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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Hagadah Of Pesah In Amazigh Tradition, J. G. A. Saviranta Dec 2015

The Hagadah Of Pesah In Amazigh Tradition, J. G. A. Saviranta

Akseli Saviranta

This document examines the text of the Hagadah of the Jewish festivity of Pesah as celebrated by the North African Amazighs of Tinghir in Morocco. Its beginning presents an overview of the history and the cultures of the Amazigh, Jewish, and Judeo-Amazigh communities in North Africa. The celebration of Pesah, as a milestone in Jewish creed and history, is studied within the North African context and with particular attention to the local Hagadah translations. Among these translations, the Judeo-Amazigh text of Tinghir represents one of the few if not the only known text in existence in a Judeo-Amazigh language. A …


Stretching Conceptual Structures In Classifications Across Languages And Cultures., Barbara H. Kwasnik, Victoria L. Rubin Oct 2015

Stretching Conceptual Structures In Classifications Across Languages And Cultures., Barbara H. Kwasnik, Victoria L. Rubin

Victoria Rubin

The authors describe the difficulties of translating classifications from a source language and culture to another language and culture. To demonstrate these problems, kinship terms and concepts from native speakers of fourteen languages were collected and analyzed to find differences between their terms and structures and those used in English. Using the representations of kinship terms in the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) and the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) as examples, the authors identified the source of possible lack of mapping between the domain of kinship in the fourteen languages studied and the LCC and DDC. Finally, some preliminary suggestions …


Establishing The Viability Of The Multidimensional Quality Metrics Framework, Tyler A. Snow Jun 2015

Establishing The Viability Of The Multidimensional Quality Metrics Framework, Tyler A. Snow

Theses and Dissertations

The Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) framework is a new system for creating customized translation quality assessment and evaluation metrics designed to fit specific translation needs. In this study I test the viability of MQM to determine whether the framework in its current state is ready for implementation as a quality assessment framework in the translation industry. Other contributions from this study include: (1) online software for designing and using metrics based on the MQM framework; (2) a survey of the typical, real-world quality assessment and evaluation practices of language service providers in the translation industry; and (3) a measurement scale …


Designations Of Poetry In Translations Of Liu Xie's (劉勰) Work On Literary Genres, Ying Liu Mar 2015

Designations Of Poetry In Translations Of Liu Xie's (劉勰) Work On Literary Genres, Ying Liu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Designations of Poetry in Translations of Liu Xie's (劉勰) Work on Literary Genres" Ying Liu discusses how Liu Xie (劉勰 465-521 AD) in his文心雕龍 (Wenxin diaolong) followed the tradition of The Book of Songs (詩經) and synthesized the original concept of sung (genre of classical poetry) in the Book of Songs with some later variations and thus constructed and shaped the notion of the genre sung. Liu analyses translations by selected scholars and explores the subtle nuances between sung and its English counterparts historically including "ode," "panegyric," "eulogy," and "hymn" in …


About English-Language Scholarship On Humor In Ancient Chinese Literature, Peina Zhuang, Lei Cheng Mar 2015

About English-Language Scholarship On Humor In Ancient Chinese Literature, Peina Zhuang, Lei Cheng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "About English-language Scholarship on Humor in Ancient Chinese Literature" Peina Zhuang and Lei Cheng present an overview of scholarship by English-language Sinologists on humor. Zhuang and Cheng argue that while English-language scholars have played a path-breaking role in making prominent an important aspect of ancient Chinese literature, their studies also display weaknesses including questionable choices of source material, decontextualized analysis, or even mistranslation. They posit that the study of humor in ancient Chinese literature ought to be performed in a contextual perspective including linguistics, literary history, society, politics, etc.


Treasure Hunt Without A Map: Archival Research At The University Of Pennsylvania, Meghan Strong Jan 2015

Treasure Hunt Without A Map: Archival Research At The University Of Pennsylvania, Meghan Strong

English Independent Study Projects

Under the supervision of Meredith Goldsmith in the English Department, I spent this semester developing archival research projects for lower level students in the humanities. My project corresponded with the aims of the Council for Undergraduate Research, which works to develop undergraduate research skills throughout the disciplines. The Kislak Center is a nearby resource that has the potential to provide students with opportunities to develop crucial research skills while discovering little pieces of history that are hidden away in the archives. The final exercises presented here focus on the subjects of Walt Whitman, Marian Anderson, and Michel de Montaigne.


Specters Of Kurdish Nationalism: Governmentality And Counterinsurgent Translation In Turkey, Nicholas S. Glastonbury Jan 2015

Specters Of Kurdish Nationalism: Governmentality And Counterinsurgent Translation In Turkey, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

This essay examines translations of the Kurdish epic poem Mem û Zîn into Turkish, tracing the logics behind these state-sponsored translations and examining how acts of translation are also efforts to regulate, translate, and erase Kurdish subjectivities. I argue that the state instrumentalizes Mem û Zîn’s potent nationalist currency in order to disarm present and future claims of Kurdish national autonomy. Using translation as a counterinsurgent governmental tool, the state attempts to domesticate Kurdish nationalist discourses even as it reproduces them, thereby transforming Kurdish nationalism into a specter of itself. Attending to this specter, however, allows us to see how …


Positive Youth Development In Tanzanian Youth: Utility Of The Developmental Assets Approach, Christopher Fox Drescher Jan 2015

Positive Youth Development In Tanzanian Youth: Utility Of The Developmental Assets Approach, Christopher Fox Drescher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Researchers and practitioners are increasingly interested in positive youth development (PYD), an approach that emphasizes the competencies, strengths, and responsibilities of youth from all backgrounds. This paradigm may be especially useful in research with international youth given the paucity of research on international populations and the stigma surrounding research that focuses on deficits and problem behaviors. I explore youth's developmental strengths using one PYD measure, the Developmental Assets Profile (DAP), within a diverse, national sample of Tanzanian youth. The DAP Total score, Internal and External Assets, and Context Areas all displayed acceptable internal consistencies (.94 ≥ &agr; ≥ .74). Internal …