we think about Ponges reception in Brazil. Because it is a commented translation, we bring as well a discussion on the possible types of notes in this kind of practice.

中國現代作家沈從文 (1902-1988) 的著作，自一九四九年開始在中國大陸 和台灣被禁，長達三十年。這期間，沈從文的文學成就被主流文學史忽略，甚 至否定。可以說，沈從文在中國的文學評論界，以至中國文學史“缺席”逾三 十年。八十年代初，中國大陸的政治環境改變，西方學者的影響增加，中國學 術界開始重新肯定沈從文的文學成就，沈從文的名字乃得以在中國現代文學史 的論述中重現。反之，在西方學術界，沈從文研究從沒有中斷。 選集，無論是個別作家的專集，還是不同作家的合集，是作家風格、面貌 的縮影，而中國現代作家的英譯選集，更是英語讀者認識中國作家最便捷的途 徑。翻譯、編選是“重寫”(rewriting) 活動，而“重寫”往往隱含選取、評價 等判別標準，操縱着譯者、編者對作品、作家的認識與接受程度，對文學作品 能否成為經典作品和成為甚麼樣的經典，有一定的影響。本論文借用勒菲弗爾 (André Lefevere) 的“重寫”概念，先從宏觀角度探討沈從文作品英譯選集的編 者在編選過程中，如何“重寫”沈從文的形象；然後從微觀角度分析譯者在翻 譯的過程中，如何“重寫”沈從文的作品及其形象；而在兩種“重寫”的操縱 下，各英譯選集又如何折射沈從文的形象。