Metaglossia: The Translation World

As you may have seen in my previous posts, I am currently carrying out research into the commissioning (buying / procurement) of legal translation, and the briefing of legal translators. I have had...

Il s'appelle Eddy-Malou, le premier savant de la  république démocratique du Congo, comme il le dit lui-même dans son interview. Il est adepte de ceux qui manient la langue française avec des mots qu'ils inventent et qui n'existent nul part. Des phrases et des mots que l'on  ne trouvent pas dans le dictionnaire français."la Congolexicomatisation" de la république démocratique du Congo, le végétalismenéovégetal .. système de la technicité informaticolonisé, etc..A vos mouchoirs....

Conférenciers : 
Antoine Tshitungu Kongolo -Docteur ès Lettres, écrivain
Mme Bettie Vanhoudt Professeur d’Université - Membre de l’Académie Royale des Sciences d’Outre-Mer
La journée vise à montrer que les langues africaines jouent un rôle crucial dans les pays africains en tant qu'outils de communication. Leur diversité n'est pas nécessairement une faiblesse puisque leur parenté linguistique et culturelle est démontrée. Certaines d'entre elles jouissant du statut de langues véhiculaires comptent des millions de locuteurs aux appartenances ethniques, régionales, voire nationales diversifiées (e.a. Le swahili).

A definition of words about bridge construction and conditions.

Superstructure: The parts of a bridge that are above the bottom of the girders. Girders, bridge deck, and bridge railing are parts of the superstructure.

Truss Bridge: A bridge (such as the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River) composed of rigid, jointed structures that support longer spans.

Condition designations

Fracture critical: Bridges receive this designation if they are designed with certain load-bearing parts of the superstructure that would cause the bridge to collapse or be unable to function if they should fail.

Structurally deficient: A bridge receives this designation if it is in a structurally deteriorated condition and does not adequately carry its designed traffic loads. The rating is applied if a bridge meets one of the following condition codes: superstructure deck, and/or substructure rates at 4 out of 10, (poor condition) or less. Or, if any of the appraised codes for structural adequacy or waterway adequacy are at 2 out of 10 (substandard) or less. Weight restrictions or closures may be posted depending on the limits of the bridge’s load carrying capacity.

Functionally obsolete: A bridge receives this designation because it either cannot meet current traffic demands or does not meet current design standards. The rating means the bridge does not have adequate approach, alignment, geometry, clearance, structural adequacy, or water adequacy to meet intended traffic needs. The rating is applied if any of the measures mentioned above are rated 3 or below on a scale of 10.

Sufficiency rating: This measures the bridge’s relative capability to serve its intended purpose. Ra

Every three months, a group of us pile into my car stuffed with platters of cheese and turkey wraps, bottled water and chocolate chip cookies.

AUTOR Paco Lafarga.

LUGAR Galería Carolina Rojo.

FECHA Hasta el 1 de junio.

En los años 50 del siglo XX el historiador italiano Ignacio de Logu acuñó el término "natura in posa", que describe lo esencial del género artístico del bodegón: el artista "prepara" la escena colocando los objetos como si posaran para ser fotografiados o retratados. Es decir, explica Omar Calabrese, el artista antes de expresarse con un lenguaje figurativo, traduce el mundo real en un esquema semiótico compatible con el código de ese mismo lenguaje, logrando con ello unasemiótica del mundo natural. Operación que sirve para todo tipo de representación realista: retrato, bodegón, paisaje y pintura de interiores. Como Calabrese indica en su artículo para el catálogoDesde la realidad (1996), el retrato es el prototipo, ya que la creación de la verosimilitud se fundamenta en esquemas construidos de modo abstracto, tales como la posición del cuerpo, los límites del encuadre, la dirección de la mirada o la colocación de las manos. Del mismo modo funciona el paisaje, al estar elaborado por quien describe la naturaleza como si se tratase de un objeto animado: horizonte alto o bajo, vistas frontales o diagonales, composición de cuerpos emergentes, aparición de personajes en escena, etc.; y la pintura de interiores que, asimismo, repite idéntico modelo: puertas y ventanas multiplican el espacio, fuentes de luz, presencia o ausencia de figuras humanas y objetos.

La reflexión que Calabrese hace del término "natura in posa" es reveladora de las intenciones que guían la obra de Paco Lafarga (Zaragoza, 1977), especialmente en la extensa secuencia de dibujos de formato reducido que presenta en la galería Carolina Rojo con el título tan poco afortunado dePequeño. Aunque organizados por géneros, lo más interesante es la notoria continuidad visual y plástica más allá de que sean retratos, bodegones, paisajes o pinturas de interior. Todo en ellos está dispuesto para ser retratado, de hecho la mayoría de sus pinturas y dibujos parten de fotografías que facilitan las tareas de construir el esquema compositivo y fijar la realidad, asuntos centrales en la obra de Lafarga.

Solo

La 21e édition du Forom des Langues s'installe ce dimanche place du Capitole. L'occasion de découvrir, en pleine mondialisation, 110 langues sur un pied d'égalité .

Depuis vingt-deux ans, Joseph Alemu est présent sur le Forom des Langues pour parler de l'amharique, langue dérivée du geez, apparue au 19è siècle, elle a perdu son statut de langue officielle en 1994. «Cette langue dite rare est celle des livres et du savoir, explique ce passionné. L'Éthiopie a sa propre écriture avec l'alphasyllabaire, ce qui est unique en Afrique». L'amharique qui veut dire «visage brûlé» en grec, a permis l'unification du pays. Et comme le rappelle avec fierté Joseph Alemu, «la non-colonisation de l'Éthiopie».

Ce dimanche, 110 langues sont représentées place du Capitole par le biais d'associations. Des langues toutes parlées bien sûr mais dont certaines ne s'écrivent pas. Car près des langues «classiques» comme l'allemand, l'italien, le polonais ou encore le finnois, il y a les autres, à l'identité souvent méconnue : «Un point qui passionne le public, relève Malik Arshad, pour la langue urdu, langue nationale du Pakistan. A l'ère de la mondialisation et des horizons multiples, il est bon de découvrir son origine. Le Forom des langues permet cette belle aventure intellectuelle».

Google has introduced natural language search for photos, along with the use of computer vision and machine learning to recognize images better.

I WAS INTRODUCED to Howard Goldblatt through a mutual friend, George Carroll, a publishers’ representative and champion of international literature based in the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Goldblatt, a former Guggenheim Fellow, has had a long and distinguished career as “the premier English-language translator of contemporary Chinese fiction” (Chicago Reader). He has introduced readers in the English-speaking world to Mo Yan, Jiang Rong, and dozens of Chinese writers through his translations and anthologies.

We exchanged emails shortly after Mo Yan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; it was during this time that Mo was facing intense scrutiny and criticism for his political convictions — or lack thereof. I was particularly interested in Goldblatt’s take on the controversy: as Mo’s primary English language translator — Goldblatt has translated nine of Mo Yan’s works over the past 20 years — I felt that no one would have better insight into the literary, if not political, qualities of his work.

¤

STEPHEN SPARKS: You just about stumbled into translating Chinese. Can you tell us a little bit about your history with the language and how coming to it accidentally has shaped your work, if at all?

HOWARD GOLDBLATT: Truth be told, I’ve stumbled into nearly every aspect of my relationship with China and the Chinese language. Had I been sent to sea directly from Naval OCS during the early phase of the Vietnam War, like my classmates, instead of Taiwan, none of the rest of my life would have turned out remotely as it did. Had I been accepted into any graduate program in Chinese other than the only one that grudgingly let me in the door, I’d not have chosen a thesis topic that led to my discovery of a writer, Xiao Hong, practically no one had heard of at the time, who is now one of the giants of the period, and who put me on the map, as it were. And since none of her work was available in English, I ventured into the field of translation and haven’t stopped since. My critical biography of her (in Chinese) and rendering of her masterwork, Tales of Hulan River, are still in print, 40 years later. Then, “affirmative action” got me a job at that same university in a department that, untill that time, was comprised solely of native speakers of Chinese. Finally, Nieh Hualing, who, with her husband, poet Paul Engle, ran the Iowa Writers Workshop, stumbled upon my translation and recommended me to translate a novel for a large commercial press. I’ve had lots of help along the way and more than a little luck; my indebtedness to those factors manifests itself in my passion (some might call it obsession) for translating literary texts — mainly fiction — from Chinese. I simply cannot think of a single thing I’d rather be doing professionally.

The wheels of justice move slowly sometimes, but not, apparently, as slowly as Webster's New World Dictionary. Slang has always been a challenge for the courts in cases that involve vulgar or...

Hamden, Conn., May 25, 2013 / 04:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A survey of U.S. priests' attitudes towards the new English translation of the Roman Missal showing “widespread skepticism” may be inaccurate because of its methods, according to a polling expert.

On May 21, St. John's School of Theology, located in Collegeville, Minn., released its survey results saying that the majority of priests in America dislike the new Missal.

Of the some 1,500 priests who responded to the survey, 39 percent like the new text, and 59 percent dislike it, according to the Collegeville survey.

“All 178 Roman Catholic Latin rite dioceses in the U.S. were invited to take part in this study; 32 dioceses participated...in the period February 21 – May 6, 2013, priests in participating dioceses were invited to participate in the online survey via an email to all priests on the diocesan distribution list,” according to the survey's executive summary.

Peter Brown, who is assistant director of Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute, discussed polling procedures with CNA May 23. “Random sampling is the key to getting accurate poll results,” he said.

Since only a few dioceses chose to participate in the survey – just under 18 percent – and only some priests in those dioceses chose to respond, survey respondents were “self-selecting.”

“They participated not randomly, but because they were the ones that chose to respond,” Brown explained. “Self-selected samples are not generally thought of....they don't produce a random sample.”

Since polls rely on a small number of people to represent the attitudes or beliefs of a larger population, “you have to be absolutely sure that the random group is a random group.”

The Collegeville survey, Brown said, “might not meet those criteria” since its participants were self-selecting.

“It's very difficult to know exactly” in this particular case, he added, though he had noted that self-selecting samples are generally not random.

The survey's project manager, Chase Becker, is a graduate student in liturgical studies at St. John's School of Theology, and holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy. No ostensible polling experts were involved, and the survey's professional consultant was an associate professor of psychology at the institution.

The poll also had no indication of its margin of error.

Reading Comprehension

There is no need to learn vernacular languages in Higher Institutes of learning They say. English will get you further because it is the language used in business and other formal platforms They remark.

What businesses are these and what formal platforms do they speak of? They have shown great disdain for the University of Kwazulu-Natal's (UKZN) decision to make Isizulu a compulsory semester course for all first year students. Why?

They say that this is a waste of time and it is wrong to force a language on people. They forget that if it were not for colonisation, English would be foreign to us as Africans. They forget that English was, and still is technically forced on us every single day.

They, represent all the people in our country who have come to believe that English is not only a better language but a superior one too. They, represent those people who think learning Isizulu is worthless and it would be more worthwhile to learn Mandarin or French. They, are black, white, Indian and coloured and Asian. They are elitist South Africa.

I sat in court this entire week. And the only case I heard that was conducted solely in English was in the South Gauteng High Court and was between business men. The rest, were in Johannesburg's magistrate court and were conducted in two or more languages.

The languages used varied from Sesotho to Portuguese. It was interesting and also sad to watch. There were people who looked as though they did not understand what they had been charged for or why they had been sitting in a holding cell for up to 37 days.

One case that stood out to me was one where I understood both languages being used. The man, who was accused of assaulting his baby's mother was originally from Bethlehem and communicated best in Sesotho.

At some point during his cross-examination the State Prosecutor asked him something which the court interpreter completely botched. I was shocked. It was a completely different question to what the prosecutor asked and because she [the prosecutor] did not understand Sesotho, she just assumed the accused was being evasive and moved on.

After the trial I asked one of the attorneys if this was a common occurrence in the court. He said yes and proceeded to tell me that often attorneys ignore messages that are lost in translation when this works in their favour. He said often people were convicted for crimes simply because their testimonies were weak due to misinterpretations.

They say in formal platforms African languages are not used and it is not necessary to learn them. They say African languages are simply for leisure. They are wrong. If an attorney can lose a case because he was not aware that the interpreter misinterpreted his clients' testimonies, then They are misguided.

Latest Effective Measure statistics reveal the most popular languages among Internet users in South Africa

You have a local based brick and mortar business, so no reason to invest in online marketing, right? Location based businesses couldn’t be more wrong.

Two tech giants temporarily squash their beef to work on YouTube app for Windows Phone Users.

Il en est sans doute de la Charte des langues régionales comme du Droit de vote des étrangers, Hollande fait le gros dos en attendant un moment plus favorable, ayant compris qu'il dansait sur un volcan.

Gageons qu'il attend un évènement susceptible de relancer la cohésion nationale autour de lui pour surfer sur la vague qui s'ensuivrait et accomplir ces deux promesses de campagne, que lui rappellent quotidiennement européistes, partisans du parti de l'étranger et... électoralistes ne voyant plus qu'une vague d'immigrés et de descendants d'immigrés capables d'assurer les victoires électorales à la gauche dans les années à venir.

Mais, le pire n'étant jamais sûr, Hollande-Ayrault, avec la complicité active de Valls, régularise et naturalise à tour de bras et, avec celle de Peillon, va assurer ledéveloppement des langues régionales que notre constitution interdit pourtant puisqu'elle impose une seule langue sur l'ensemble du territoire à l'école et dans les administrations, actes officiels etc.

En effet, les langues régionales étant déjà largement proposées en enseignement optionnel dans les lycées, les postes d'enseignants de breton, basque ou catalan étant plus importants que ceux des enseignants de latin ( réduits à zéro puisque le capes de lettres classiques a disparu), que pourrait apporter de plus la disposition propre aux langues régionales dans le projet de loi sur l'école ?

Bob Dylan has just celebrated his 72nd birthday! He was also recently made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a prestigious position he now shares with all of these acclaimed artists. As someone who is a huge fan of Bob Dylan and also of corpus linguistics, I would like to celebrate his life’s work so far by sharing with you some results from a mini corpus project I have recently been working on.

I thought a corpus analysis of Bob Dylan’s lyrics would be interesting because as well as being regarded as one of the most acclaimed and influential songwriters in recent American history, Dylan has been writing songs and releasing albums for more than 50 years. His continued productivity and influence on popular music is celebrated within arenas of light literary scholarship, biographical documentation and also in hardcore academic research (Dunlap, 2006; Gearey, 1988; Shelton, 2011). Even historical scholars, cultural sociologists and literary commentators (Marshall, 2003; Wilentz, 2011; Rogovoy, 2009) continue to adulate the immense impact of his songs on 20th and 21st century culture. Such commentators are careful not to restrict their dissection and admiration of his music and lyrics to the so-called “1960s golden period” of Dylan’s creative successes. Whissell (2008: 469), in her research paper which explores the emotional content of Dylan’s lyrics, notes that we should all be aware that “his career is still in progress and his is not to be regarded only in the past tense”. Whether you’re a huge fan or not, I think this comment succinctly summarizes the consensus among scholars, critics and fans alike that Dylan has sustained his creative and expressive panache for writing moving and emotive poetry throughout his life.

Se trata de un grupo de niños de Colimbia, que a raíz de un ejercicio escolar terminaron dando definiciones que superan, por su poesía y sabiduría, a las de cualquier diccionario académico. Palabras con sentimiento.