Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Translations, Retranslations, And Multiple Translations: A Case For Translation Variance Studies, Alexander Burak, Timothy Sergay

Russian Language Journal

The cluster of three related articles offered here represents what the authors propose to call “translation variance studies,” or TVS, a subfield of translation studies concerned with semantic, pragmatic, and stylistic equivalence and divergence between a single source text and its multiple translations into a specified target language. Multiple translations of a single source text into a single target language have become a widespread phenomenon. Its “ontological basis,” as Anna Muza recently observed, is “variability of solution within the target language.” All parties to translation must of necessity negotiate this variability of solution, beginning with the translator in the act …

Some Like It Hot – Goblin‐Style: “Ozhivliazh” In Russian Film Translations, Alexander Burak

Russian Language Journal

This article is about English‐to‐Russian voiceover translating as a translation technique and a medium that responds to and shapes sociocultural identities. It is also about a trend in Russian film translating to enliven – in various degrees – the translation text as compared with the more neutral language in the original films. And, finally, given the multiple translations of the same cultural products, films included, it is an attempt to make a case for a strand of research and translation quality analysis that that may be called “translation variance studies.”

New But Hardly Improved: Are Multiple Retranslations Of Classics The Best Cultural Use To Make Of Translation Talent?, Timothy D. Sergay

Russian Language Journal

The notion of audio remastering seems to inform the way literary “consumers” conceive of retranslations of classic works today. This is almost certainly because the two operations—remastering and retranslation—are such natural cousins. Retranslation seems to imply, at the very least, continuous improvement of the literary product in the target language, that is, the elimination of earlier translators’ errors in construing the source text and the ever more adequate recreation of the original author’s stylistics. How close this seems to the idea of “cleaning up” an audio signal, improving the “signal‐to‐noise ratio,” enhancing fidelity—this critical term, along with loss, is common …

Oblomov – Retranslating A Classic Bridging The Time, Place, Contextual And Cultural Gap: An Account Of Some Of The Policy Choices Entailed By The Re‐Translation Of Oblomov, Stephen Pearl

Russian Language Journal

There is a crucial and underappreciated distinction between the task of translating a hitherto unknown foreign language literary work for the purpose of making it available for the first time to readers in the target language, and that of re‐translating a classic. In the latter case, translators expose themselves to, and indeed invite, not only comparison with previous translations, but also the haunting question of the very raison d’etre of the new translation itself. For this reason, a re‐translation is in a sense as much about the nature and quality of the translation as about the original work itself – …

Digital Determinism: The Cyrillic Alphabet In The Age Of New Technology, Martin Paulsen

Russian Language Journal

The spread of digital technology has created new conditions for the existence and development of languages. The East Slavonic languages Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian are excellent examples. Since the Internet originated in the U.S., and since most computer devices are created on the basis of languages that use the Latin alphabet (i.e., English), people who use other alphabets, such as Cyrillic, face additional challenges in adapting to the new technological realities (Sproat 2010).3 In this article, I shall focus on how digital technology challenges Cyrillic, as the alphabet in which the East Slavonic languages are written.

The consequences of similar …

Великий И Могучий Олбанский Язык: The Russian Internet And The Russian Language*, Daniela S. Hristova

Russian Language Journal

The worldwide proliferation of the Internet as a fundamentally new media technology has coincided with a radical social and linguistic liberalization in Russia. This junction changed drastically the interrelationship between the standard language and the non‐standard language varieties. A paradigmatic manifestation of the new Russian linguistic reality is the prevalent Internet trend of alternate spellings and non‐normative lexical use. The phenomenon is frequently referred to as an “Olbanian” language and associated with the counter‐culture of the so‐called “padonki.” Disregarding the fundamental principles of Russian orthography, spelling, and even morphology, the padonki have created an idiom that seemingly allows complete freedom …

A Case Study Of The Acquisition Of Narration In Russian: At The Intersection Of Foreign Language Education, Applied Linguistics, And Second Language Acquisition, Benjamin Rifkin

Russian Language Journal

Studies of students’ foreign language proficiency—including Carroll (1967), Magnan (1986), and Thompson (1996)—have shown that students in their fourth year of language study typically demonstrate oral proficiency in the intermediate range. Thompson’s study found the median score of students’ oral proficiency in the fourth year to be at the intermediate high/advanced threshold, but her subjects at this level of instruction were students at Middlebury’s summer language program and were tested in the last week of the program. In my own teaching practice, I have found that most of the students majoring in Russian at the University of Wisconsin-­‐‑Madison graduate with …

Assessing The Oral Proficiency Of Adult Learners, “Heritage” And “Native” Speakers Using The Ilr Descriptions And Actfl Proficiency Guidelines: Considering The Challenges, Cynthia L. Martin

Russian Language Journal

The ILR Descriptions – Speaking and the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines – Speaking trace their genesis to an oral proficiency assessment system first developed at the Foreign Service Institute in the 1950s to assess “foreign language users’ abilities according to a consistent scale.” The original purpose was clearly aimed at assessing the abilities of non-­‐‑native, non-­‐‑heritage adult foreign language learners, and this genesis is still reflected in the current ILR Descriptions and the ACTFL Guidelines. However, tools based on these descriptions/guidelines are increasingly being used to assess the abilities of language users who are not what we would consider to be …

Taking The “L” Out Of Lctls: The Startalk Experience, Catherine Ingold, Mary Elizabeth Hart

Russian Language Journal

The less commonly taught languages in the United States are often those most critical to national security. How, then, can the number of students learning these languages be increased, and how can high-­‐‑quality instructors be produced to teach these languages? Having determined that foreign language skills are essential to diplomacy, economic competitiveness, and the security interests of the U.S., the Secretaries of State, Education, and Defense, and the Director of National Intelligence coordinated their efforts to expand language education beginning in kindergarten and continuing through elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education and into the workforce (United States Department of Education, 2008). …

Some Thoughts On The Societal Impact Of Linguistics, Arto Mustajoki

Russian Language Journal

Today, scholars are obliged to justify the necessity of research in their own fields. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the channels of societal impact of linguistic research. In other words, I will try to answer the following question: in what ways is the work of scholars dealing with language(s) useful for society? The paper is based on my articles published in Finnish (Mustajoki 2005, 2011) and on oral presentations in various academic circles. I will first discuss some general ideas concerning the societal impact of research and researchers. I will then try to apply these ideas to …

Russian Heritage Language Speakers In The U.S.: A Profile, Olga Kagan

Russian Language Journal

Brecht and Ingold (2002) advocate systematic efforts to develop heritage language (HL) pedagogy to remedy U.S. language deficits: “…because of [heritage language learners’(HLLs’)] existing language and cultural knowledge, they may require substantially less instructional time than other learners to develop these skills. This is especially true for speakers of the less commonly taught languages” (p. 1).

Examining The Validity Of The 2010 Prototype Ap Russian Exam Through A College Comparability Study, Camelot Marshall

Russian Language Journal

Since its inception twelve years ago, the Prototype AP® Russian Language and Culture Examination has developed into an assessment instrument that has increasingly become the culminating focus and a hallmark of high school Russian language study in select schools across the United States. Even more so, through the years of field-­‐‑testing, piloting, and making the tests operational, the design, content, development, administration, and analyses of the exam have evolved into the model for American Councils’ online assessments of language proficiency not only for Russian, but also for Flagship programs. These tests are already being developed in Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Russian, …

Assessment Practices In Startalk Language Programs: A View Of Current Language Assessment Literacy, Margaret E. Malone, Megan J. Montee, Francesca Disilvio

Russian Language Journal

Assessment is essential to education, because it provides information on students’ progress toward learning goals. Reliable and valid assessment can provide not only important summative information, but also formative information to instructors and learners on both what has been learned and what remains to be learned. However, in order for assessment to be used effectively, instructors must understand the components of a reliable and valid assessment system and how to incorporate such a system into classroom testing. Many language instructors in the United States may lack basic knowledge of assessment and measurement (Popham, 2009).

Language Matters: Some New Contributions From Sociology (Emanating From Richard Brecht’S Castle), John P. Robinson, William P. Rivers, Cynthia Costell, Jennifer Robinson

Russian Language Journal

As a result of the projects undertaken by the University of Maryland’s Center for the Advanced Study of Language, several new findings and insights have emerged from the highest quality data collections on Americans’ abilities in and attitudes toward foreign languages (FL). These involve the (now annual) language surveys conducted by the US Census Bureau and the bi-­‐‑annual General Social Survey (GSS) conducted by the University of Chicago since 1972. The Census Bureau has been documenting foreign languages spoken at home and how well individuals can speak English in such households. The 2000-­‐‑08 GSS has assessed whether adults can speak …

Introduction To Volume 59

Russian Language Journal

The present volume of Russian Language Journal offers a rich selection of new research and studies in all three of the Journal’s major areas of focus: language policy, research on the study and teaching of Russian as a foreign or second language, and original research.

The Actr Nationwide Survey Of Russian Language Instruction In U.S. High Schools In 2009, Dan E. Davidson, Nadra Garas

Russian Language Journal

Adequate access to extended sequences of instruction across a range of world languages in the U.S. K‐12 system can provide the “early start” in language learning, which is essential for a new generation of Americans who will compete in the highly globalized economy of the 21st century.2 The study of Arabic, Chinese Japanese, Persian, and Russian have attracted particular attention among U.S. policymakers, given the importance of these and other major world languages for long‐term U.S. national security interests, scientific and cultural exchange, mutual understanding, and the preservation of U.S. economic competitiveness around the world.

The Online Proficiency‐Based Reading, Listening, And Integrated Writing External Assessment Program For Russian: A Report To The Field, Saodat I. Bazarova, Maria D. Lekic, Camelot Marshall

Russian Language Journal

Rising interest in the U.S. in the study and teaching of Russian language and culture, reported elsewhere in the present volume (Davidson & Garas, 2009), has coincided with the reaffirmation of the status of Russian by U. S. government agencies as a critical language. Russian is identified, for example, in the 2006 National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) as a “critical need language,” for which the production of greater numbers of advanced‐level speakers is deemed essential (U.S. Department of Education, 2008, p. 1). According to the most recent ADFL/MLA report on language enrollments in two‐ and four‐year U.S. institutions of higher …

Mind The Gap: English L2 Learners Of Russian And The Null Possessive Pronoun, William Comer

Russian Language Journal

The personal possessive pronouns in Russian (мой, твой, наш, ваш, его, её, их) are taught very early in virtually all elementary textbooks of the language. At the point of their introduction, the problems that they most often pose for English‐speaking L2 learners are their morphology and the rules for agreement with the nouns they modify. For L2 learners, the usage and frequency of these pronouns at this stage in language study seem virtually to mirror English patterns. When introduced to simple sentences with finite verbs and complements as well as the “у кого есть что” construction, learners may (or may …

Писатели О Языке: Contemporary Russian Writers On The Language Question, Ingunn Lunde

Russian Language Journal

Post-perestroika Russian society exhibits a pronounced concern with the language question. Linguistic issues are discussed at all levels of society, and a great many people engage in these debates: politicians, philologists, teachers, journalists, writers, students, bloggers, and others. Newspapers and journals feature columns or article series devoted to language; conferences discuss “the state of the Russian language”; the state sponsors a large number of radio and television programmes on language and language culture; various centres and institutions offer programmes promoting linguistic cultivation; there are information services on linguistic questions on the Internet; many blogs deal with the language question.

On The Satirical Counter-Discourse Of Processed Cheese, Lara Ryazanova-Clarke

Russian Language Journal

The post-Soviet period presents an illuminating picture of competition taking place between different public discourses for meaning construction and articulation. It has been observed that after an initial period when the public narrative of the nation experienced fragmentation, and, using Pierre Bourdieu’s term, went through a period of heterodoxy during the last decade―roughly corresponding with the presidency of Vladimir Putin―it has displayed the growing characteristics of orthodoxy, with its centrally produced “common sense” meanings and assumptions.

Negotiating Reality With Anekdoty: Soviet Vs. Post-Soviet Humor Lore, Daniela S. Hristova

Russian Language Journal

As a genre, anekdoty have been among the most popular oral narratives in the Soviet as well as post-Soviet era.2 Similar to other folkloric and literary genres, the post-Soviet social and linguistic liberalization has had an impact on Russian humor lore, but to a much lesser degree than it might seem on the surface. Since effective humor narratives impart laughter by way of reacting to significant sociopolitical phenomena, the changed economic and ideological reality in post- Soviet Russia fostered paradigmatic classes of anekdoty that feature new protagonists. The question, however, is whether what made a Soviet anekdot funny differs from …

Self-Reported Russian And Belarusian Language Utilization In Key Economic, Political, And Social Domains In Belarus, N. Anthony Brown

Russian Language Journal

The elicitation of language usage in the present study was carried out by means of a survey. Language utilization was surveyed in the home, in school, at work, and in government institutions to ascertain whether a functional hierarchy of domains in Belarusian and/or Russian obtains in Belarus. In addition, the study examines whether domain-specific language utilization varies according to participants’ sex. Respondents were asked to evaluate choice of language as “useful” or “necessary” for each domain. Findings reflect self-reports from 559 students born in Belarus and attending eight different institutions of higher education, cumulatively. Data were collected in three cities, …

From Meaning To Form: An Alternative Model Of Functional Syntax, Arto Mustajoki

Russian Language Journal

The purpose of this article is to introduce a model for a meaning-based functional syntax. A full description of the model may be found in our recent monograph (Mustajoki 2006b). Work on the model has been carried out in the Department of Slavonic and Baltic Languages and Literature at the University of Helsinki over the last fifteen years. Given that the above-mentioned book and various shorter publications (Mustajoki 1997, 1999, 2003a, 2003b, 2004) have appeared in Russian, it seems appropriate to give a short overview of the model in English. The only presentation of the model in English thus far …

Now I Know My Aбв’S: A Comparison Of Inductive And Deductive Methods Of Teaching On The Acquisition Of The Cyrillic Alphabet, Jennifer Bown, Thomas Bown, Courtenay Christiansen, Shalise Dudley, Shea Gibbons, Janine Green

Russian Language Journal

The study was designed to compare the effects of inductive verse deductive teaching methods on acquisition of the Russian alphabet. Inductive instruction refers to methods in which learners are first exposed to examples and then asked to extrapolate a rule from the example, whereas deductive instruction refers to methods in which learners are presented with a rule from the start. Eighty participants were randomly divided into two instructional groups, one receiving deductive instruction and the other receiving inductive instruction. Participants were given a pretest on Russian words and given instruction on the Cyrillic alphabet based on an inductive or a …

Introduction To Volume 56

Russian Language Journal

In his recent study of the linkage between corpus and status planning in language policy formation, Joshua Fishman observes that “languages are increasingly viewed as scarce national resources (not unlike flora and fauna, agricultural or environmental resources, and all other such improvable or alterable resources whose quality can be influenced by planned human intervention).” Given the particular history of language policy development in Russia and the former Soviet states in the 20th century, the appearance in mid-2005 of the new Law on the State Language of the Russian Federation is an event of considerable potential impact on the study and …

Russian As The National Language: An Overview Of Language Planning In The Russian Federation, Joan F. Chevalier

Russian Language Journal

In June of 2005 the federal legislation On the national language was signed into law by Vladimir Putin.1 The bill, revised and renamed several times after its initial introduction in the Duma in 2001, proved to be highly controversial, stimulating lively public debate. The law merits discussion as the first major piece of federation legislation focused on language policy and language planning to appear in the Russian Federation in several years. The law addresses both language‐status planning, which concerns the status and function of the Russian language, and language corpus planning, which attempts to affect changes in language forms and …

“The State Turning To Language”: Power And Identity In Russian Language Policy Today, Lara Ryazanova‐Clarke

Russian Language Journal

The first years of the twenty‐first century in Russia saw a considerable rise in the state’s regulation of language. In the words of one of the agents of this regulation, Natalia Liashchenko, a Consultant for the Committee for the Nationalities, “Определенный поворот к проблемам русского языка произошел и в органах государственной власти России.” The engagement of the state by way of regulations in the national discussion of the nature and quality of the Russian language demonstrates ‘the state power turning to language’.

Introduction To Volume 55

Russian Language Journal

The present issue of RLJ reflects the new editorial board’s view of the state of Russian study in the U.S. and the world today in the context of globalization, internationalization of curriculum, and increased expectations regarding the outcomes of language study everywhere. (Verbitskaya) While more modest than the bold Soviet-era policy assertions concerning Russian as a “primary language of mass international communication,” Kostomarov addresses the new role of Russian as mother tongue, second language, or major foreign language for more than 300 million speakers in the world, nearly 3 million of whom are now resident in the United States, and …

The Online Language Learning Environment: New Roles For The Humanist, James S. Noblitt

Russian Language Journal

Thomas Edison played an important role in improving the technologies needed for the telephone. He was said to have been excited about the educational potential of the new instrument and speculated that it would soon be found in every classroom.

Well, he was right about the educational potential of information and communication technology, but he was wrong about the form the new technology would take.

This chapter raises questions concerning the role humanists will play in determining the development and implementation of information and communication technologies for educational purposes.

The Concept Of “World Language”, V. G. Kostomarov

Russian Language Journal

Although the United Nations has declared that its working languages—English, Russian, French, Spanish, Chinese, and, more recently, Japanese and Arabic— are “world languages,” there is no strictly linguistic basis for such a claim. Indeed, many linguists reject the term, and many of those who do accept it believe that it denotes—roughly—an artificial global language. Moreover, many find in it an unpleasant hint of the pseudoscientific idea that one language can be superior to another.