VIAL. VIGO INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Universidade de Vigo. Servizo de Publicacións    

Volumen 5 (2008)                                  Más información

ARTICULOS:

Jamal al-Qinai (1): Pragmatic Interpretation in Translated Texts. VIAL. Number 5/2008: 9-36.
Abstract:
A pragmatic approach to translation studies the rules and principles governing the use of language over and above the rules of syntax or morphology, and what makes some uses of language more appropriate than others in communicative situations. It attempts to explain translation as a procedure and product. The Target Text (TT) will be subject to evaluation not as generated by the linguistic system but as conveyed and manipulated by participants in a communicative situation according to referential and pragmatic standards. The failure of a purely lexical or structural translation stems from ignoring the relation between words as signs and the effect they have on their users. Extra-linguistic or intuitive processes which translators strive to reproduce unscathed in translation should also be considered. We need to grasp the kind of actions an ST author performs combining linguistic and non-linguistic elements against a backdrop of beliefs and cultural values. Aside from the cohesive ties at the textual level, one needs to understand how the ST discourse hangs together logically in order to reproduce a coherent TT. This demands an analysis of the pragmatic elements of presuppositions, implicatures, and acts performed in the Source Text (ST). Establishing cohesive ties within a text may require seeking reference outside the immediate text. The illocutionary functions in one language are relatively autonomous cultural/linguistic categories, but are imaginable by members of other cultures and are translatable though not without translation loss. Globalization and the spread of literacy may have facilitated the comprehension of performative utterances when explained by approximate glosses or by paraphrase. Yet, it is often the multilayered and culture-specific nature of illocutionary functions that de-universalize their possible interpretati. This paper addresses the pragmatic interpretation of culturally-specific texts with examples adduced from a number of distinct settings to illustrate the influence of the pragmatic factors at stake.
Keywords: pragmatics, translation, cohesion, implicature, presupposition
(1) Kuwait University

Carles Fernández, Xavier Rocai (1), Jordi Gonzàlez (2): Providing Automatic Multilingual Text Generation to Artificial Cognitive Systems. VIAL. Number 5/2008: 37-62.
Abstract:
This contribution addresses the incorporation of a module for advanced user interaction into an artificial cognitive vision system to include the human-in-the-loop. Specifically, the document describes a method to automatically generate natural language textual descriptions of meaningful events and behaviors, in a controlled scenario. One of the goals of the system is to be capable of producing these descriptions in multiple languages. We will introduce some relevant stages of the whole system, and concentrate on the linguistic aspects which have been taken into account to derive final text from conceptual predicates. Some experimental results are provided for the description of simple and complex behaviors of pedestrians in an intercity crosswalk, for Catalan, English, Italian, and Spanish..
Keywords: natural language generation, behavior analysis, multilingual generation, human sequence evaluation, artificial cognitive system.
(1) Computer Vision Centre, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
(2) Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Ind. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya,Spain

Francisca Goldoni  (1): Designing a Foreign Language Curriculum in Postsecondary Education Drawing from the Multiliteracy, Functionalist, and Genre-Based Approachess. VIAL. Number 5/2008: 63-86.
Abstract:
As a result of today’s multicultural societies, globalization, and the advent of the communication and information technology the demand has increased for second/foreign language abilities that far exceed those typically associated with communicative competence. In this essay I suggest that the curriculum in a postsecondary foreign language department should be conceptualized to enable students to develop cognitive and socio-cultural sensitivity to the language, and to mature advanced language skills. I argue that the synthesis of multiliteracy, funtionalist, and genre-based approaches in second/foreign language teaching is particularly effective to achieve these goals. Mastering advanced language levels and becoming a multicompetent and culturally multiliterate foreign language user has enormous advantages in our globalized societies.
Keywords: multiliteracy approach, functionalist approach, genre-based approach, foreign language curriculum, advanced language skills.
(1) The University of Georgia, USA.

Victoria Martín de la Rosa  (1): The Persuasive Use of Rhetorical Devices in the Reporting of ‘Avian Flu’.s. VIAL. Number 5/2008: 87-106.
Abstract:
This article examines the emerging cultural patterns in reporting a pandemic in waiting (avian influenza) as instantiated in the news discourse of the British press, more particularly the crisis that followed the 2005 outbreak. Emphasis is given to the use of rhetorical devices such as metaphors and pragmatic markers. Drawing on the work by Schön and by Lakoff, and following the line of research by some other scholars such as Nerlich, it is claimed that exposure to those linguistic resources can affect readers’ perceptions, actions and value judgements in accordance with the logic displayed by  those devices. 
Keywords: avian influenza, generative and conceptual metaphors, problem setting, argumentative function of metaphors, pragmatics.
(1) Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.

Ariadna Strugielska  (1): Coherence Relations and Concept Dynamic in Learners’ Personal Theories. VIAL. Number 5/2008: 107-129.
Abstract:
This article examines metaphorical conceptualizations of educational practices emerging from students’ personal theories. Particular emphasis is placed upon coherence relations observable between and among individual constructs forming an Idealized Cognitive Model of the teaching/learning process. It is postulated that learners’ metaphors are built around unpredictable and varied inferences, often resulting from cognitive dissonance between novel experience and entrenched cultural models. Moreover, the image surfacing from learners’ analogies is characterized by internal dynamics, which may well indicate that students’ discourse is particularly susceptible to new extralinguistic stimuli. Consequently, while linguistic metaphors become more creative, conceptual blueprints are modified to encompass emerging meanings. Thus, the popular notions about language and language learning which are frequently transmitted from teachers’ jargon to students’ talk are gradually giving way to modified, internalized and perpetuated concepts.
Keywords: personal theories, conceptual metaphors, coherence, experientialism, new meaning.
(1) Nicolaus Copernicus University Torun, Poland.