Modern Languages Commons^™

‘My Fellow Citizens’: Deaf Perspectives On Translating The Opening Line Of A Presidential Inaugural Address Into American Sign Language, Laurie Swabey, Brenda Nicodemus, Keith Cagle, Jimmy Beldon

Journal of Interpretation

Translating from English into American Sign Language holds a number of challenges, particularly when the English source text is a formal, high profile, scripted speech. This study examined perspectives of Deaf bilinguals on translating President Obama’s 2009 inaugural address into American Sign Language. We conducted a microanalysis of translations of the opening line – ‘my fellow citizens’ – to investigate the product and processes employed by Deaf translators. Five Deaf ASL-English bilinguals who are ASL teachers or interpreters/translators were asked to translate the opening paragraph of the address and were interviewed about the processes they used to render their …

Contextualized Recognition Of Fingerspelled Words, Campbell Mcdermid, Lynn Finton, Alexis Chasney

Journal of Interpretation

Fingerspelling, an aspect of American Sign Language, is difficult for second language English-speaking adults to learn (Bahleda, 1998), yet mastery is required by professional ASL-English interpreters. This study compared novice and expert interpreters’ interpretation of fingerspelled words under the assumption that exposure to priming material in their L1, English, would enable the interpreters to recognize those terms when fingerspelled in their L2, ASL. In this study, participants (15 novices, 15 experts) were asked to interpret an ASL text with 25 “carefully” fingerspelled words embedded. Ten subjects were not given priming materials, ten a list of words in printed English that …

Muslim–Paulician Encounters And Early Islamic Anti-Christian Polemical Writings, Abed El-Rahman Tayyara

World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

This article investigates the portrayals of the Paulicians in early Islamic sources and specifically analyses the role that Paulician religious views play in Islamic anti-Christian writings. The study also gives insights into the nature of materials that were available to Muslim scholars and the strategies they applied in constructing coherent arguments to refute certain Christian religious beliefs. In doing so, the study touches upon Muslims’ religious needs and scholarly curiosity, which sheds light on their intellectual interactions with non-Islamic religious beliefs and philosophical ideas. The article demonstrates that references to Paulician religious beliefs can be found primarily in early Christian–Islamic …

Moving Beyond Apartheid Schooling And “Adequate Education”, Elena M. Venegas

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

Though the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and/or national origin, contemporary society within the United States is all but free from discrimination. The Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruling and other landmark legislation passed during the Civil Rights Movement pushed our country toward a path of tolerance and the end of discrimination. Yet, despite these tremendous gains, discrimination still occurs not only at a societal level, but also in terms of schooling (Bakari, 2003; Ferguson, 2003; Harris & Schroeder, 2013; Mackinney & Rios-Aguilar, 2012.) Through critical …

The Language Of Fashion: Communication, Conceptual Clothing, And The Runway Performance, Jarred Johnson

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Scholars have long neglected the study of fashion as anything other than a socioeconomic and cultural phenomena that reflects the more substantial political and historical zeitgeist of a time period. This study takes up Gilles Lipovetsky’s plea for a “theoretical facelift” of the study of fashion. Using an original theoretical framework that delineates the communicative structures of fashion as fabric, drape, and accessory, this work analyzes the conceptual meaning of runway performances by designers Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs. Though conceptual fashion shows are often described as spectacles intended to stir up a label’s recognition and ultimately bolster sales, the …

Gdr Residue In Works By Julia Schoch And Antje Rávic Strubel, Beret L. Norman

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –

Success in Circuit lies¹

- Emily Dickinson

Even two decades after unification, current discussions of a lingering division between East and West Germans elicit doubts that Germany’s ongoing economic success provides an elixir against social alienation². This article compares several works by two younger writers, Julia Schoch and Antje Strubel (both b. 1974), who transcribe elements of daily life as it is experienced from within this ongoing social alienation and who reference a feminist critique of power. Their works evidence what I label a residue from the former …

Erinnerungen An Robert(O) Schopflocher: Ein Multikulturelles Leben Als Vorbild, Reinhard Andress

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Ich kam vor etwa zehn Jahren auf Robert Schopflocher zunächst über seine Doppelsprachigkeit. Damit meine ich nicht nur eine relativ beliebige Mehrsprachigkeit, sondern auch die Fähigkeit, literarisch in zwei Sprachen schreiben zu können, oft als Ergebnis des Exils. In seinem ersten Erzählband auf Deutsch, Wie Reb Froike die Welt rettete, las ich mich fest, und da ich Spanisch durch Studium und Ehe kann, nahm ich mir ebenfalls seine früheren, in der Sprache geschriebenen Texte vor, etwa den Erzählband Ventana abierta (Offenes Fenster) oder den Roman Extraños negocios (Seltsame Geschäfte). Auch seine weiteren Bücher auf Deutsch schaffte ich mir immer schnell …

On Attitudes Toward Spanish Varieties: A Bilingual Perspective, Julio F. C. Ciller, Carmen F. Florez

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

This study explores the attitudes of 25 English-Spanish bilingual speakers from Tucson (Arizona) towards their own variety and compares them with their attitudes toward monolingual varieties of Mexican (from Hermosillo) and Peninsular Spanish (from Murcia and Madrid). Our analysis points to a clear influence of the standard language ideology (MILROY, 2001) on shaping these attitudes, escalated by a tendency among bilinguals in diglossic societies to feel insecure about their own variety as a minority language, or towards a feeling of linguistic self-hatred.

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Este estudo explora as atitudes de 25 falantes bilíngues de espanhol e inglês de Tucson (Arizona) com …

Fritz Kalmars “Das Wunder Von Büttelsburg”: Eine Österreichische Stimme Aus Dem Südamerikanischen Exil Zur Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Reinhard Andress

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Fritz Kalmar, 1911 in Wien geboren und aufgewachsen, studierte Jura und arbeitete zunächst in einer Anwaltskanzlei, bevor ihn der „Anschluss” 1938 zur Flucht zwang. Er landete schließlich in Bolivien, wo er bei einem deutsch-englischen Nachrichtensender in La Paz Arbeit fand und 1941 zum Mitbegründer der Federación de los Austríacos Libres wurde, die sich überparteilich antifaschistischen und karitativen Tätigkeiten widmete. Ebenfalls wurde er Schauspieler und Bühnenautor einer österreichischen Theatergruppe um Georg Terramare und Erna Terrel. 1953 heiratete er Terrel, und zusammen zogen sie nach Montevideo, wo Kalmar seine künstlerische Arbeit fortsetzte. Später als Konsul Österreichs in Uruguay konnte er politischen Gefangenen …

Comparing Cultures Sans Stereotyping, Brian G. Kennelly

World Languages and Cultures

No abstract provided.

Moving Beyond Comprehension In French: Question Development For Reading, Brian G. Kennelly

World Languages and Cultures

No abstract provided.

Bakhtin In His Own Voice: Interview By Victor Duvakin: Translation And Notes By Slav N. Gratchev, Slav N. Gratchev

Modern Languages Faculty Research

On March 15, 2013, Radio Svoboda (Radio Liberty) broadcast a recording of selections from a series of interviews with Mikhail Bakhtin conducted in 1973 by philologist and dissident Victor Duvakin (Komardenkov 1972, 18).¹ At this key moment in the Soviet era, Professor Duvakin, who had been dismissed from his position at Moscow State University, decided to create a phono-history of the epoch (Timofeev-Resovsky 1995, 384). Among the three hundred people whom Duvakin interviewed was Mikhail Bakhtin (Bocharova and Radzishevsky1996, 123), the seventy-eight-year-old retired professor of literature who was known familiarly by many as …

Book Review: George Z. Gasyna. Polish, Hybrid, And Otherwise: Exilic Discourse In Joseph Conrad And Witold Gombrowicz. London: Continuum, 2011. Bibliography. Index, Xii + 276 Pp. Si30.00 (Cloth); $44.95 (Paper), John A. Merchant

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A review of George Z. Gasyna's book Polish, Hybrid, and Otherwise: Exilic Discourse in Joseph Conrad and Witold Gombrowicz written by John Merchant.

Oltre L'Italia: Riflessioni Sul Presente E Il Futuro Del Postcoloniale, Cristina Lombardi-Diop, Caterina Romeo

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Beyond Italy: reflections on the present and the future of the postcolonial Italy, like other European countries, has undergone an epochal transformation as a postcolonial country in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and as a consequence of the demographic and social changes brought about by mass immigration from the global South. Similarly to most European countries, postcolonial studies applied to the Italian context repositions colonial history and its legacy at the center of the debate on contemporaneity and connects them to transnational immigrations. The historical examination of the Italian past, however, unlike that of other European …

Globalization And Possibilities For Intercultural Awareness: Multimodal Arabic Culture Portfolios At A Catholic University, Sawsan Abbadi

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This case study explores the teaching and learning of Arabic at one Catholic university campus, with a focus upon the complex interactions between language and culture in a postmodern globalized context. Specifically, it examines the use of “multimodal culture portfolios” as a means to engage students both linguistically and culturally in classroom and community discourses. Through their interactions and co-construction of knowledge with other participants, these students are led to think about the multiple communicative contexts that are shaping and being shaped by them. Data collection was conducted through survey questionnaires and students' responses to the assigned culture portfolio. The …

Audio Description Washes Brighter? A Study In Brand Names And Advertising, Jose M. Davila-Montes, Pilar Orero

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

Dealing with objects in audio description, and particularly with those objects that have a clear designer imprint or branding, is a complex matter when a brand name is part of the scene in a film. Deciding whether to describe or not, and how, becomes more than a technical matter that depends on text–image synchronization: it is a complex decision-making process comparable to other forms of audiovisual translation that needs to be approached as a paradigmatic example of intersemiotic translation. Dávila-Montes and Orero address the audio description of branded objects in movies, and their intersemiotic translation from images to spoken words, …

Threatening Animals?, Heather I. Sullivan

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

Threatening predators and pernicious beasts continue to play significant roles in the human imaginary even as human threats to other species increase exponentially in the age of Anthropocene. While posthumanist animal studies and material ecocriticism sync human and other animals within the biosphere’s living interactions, our shared material reciprocity is currently skewing ever more towards the human threat to other species – and so to ourselves as co-dependents. This essay explores the meaning of “threatening” and “threatened”. Five German texts presenting human-animal interactions in the Anthropocene’s span by Goethe, Kafka, Stifter, Duve, and Trojanow unsettle expectations of threats. In Goethe’s …

Ideology, Access, And Status: Spanish-English Bilinguals In The Foreign-Language Classroom, Michael E. Rolland

Graduate Student Publications and Research

Spanish language teaching in US higher education is today generally divided between ‘foreign language’ courses for novice learners and ‘heritage language’ courses for Hispanic/Latinx students with some knowledge of the language. However, ‘heritage’ students are a linguistically diverse group, and are also often enrolled at institutions where heritage courses are not offered. Little research to date has studied ‘heritage’ speakers enrolled in ‘foreign’ language courses. For this study I conducted semi-structured interviews to explore the affective and ideological characteristics of bilingual students enrolled in elementary Spanish courses. As the literature suggests, I find that these students have a generally low …

Traducciones De Documentos De Los Programas Que Ofrece United Way Del Condado De San Luis Obispo, Courtney Helena Connor

World Languages and Cultures

The intent of this project is to translate various documents used by the United Way of San Luis Obispo County from English to Spanish. Due to the large number of native Spanish-speakers in San Luis Obispo County, there is a great need for information about community resources to be available in Spanish. Due to the nature of languages having many dialects, a significant amount of research was put into determining the dialect and word choice for the translations. Factors considered included region, educational level, socioeconomic status, etc. The translation was completed using a form of Spanish that sought to avoid …

Ifele: A Method To Teach Spanish As A Second Language Within Communities Of Practice, Francisco Burgos

Andrews Research Conference

This study, which involved classroom-based experimental research conducted during the Fall semester of 2013 in a Spanish class at Oakwood University, aimed at extending the findings of previous studies on the use of familiar texts in reading and writing (Brown 2007, Vygotsky 1978, Kern 2000, Rollins & Villamil 2001, McCourt 2006, Morris, Beck & Smith 2004, Smith & Carvill 2000, Baring 2008, Bonard 2000, White 2009, Freire 1970. To do so, this study examined empirically the impact of familiar texts on students’ reading and writing outcomes using treatment and control conditions for comparison. This study was also interested in demonstrating …