Monthly Archives: February 2011
Translating foreign words in imperial Russian literature: the experience of the foreign and the sociology of language
This article explores the treatment of foreign words in translated literature, in particular, in translations of two classic works of Russian nineteenth century literature, Mikhail Lermontov’s A hero of our time and Leo Tolstoy’s War and peace, both of which contain a great number and variety of foreign words. Foreign words play an important compositional function in these texts and challenge the notion of a pure and unified national identity. The treatment of foreign words is compared with the treatment of culture-specific Russian words in the translated texts, which serve to “foreignize” Russian culture, the ground for source text readers. The results suggest that there is no norm for the treatment of foreign words, that many translators underestimate or ignore altogether their compositional role in these texts, and that no relation appears to exist between the treatment of foreign words and that of culture-specific source text words. The problem of foreign words, which has been understudied in Translation Studies to date, challenges any simple opposition of domestic and foreign and may invert the target reader’s perception of domestic and foreign, a translation “shift” that reaches far beyond traditional studies of semantics and plays a potentially significant role in the cultural construction of the Otherness.
Negotiation and communicative accommodation in bilingual police interrogations: a critical interactional sociolinguistic perspective
When geographically displaced persons who have limited proficiency in English undergo custodial interrogations in police stations in the USA, they are not necessarily guaranteed the services of professional interpreters. In fact, research shows a growing trend toward the use of police officers as interpreters at such interrogations. This trend is viewed as problematic for several reasons: police interpreters are unfamiliar with judicial norms requiring neutrality and impartiality toward those for whom they conduct interpreting; they frequently shift footing out of interpreter role into police detective interrogator mode; they may be unqualified to perform interpreting either because they lack the necessary interpreting skills or because their proficiency in the second language (L2) is not sufficiently high as to perform interpreting adequately. A microanalysis of the custodial interrogations of three Latino young men accused of serious crimes demonstrates that when both the detainee and the police interpreter have insufficient proficiency in L2, the outcome is negotiation and communicative accommodation; however, such efforts aimed at communicating successfully are made primarily by the interlocutor who has less power in the interaction, the detainee. Even when both interlocutors are fluent bilinguals, the outcome is adversative for the detainee: unable to perform both interrogator and interpreter roles simultaneously, the police detective imposes pressure on the suspect to answer questions in English, despite the suspect’s repeated efforts to switch to Spanish.
“It’s not what they say but the way they say it”. A content analysis of interpreter and consumer perceptions towards signed language interpreting in Australia
This paper presents findings of an innovative study, which involved the thematic and content analyses of discussions held by deaf people, hearing people and interpreters about signed language interpreting in Australia. Six focus groups yielded eight hours of data, which was analyzed to identify themes that emerged about participants’ perceptions about interpreters and interpreting. Examples are given to compare how participants view the signed language interpreting profession, and to discuss the expectations of all parties of signed language interpreter-mediated encounters. The focus of analysis is on key themes that were evident from the most frequently used words/signs. The findings provide a clearer understanding of the relationship between consumers and interpreters, and attitudes towards signed language interpreters and interpreting in Australia.
An Examination of a Small-Group Decoding Intervention for Struggling Readers: Comparing Accuracy and Automaticity Criteria
In this study, we compared methods to improve the decoding and reading fluency of struggling readers. Second-grade poor readers were randomly assigned to one of the two practice conditions within a repeated reading intervention. Both interventions were in small groups, were 20–28 min long, took place 2–4 days per week, and consisted of phonemic awareness training, letter sound practice, and practice in word families. Students in the accuracy condition (n= 27) practiced each page until they reached 98 percent accuracy while students in the accuracy + automaticity condition (n= 29) practiced until they reached rate (30–90 cwpm) and accuracy criteria. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed no differences between practice conditions in decoding accuracy, reading comprehension, and grade-level text reading fluency. Significant differences favoring the accuracy + automaticity group were found in measures of decoding automaticity.
Meta-Analysis of Mathematic Basic-Fact Fluency Interventions: A Component Analysis
Mathematics fluency is a critical component of mathematics learning yet few attempts have been made to synthesize this research base. Seventeen single-case design studies with 55 participants were reviewed using meta-analytic procedures. A component analysis of practice elements was conducted and treatment intensity and feasibility were examined. Findings suggest that drill and practice with modeling produced the largest effect sizes. Treatments with more than 3 components yielded higher effect sizes than those with fewer than 3, and a combination of treatment agents lead to better outcomes than a single agent. Other findings pertaining to prebaseline assessment, treatment time, experimental design employed, and treatment setting are also discussed.
Monitoring Reading Growth: Goal Setting, Measurement Frequency, and Methods of Evaluation
This study examined effects of goal setting, frequency of progress monitoring, and method of evaluating progress on the number of instructional change prompts generated by reading-curriculum-based measurements (CBM). Participants were 31 high-incidence special education students in grades 2–6 selected from 8 schools. Following baseline measurements, researchers administered grade-level CBM passages every 2 weeks for 8 weeks. Comparisons included 3 goal levels (0.5, 1.0, or 1.5 word growth per week), 3 monitoring/evaluation schedules (every 2, 4, or 8 weeks), and 2 methods for evaluating progress (points below the aim line or slope). Overall, more ambitious goals, less frequent monitoring, and using slope to evaluate progress generated more instructional change prompts. Results favored less frequent monitoring and using slope to evaluate progress.
Hearing aids with the latest technology through NHS
Over the last few years, the NHS has switched from analogue to digital hearing aids for the majority of patients.
from News-Medical.net
RNID ‘TRIH’ To Accelerate Cures For Hearing Loss And Tinnitus Through Pioneering New Initiative, UK
New medicines to prevent and treat hearing loss or tinnitus could be available within 10 years, if a bold new initiative by RNID succeeds in bringing scientists, pharmaceutical companies, funding bodies and private investors together to accelerate clinical trials
‘The King’s Speech’ Sheds Light on Stuttering, but Not Its Cost
Getting health insurers to cover the costs of speech therapy can be difficult, which presents a big problem for the 3 million Americans who stutter. The Stuttering Foundation estimates that 5% of all children go through a stuttering phase that lasts for six months or longer, although most are able to recover. About 1% have a longer-term problem that lingers to adulthood like King George VI
from Wallet Pop.com
Are patient-reported voice outcomes better after surgery or after radiation for treatment of T1 glottic carcinoma?
No abstract is available for this article.
from The Laryngoscope
Early-onset versus late-onset Alzheimer’s disease: the case of the missing APOE ɛ4 allele
Some patients with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) present with a distinct phenotype. Typically, the first and most salient characteristic of AD is episodic memory impairment. A few patients, however, present with focal cortical, non-memory symptoms, such as difficulties with language, visuospatial, or executive functions. These presentations are associated with specific patterns of atrophy and frequently with a young age at onset. Age is not, however, the only determinant of phenotype; underlying factors, especially genetic factors, seem also to affect phenotype and predispose patients to younger or older age at onset. Importantly, patients with atypical early-onset disease seldom carry the APOE ɛ4 allele, which is the most important risk factor for lowering the age of onset in patients with AD. Additionally, theAPOE ɛ4 genotype seems to predispose patients to vulnerability in the medial temporal areas, which leads to memory loss. Conversely, patients negative for the APOE ɛ4 allele and with early-onset AD are more likely to be predisposed to vulnerability of cerebral networks beyond the medial temporal lobes. Other factors are probably involved in determining the pattern of atrophy, but these are currently unknown.
from The Lancet Neurology
Brain Stem Responses to Speech in Younger and Older Adults
Conclusions: Results of this study partially supported the hypothesis of age-related differences in neural processing of speech at the brain stem level. There were significant delays in the timing of the offset portion of the S-ABR in older listeners compared with their younger counterparts, even after accounting for the differences in peripheral hearing threshold between groups. There were also significant reductions in amplitude of the S-ABR at the onset. These results are consistent with a reduction in neural synchrony in older adults to transient components of both speech and nonspeech sounds. However, sustained components of the S-ABR, which follow the harmonic components of the syllable, showed group differences but were not significant after adjusting for peripheral hearing loss, suggesting that they may be more affected by hearing sensitivity and other peripheral changes. These results support further investigation into the ability of the aging auditory system to encode temporal cues at the brain stem level, particularly the response to speech stimulus offset and its relationship to speech perception and temporal processing abilities.
from Ear and Hearing
Comparison of Wireless and Acoustic Hearing Aid-Based Telephone Listening Strategies
Conclusion: Routing the signal to both hearing aids resulted in significantly better speech recognition than unilateral signal routing. Wireless signal routing was shown to be beneficial compared with acoustic telephone listening and in some conditions resulted in the best performance of all of the listening conditions evaluated. However, this advantage was only evident when the signal was routed to both ears and when hearing aid wearers were fitted with occluding domes. Therefore, it is expected that the benefits of this new wireless streaming technology over existing telephone coupling methods will be most evident clinically in hearing aid wearers who require more limited venting than is typically used in open canal fittings.
from Ear and Hearing
Diffusion Tensor Imaging Reveals White Matter Microstructure Correlations With Auditory Processing Ability
Conclusions: The dependence of performance on higher-order auditory processing tasks on brain anatomical connectivity was seen in normal-hearing children aged 9 to 11 yrs. Results support a previously hypothesized dual-stream (dorsal and ventral) model of auditory processing, and that higher-order processing tasks rely less on the dorsal stream related to articulatory networks and more on the ventral stream related to semantic comprehension. Results also show that the regions correlating with auditory processing vary according to the specific task, indicating that the neurological bases for the various tests used to diagnose APD in children may be partially independent.
from Ear and Hearing
Do “Optimal” Conditions Improve Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emission Test Performance?
Conclusions: Predictions of auditory status based on DPOAE measurements in clinical protocols may be improved by the inclusion of (1) optimized stimuli, (2) alternative calibration techniques, (3) low-level suppressors, and (4) multivariate analyses.
from Ear and Hearing
