Language Interpretation and Translation Commons^™

Mazahua Literacy Project, Kassandra A. Zapata, Ahnna R. Burkhart

Research & Creative Achievement Day

Mazahua is an indigenous language of Mexico that currently has about 100,000 speakers. What this language and many other indigenous languages need are literacy curricula and materials to help speakers of this language learn to read and write in their first language. Research has demonstrated that students who learn to read and write in their home language will be more successful when it comes to learning to read and write in the language that is dominant in society (in this case, Spanish in Mexico). This project details a coordinated effort to create initial literacy materials for first-grade students who are …

Deaf-Centric Expression Of Biblical Language And Themes, Grace M. Tang

Senior Honors Theses

Christianity contains complicated language and concepts that many individuals can struggle to express in American Sign Language (ASL) in ways that resonate with the Deaf community. Accessibility for the Deaf extends far beyond the translation of words into signs, requiring recontextualization to fit a Deaf lens and adaptation of communication methods to match the oral tradition and Deaf culture. This qualitative study evaluates how the hearing-centered language and themes of the Bible can be effectively portrayed to Deaf audiences through comprehensive interviews with three Deaf Christian pastors and three hearing Christian interpreters. This research found that Deaf churches allow for …

Multi-Agent Translation Team (Matt): Enhancing Low-Resource Language Translation Through Multi-Agent Workflow, Anishka Peter, Mai Dang, Michael Liu, Joaquin Dominguez, Nibhrat Lohia

SMU Data Science Review

Like humans, large language models (LLMs) benefit from revision and refinement, especially for complex tasks requiring critical thinking. Inspired by human collaborative problem-solving, this study introduces a novel multi-agent workflow designed to enhance LLM translations from English to low-resource languages. Multi-Agent Translation Team (MATT) involves the collaboration of agents that are assigned specific roles, such as translator, evaluation coordinator, and various levels of editing, to refine the initial translation into the most desired version possible. The agents work collaboratively in an iterative loop until the translation loss meets a satisfactory threshold. It stands out from other multi-agent workflows by combining …

Themes Of Moral Injury In The Field Of Asl Interpreting, Samantha Michaelson

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

This research project explores connections between a moral injury framework and the recognition and mitigation of ethical stress and trauma experienced by ASL-English interpreters. I have employed strategies such as thick description, textual analysis, and a narrative synthesis of existing literature on moral injury and ethical stress in interpreting to arrive at my findings. The study explains Demand Control Schema (DCS) and the Code of Professional Conduct (CPC) as valuable tools for interpreters to discuss and address ethical stresses that arise in their work. Additionally, I examine the concept of role space and its relevance to the experience of ethical/moral …

Le Recours Aux Procédés De Reformulation Dans Les Articles Scientifiques De Vulgarisation, Ilham Elarrachi

Dirassat

Reformulation as a (metadiscursive) linguistic device is often used by science journalists to convey specific scientific knowledge to often uninitiated readers. It generally consists of repeating the same words, the same discourse in another way. It manifests itself particularly in scientific, media etc. This communication aims to show the importance of reformulation in the transmission of scientific knowledge related to the field of health. Our objective is to see in what circumstances the scientific journalist uses the processes of reformulation. The data analyzed come from a corpus composed of a set of journalistic articles dealing with subjects related to the …

The Change Of Life Happens: How To Overcome Challenges In Order To Succeed., Robin Cruz

Student Research Symposium

The movies that are part of these exhibit tell about the different situations of students and how they can achieve their dreams. It also shows how to overcome the obstacle that they are facing in the different settings.

Can Genai Evaluate Social Themes In Global Cinema? An Introductory Exploration Using French Ivory Coast Film To Evaluate Religious And Familial Social Themes, Andrew Hyde

Student Research Symposium

GenAI is rapidly evolving, making it crucial to investigate its uses and limitations. Popular films can shape social themes globally, yet many of these influences remain unexplored due to cultural barriers. This project's research has important applications, including:

• Enhanced film analysis for less popular films in various countries and languages
• Cultural preservation and lowered linguistic boundaries in film
• Potential for future statistical analysis to determine correlation between social themes and popularity of films
• Broader implications for the film industry and film studies

My hypothesis was that GenAI would be able to accurately analyze important social themes in niche French films.

The Roles And Challenges Of Child Language Brokering, Anaid Martinez Sánchez

Student Research Symposium

Child Language Brokering (CLB) refers to the informal act of interpreting and translating performed by bilingual children, often referred to as "child interpreting". This typically arises in response to cultural and linguistic divides, which can have varying effects on the individuals involved. CLB is especially common among immigrant Latino families, because the children adapt to the culture much faster.

Beyond Words: Translating Spanish Subtitles, Charlie Carlston, Tyler Godfrey

Student Research Symposium

Challenges in Subtitle Translation

• How does one translate humor, slang, and cultural references without losing meaning?
• More than just words!

Bridging Worlds Through Stories, Téa Randall, Mykenzie Preisler

Student Research Symposium

What is the role of a translator?

Traversing Tin And Tides: Translation Ideology And Strategies In Berli And The Sea, Almira Ghassani Shabrina Romala

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

The children’s story Pilus Rumput Laut untuk Rasi by Nabila Adani and its English translation, Berli and the Sea, foreground the ecological crisis facing Belitung Island, Indonesia, where uncontrolled mining and coastal exploitation disrupt the delicate balance between land and sea. The protagonist, Berli, symbolizes resistance against environmental degradation, a theme mirrored in the translator’s ideological and strategic choices when rendering culture-specific items. This study examines how Venuti’s translation ideologies—domestication and foreignization—and Baker’s translation strategies shape the portrayal of Belitung Island’s identity and its environmental message. Cultural words were analyzed through postcolonial translation studies and Hu’s eco-translatology lens, revealing a …

Navigating Trauma: A Linguistic Exploration Of Bilingual Trauma Expressions, Amira Mahmoud Othman

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the relationship between language, trauma, and emotional expression among bilingual Arabic-English speakers, focusing on code-switching patterns and euphemisms, and more broadly the emotional roles of native and non-native languages in trauma narratives. Through qualitative interviews with 20 Egyptian participants, the research reveals that code-switching serves as both a linguistic and emotional tool, allowing speakers to navigate trauma by creating distance or engaging more intimately. Such codeswitching patterns include the integration of English content words within Arabic structures, morphosyntactic innovations, and gender agreement applications, reflecting the creative adaptability of bilingual speakers in emotionally charged contexts, in line with …

Evolution Of Lyrics Of Egyptian Songs In The 20th Century, Omar Abdelrafe

The Undergraduate Research Journal

Despite the extensive research by western countries on the song lyrics, almost nothing is known about the evolution of Egyptian song lyrics. The previous studies in the U.S. and U.K. revealed that lyrics were more pessimistic as time passed. In this study, 1891 Egyptian songs from 1920 to 2022 were analyzed using a sentiment analysis tool while searching for offensive words and retrieving their popularity scores from Spotify. The results aligned with those of the other regions in which the negativity of songs and the percentage of songs containing offensive words increased. However, there is a substantial increase in neutral …

Chatgpt Didn’T Write This: Evaluating The Impact Of Llms With A Case Study In Grading Cuny Language Immersion Program Student Essays, Benjamin Inbar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study evaluates the capabilities and limitations of large language models (LLMs), specifically OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o, in grading essays from students in the City University of New York’s Language Immersion Program. The program serves English language learners with diverse linguistic and demographic backgrounds, offering intensive language instruction to prepare students for academic success in college. Using a dataset of 30 pre- and post-program essays scored by program instructors and ChatGPT-4o under three paradigms, this research explores the alignment between human and AI-generated scores across five rubric-based competency areas. Findings reveal that ChatGPT-4o aligns moderately with human grading, with the strongest agreement …

The Routledge Handbook Of Discourse Analysis (2023), Fatima Moussa

Al-Kīmiyā

Handford, M., & Gee, J. P. (Eds.) (2023). The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Routledge

The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis includes articles written by prominent scholars in the field of Applied Linguistics. The articles are particularly helpful as they overlap in their approaches to understanding and applying discourse analysis. The book can thus be helpful to scholars and students alike, covering a wide range of topics and providing numerous examples that can provide a shortcut to the various ways in which discourse analysis could be practically applied in research. The handbook is divided into eight parts, each of which …

« Au Cœur Du Harem » Et Du Métissage Linguistique D’Elisa Chimenti En Italien : Comparaison Différentielle Et Décentrement Linguistique, Pierpaolo Amenta

Al-Kīmiyā

This article examines the literary language of Elisa Chimenti (1883-1969), which is full of xenisms, linguistic loans, metaphors, and idioms that stem from a transcultural and heterolingual imaginary. Her novel Au cœur du harem (Éditions du Scorpion, 1958), translated into Italian in 2000 under the supervision of Emanuela Benini (Edizioni E/O), is a striking example. Drawing on a differential comparative approach (Heidmann, 2017), we look at these texts to reflect on Elisa Chimenti’s literary language and to examine the translational stakes of her work and its heterolingualism (Grutman, 1997; Suchet, 2014).

English title
Au cœur du harem (In the Heart …

Les Origines Du Français Sur Objectifs Spécifiques : Regards Historiques, Mariam Sahraoui

Al-Kīmiyā

As a continuation of our research work on the teaching of French for Specific Purposes, we recommend to better define the specificities of this concept by going back to its origins as a means to understand its dimensions, its structures, its actors, etc. Indeed, the concept of French for Specific Purposes (FOS in French) appeared in the 1920s. FOS has undergone several phases of evolution that have marked its historical and methodological journey from military French to the language of specialization, to instrumental French, to functional French.
This article presents FOS’s journey through its history for the purpose of identifying …

Le Français Au Liban : Défis Contemporains Et Efforts De Revitalisation Dans Un Contexte Multilingue, Layali Rifai, Gina Abou Fadel Saad

Al-Kīmiyā

This article addresses the place of French in Lebanon as a foreign language, a language of education, and a second language, in a context marked by the rise of English. It insists on the importance of preserving the Arabic–French–English multilingualism, which constitutes a real cultural heritage in Lebanon. It highlights the revitalization efforts undertaken by French-speaking individuals and cultural projects aimed at preserving the relevance of French in an increasingly globalized world.

English title
The French Language in Lebanon: Contemporary Challenges and Revitalization Efforts in a Multilingual Context

Résumé
Cet article aborde la place du français au Liban en tant …

Introduction, La Rédaction De « Al-Kīmiyā »

Al-Kīmiyā

Le numéro 25 d’Al-Kīmiyā s’inscrit dans une réflexion interdisciplinaire et plurielle sur la diversité linguistique, culturelle et discursive, explorant les interactions entre langues, cultures et contextes historiques. Les contributions rassemblées mettent en lumière des enjeux variés, allant de la traduction et du métissage linguistique à l’analyse pragmatique, sociolinguistique et discursive [...]

Arguments D’Autorité Dans Les Éditoriaux Du Quotidien « Aujourd’Hui Le Maroc » : Analyse Des Périodes Pré Et Post Vaccination, Zakaria Ouallou

Al-Kīmiyā

The Covid-19 health crisis, which shook the world in 2020, aroused keen interest not only in the media, but also among citizens, at the international level. This study focuses on the analysis of arguments of authority, which are powerful tools in editorial rhetoric, used to support positions by relying on recognized sources, focusing specifically on editorials in the French-speaking Moroccan newspaper Aujourd’hui le Maroc, relating to two phases, that of containment and that of vaccination. This period was marked by major health, social, economic and political upheavals. In this context, we will examine the editorialists’ choice of arguments in …

Communication Interculturelle : Regards Croisés Sur L’Expression De La Gratitude Dans Les Contextes Marocain Et Français, Salaheddine Belarbi, Mohamad El Jarari

Al-Kīmiyā

This study aims to compare the communicative practices between French spoken in France and Moroccan Arabic, focusing on the acts of thanking. The aim is to understand the underlying cultural differences through a comparative analysis of speech acts, particularly the acts of thanking, in both languages. The study falls within the field of contrastive pragmatics, which seeks to identify intercultural correspondences and dissonances in linguistic behavior. The results highlight that the comparison between the act of thanking in Morocco and in France reveals profound nuances in the way gratitude is expressed and perceived within these distinct cultures. Notwithstanding these differences, …

Les Fonctions Du Langage Dans « Lettres À Ses Amis » De Mouloud Feraoun, Rachida Sadouni, Fatiha Ramdani, Amina Tahraoui

Al-Kīmiyā

This article examines the epistolary correspondence in Mouloud Feraoun’s literary work Lettres à ses amis. It mainly aims to study the language functions employed in these letters according to Jakobson’s categorization (1963), as well as the traces of subjectivity and privacy. This paper analyzes the personality of Feraoun through his letters, and infers the characteristics of this writer’s epistolary. This article also examines Feraoun’s work from its conception to its final publication. We argue in this paper that the epistolary is not only a means of information and communication but also a revelation of secrets and disclosure of individual …

Benjamin’S Estranged Heim, Andrew Brooks

Living in Languages

This paper examines Walter Benjamin's engagement with the motif of Heim (home) as it interweaves with his intellectual and personal experiences during the early 1920s. Through an analysis of Benjamin’s writings and correspondence, including his plans for the journal Angelus Novus and reflections on his friendship with Fritz Heinle, the study explores Heim as both a real and rhetorical space. Initially conceived as an idealized site of intellectual and spiritual communion, Heim is transformed by personal tragedy and historical crisis into an unattainable, speculative ideal—a rhetorical atopos. This evolution parallels Benjamin’s philosophical pursuit of “pure language” and his reimagining …

Beyond Gaining And Losing: A Thematic Approach To The Translation Of Washington Square, Jin Li

Living in Languages

In putting a literary work into another language, the translator functions as a literary critic, whose task requires both language competence and critical perception. As Venuti writes, “A translation does not communicate the source text itself but the translator’s interpretation of it”. The translation, therefore, can be considered as another form of literary criticism, inspiring the reader to enrich the repertoire of the source text. A comparative reading of the source text against the translation engages the reader in processing three-fold interpretations, leading to a multifaceted communication among the source text, the translator and the reader. The reading of the …

“Two Friends” By Fadhy Mtanga, Translated By Jay Boss Rubin, Jay B. Rubin

Living in Languages

No abstract provided.

For The Love Of Subtitling: Analysing The Challenges In Audio-Visual Translations Of Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani, Haritima Sharma

Living in Languages

Any form of audio-visual media utilises specific stylistic elements in order to represent the reality within which the media form is situated. These representations occur through the language and iconography of the media form, which works on stereotypical features that the audience can easily identify. Forming a pivotal part of the media, these representations must be rendered in the translations for a linguistically and culturally diverse audience. Audio-Visual Translation (AVT) has been used since the 1930s to make media accessible. Of the various modalities, subtitling has emerged as the most widespread mode of AVT due to time and cost benefits. …

Untangling Memories Of Violence: The Khipu In El Rincón De Los Muertos (Alfredo Pita), Jonathan J. Oliveri

Living in Languages

This research proposes a structural reading of El rincón de los muertos to decode and trace echoes to the khipu which are embedded throughout the novel. Contrary to a graphic writing system, the Incan empire’s khipu (khipu) was a mnemotechnic system—a three-dimensional communicative device, an archive of memory that recorded information using different colored strings, and a system of knots. Our concept of mnemonics is different than that of the indigenous communities who relied on oral tradition and specifically for khipu a khipukamayuq (reader of khipu), in a narrative and discursive manner, to reconstruct the message the khipu contained. …

Two Poems By Victoria Guerrero Peiranotwo Poems By Victoria Guerrero Peirano Translated By Ilka Kressner, Ilka Kressner

Living in Languages

Translation of the two poems "En la disco" and "Baile" by Victoria Guerrero Peirano into English and German.

Odesa Will Never Be A 'Russian' City Again, Ian R. Singleton

Living in Languages

Russophone poet Galina Itskovich wrote the statement serving as the title of this text about the identity of her native Odesa, Ukraine in 2023, more than a year and a half after the full-scale invasion by Russia. I propose an examination of the relationship of contemporary Odesan writers to the Russian language. Sources for this examination include the work of writers in or from Odesa such as Galina Itskovich, Maria Galina, Oleg Fesenko, and Igor Bozhko. To discuss what this situation means for translation, such as is demanded by Ukraine’s 2019 law on the status of the Ukrainian language, I …

Between Languages And Religions: Omar Ibn Said's Voice In The Arabic Narrative And English Translations, Rumi Coller-Takahashi

Living in Languages

The Life of Omar ibn Said (1831) is a narrative written by an enslaved person in Arabic and went through multiple English translations over the centuries. This article examines the ways in which these translations involve the nineteenth-century Christian agenda as well as the translators’ decisions in the twentieth-first century that multiply Omar ibn Said’s voice. In response to the recent scholarship’s effort to find Omar’s “true self” in his writings, which shows the meshing of Christian and Islamic faith, I aim to foreground his voice as a powerful presence at the intersections of the two languages and religions. My …