Volume Five, Number One
ABSTRACTS
Heritage LOTEs at
VCE level: student perspectives on current programs
Louisa Willoughby
Australia has been praised for the number of languages taught in government schools. In 2004 50 LOTEs (languages other than English) were offered at Victorian schools, with 36 of those accredited as VCE subjects. However, the system has significant difficulties attracting students to VCE LOTE study, with less than 15% of government school year 12 students studying a LOTE in 2004. Students often appear to be particularly reluctant to study their heritage languages at VCE level, with many languages having less than 5 students sit VCE exams each year. Such low numbers threaten the viability of existing programs and suggest student dissatisfaction with current LOTE programs.
Drawing on interview data from migrant-background students attending one Melbourne government Secondary College, this paper explores the reasons students give for (not) studying their heritage languages at VCE level. In particular it focuses on the effectiveness of two arguments commonly employed by schools to market VCE LOTE study to heritage language speakers: that they will receive good marks for little effort and that they will become more employable. While showing that these arguments are effective in attracting certain types of students to heritage LOTE study at VCE, it demonstrates that many students either doubt the potential benefits of study or are disinterested in achieving them. In light of these comments, the article closes with some recommendations.
Translating Idiolects: Natalia Ginzburg's
Lessico famigliare
Mirna Cicioni - Denise
Formica
We look at the two English translations of Natalia Ginzburg's autobiographical narrative Lessico Famigliare (1963) with a focus on the challenges of translating idiolects, particularly code-mixing between standard Italian, dialects and other languages. We draw on Antoine Berman (who posits that the substitution of any non-standard language with a culturally relevant equivalent in the target language simply "ridicules" the source text). Andr Lefevere (who suggests that translators can compensate for the loss of specific features); and Ernst-August Gutt (who maintains that a successful translation will recognise and address the relevancy of the role played by idiolects in the text). We agree with Umberto Eco when he argues that losses and gains are inevitable in any translation process and problems must be negotiated individually,. We would suggest that an effective strategy for translators may be to negotiate solutions from their specific places within what Anthony Pym calls "intercultures", points of cultural overlap between source and target texts
Culture-Specific Items in Japanese-English
Literary Translation: Comparing two translations of Kawabata's
'Izu no Odoriko'
Shani Tobias
Cultural considerations influence many aspects of the translation decision-making process. When translating literature, the translator frequently is faced with culture-bound items such as physical articles, customs and expressions which must somehow be conveyed to the target audience in their own language. What strategies do translators use in dealing with culture-specific items, and how successful are these strategies in promoting cross-cultural understanding? This paper examines these questions with regard to English translation of Japanese literature, comparing two translations of Yasunari Kawabata's short story 'Izu no Odoriko' as a case study.
Trolls
dat speak / Vat did you say? Literary translation approaches to cultural
references and Terry Pratchett's novels in German translation
Rhiannyn Geeson
This paper highlights the challenge presented to translators by a specific form of intertextual referencing, namely that of hyperculturality - references to the wider cultural environment. Through the use of examples drawn from original works of the popular British writer, Terry Pratchett, and from the German translations, the use of speech patterns to create culturally-specific characters which represent a "transtextual" relationship to culture, and its translation into another culture, is discussed. The strategies employed by the German translator are then contrasted with some possibilities offered by the relevant translation strategies of Umberto Eco and Lawrence Venuti.
Interpreters'
role perceptions in business dialogue interpreting situations
Masato Takimoto
This paper aims to examine interpreters' perceptions regarding their role in business interpreting situations involving the Japanese and English languages in Australia. Australia has a nation-wide accreditation system for professional interpreters, and accredited interpreters are in theory bound by the professional code of ethics and code of practice. The codes, for example, stipulate such aspects as accuracy, impartiality and confidentiality in interpreting assignments. In this paper, I report on a study of seven interpreters, all of whom value such codes and recognise their importance but who expressed the feeling that there are various occasions where some of the provisions in the codes come in conflict with effective and efficient communication between Australian and Japanese clients in business-related situations. Furthermore, it seems that interpreters are actually active participants in inter-cultural communicative situations as a whole, and that their function appears to be more dynamic and proactive than the traditional stereotype towards interpreters implies. In this paper, the professional interpreters are the main focus and their perceived behaviour in business interpreting situations is discussed. The study is based on interviews with seven accredited Japanese language interpreters. Norm theory developed in the field of translation studies, as well as Goffman's role concept, are applied in the theoretical framework for the study.
The guilty silence: the discursive implications
of non-response in a police interview
Georgina Heydon
Police evidentiary interviews with suspects provide a source of institutional language data in which the contributions of participants may be critical to their future, in the context of a subsequent court case. An analysis of the interactional strategies of police interview participants demonstrates that the contributions of the suspect are highly constrained in a number of ways, including allowable turn types and the management of topic initiations. If assumptions about 'preferred responses' based on ordinary conversation are used to interpret non-response in this particular institutional setting, then these interactionally restricted contributions, which will be presented as evidence, may be susceptible to adverse inference in a way that is unlikely to be addressed by the judicial system. This paper concludes that discourse analysis can present a case against the erosion of the defendant's rights, in particular the right to silence.