Colloquial Expressions Research Articles

Evaluation of culturally appropriate health counselling to prevent lifestyle‐related diseases and its modification for practical use as the new ABC model of culturally appropriate counselling for Japanese public health nurses

This study evaluates culturally appropriate health counselling to prevent lifestyle‐related diseases and suggests modifications of the method for practical use.Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 13 public health nurses (PHNs) in seven cities with different cultural backgrounds. Data were analysed qualitatively with the following research questions: Do we need to add other cultural factors to the previous six categories or to improve their expression for practical use? Are the methods for using cultural factors valid and expressed in appropriate language for practical use?The original factors were re‐categorized into three classifications—Values, Styles and Relationships—using colloquial expressions. The original methods of using cultural factors were re‐categorized and modified into five phases: Assessment, Acceptance, Awareness, Balance and Connection. The names of the methods were also modified.Modified culturally appropriate health counselling is easily understandable by any PHN and highlights the unique Japanese culture and style of public health nurses.

La concomitancia entre la formalidad y la informalidad a través del cine

<p>Un aprendiz de una lengua extranjera debe estar expuesto al lenguaje que se requiere para un desenvolvimiento integral tanto en situaciones formales como informales. Los coloquialismos nos ofrecen una riqueza de vocabulario y expresiones, en tanto transmiten cultura y son fuente de conocimiento y distinción entre las variedades de un lenguaje. Así, la adquisición de un nuevo lenguaje no se centra únicamente en el aprendizaje de estructuras formales, sino también en la expansión del léxico a través de las expresiones coloquiales que cada variedad ofrece. Para ello se necesita un cambio de actitud tanto del que imparte como del que recibe. El reto no solamente consiste en la inclusión de las expresiones coloquiales en nuestras aulas, sino también en cómo lograr que el estudiante adquiera una fácil comprensión de ellas. Este artículo está enfocado a establecer qué tan signiicativo y valioso es el cine para alcanzar este cometido.</p>

The effectiveness of using Thelin's model in the expressive performance of fifth grade female students

Undoubtedly, there are several reasons behind the poor expressive performance of students, including what is due to the student himself and what he possesses of linguistic capabilities and capabilities, and what is due to the teacher and his competencies and what he possesses of methods and methods, including what is due to the nature of the expression material and what it requires of capabilities on the creative level and organization on Administrative level. With regard to the first axis, which is the student, he suffers from weakness in the linguistic components, as we find that most students graduate in the preparatory stage and they do not have a sufficient collection of linguistic vocabulary that helps them express themselves in a satisfactory manner, which leads them to include in their competencies some colloquial expressions. (Ahmed, 1986, p. 12).The problem does not stop at the limits of the student or the teacher only, but it goes beyond them to the time allotted for the study of expression. One examination is not sufficient to develop the skill of expression among students (Ahmed, 1985, p. 12).

A Semiotic Analysis of Five News Stories in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star

The study shed light on how the Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Philippine Star differ in their treatment of each controversial news story. Specifically, it determined the (1) the narrative codes employed by the Inquirer and The Philippine Star, (2) how they treat each controversial issue, and the (3) implications of the uses of these narrative codes in highlighting controversial issues on the journalistic practices of Filipino news writers. The researchers selected and examined carefully five (5) similar news stories from the Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Philippine Star, namely: Maguindanao Massacre, Hostage Fiasco, Acquittal of Webb and et al., Car traders’ murder, and Angelo Reyes’ suicide. In analyzing the news stories, the researchers employed the comparative semiotic analysis. They set a common time to read the news stories and studied carefully the treatment of each code. Afterwards, selected texts were carefully analyzed and interpreted based on how it would affect the Filipino readers. The narrative codes used by the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star were the linguistic style, typography style, and the graphic style. The linguistic style is employed in the selected texts of each news story, in the form of camaraderie, familiarity, informality, connotation and denotation. Also, the typography style, bold typeface headings, and one-word subheadings and the graphic style, camera angle, shot size, composition, focus and light. As revealed in each of the news articles analyzed, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Philippine Star have an inherent style in writing their news stories. However, the use of these codes revealed excesses in journalistic practices, veering away from objectivity, fairness, and balance. The connotations produced by the selected texts are based on the Filipino culture. The complacent use of figurative or colloquial expressions can distort the real score of the event, and it can portray a different scenario compared to what really happened. Nonetheless, it cautions the writers to avoid using informal languages in writing their news stories so to gain the reader’s trust and confidence. Lastly, the depiction of the use of sensationalized languages may suggest a possibility of compromising objectivity in journalistic practice.

Celebrating the Fransaskois Voice: la nouvelle dramaturgie de La Troupe du Jour

Theatre for the Fransaskois Voice Following a theatre workshop offered by the Commission culturelle fransaskoise at College Mathieu in Gravelbourg during the summer of 1984, Alphonse Gaudet, Carmen Gareau, and Michel Quirion were inspired by Claudia Gendron (Gaudet, email 3 June) to establish a French theatre company in Saskatoon (Gaudet, email 15 June). Determined to develop a fransaskois theatre which highlighted self-exploration, self-definition, selfacceptance, and self-celebration, the three created La Troupe du Jour (LTDJ) in 1985. A devised piece, Azarie (October 1985) marked the debut of what was to become the company's focus on new play development. It repositioned the language debate in Saskatchewan by investigating the cultural marginalization of elderly Fransaskois in the provincial nursing-home system (Lusignan 7). The material hit a nerve with its public; the show became an instant success. Bypassing the repertories of Quebec and France, founding members became resolute in their endeavour to bring the fransaskois experience to their public. The first season's program announced their goals: [...] le reve est faire du theatre francophone, communautaire et professionnel, qui reflete la realite fransaskoise [...]. C'est par la creation et des representations textes fransaskois que la troupe espere developper un nouveau sens theatral dans la communaute francophone. (Qtd. in Forsyth 141) They incorporated LTDJ as a non-profit company in 1985 with Gaudet as its first artistic director. The time was ripe de passer a un theatre 'fait maison' qui serait le reflet du peuple fransaskois, sa langue, ses defis, ses mythes (Bonetto 3). This paper explores two questions. The first, What defines fransaskois playwrights?, draws attention to a binary feature I refer to as dis/bislocation and re-examines the notion of minority status as it applies to French-Canadians living outside Quebec. The second, How has LTDJ cultivated fransaskois playwriting?, examines the mechanisms LTDJ has instituted to develop new work since the arrival of Denis Rouleau. Dis/Bislocation of the Fransaskois Saskatchewan's first French settlers were a heterogeneous lot, hailing from Quebec, France, Belgium, and the United States (Beaulieu par. 25). (1) Linguistically compatible despite cultural differences, they merged into an unusual minority population due to extraordinary circumstances, as Roger A. Lalonde noted in 1974: Ces gens ont ete metamorphoses par l'experience l'expatriation, par les mesures repressives contre le francais et par tous les autres evenements survenus au cours leur histoire. Tous cela faisait d'eux des > (2). (Qtd. in Beaulieu par. 25) Settlers straddled two geographies, both there in linguistic expression and social customs, and here in practice, living and negotiating the tensions in the gap between the two. LTDJ's fransaskois playwrights follow this pattern: like the first settlers, linguistic compatibility and cultural hybridity are features they share. Geographically and culturally severed from the place where their French originated (dislocation), these individuals constantly negotiate two francophonies (bislocation), the formative one from the pays d'origine which is hors contexte in the geographical present, and the current one which dynamically lives and transforms in a Saskatchewan context. Unless a fransaskois playwright is a recent transplant from Quebec or has been assimilated into Quebec culture, joual plays an inconsequential role in the linguistic idiosyncrasies found in fransaskois plays. David Baudemont writes in an idiom particular to France, specifically to Alsace where German and French cohabit; Ian C. Nelson, a Francophile originating from Nottingham, England, has adopted an Ile-de-France French distinctively coloured by French argot; Madeleine BlaisDahlem and Raoul Granger incorporate certain spoken idiosyncrasies of quebecois in their writing, but belie their Quebec origins with a standard French that occasionally is encroached upon by English constructs, such as syntax, vocabulary, and colloquial expressions. …

A monotonic statistical machine translation approach to speaking style transformation

This paper presents a method for automatically transforming faithful transcripts or ASR results into clean transcripts for human consumption using a framework we label speaking style transformation (SST). We perform a detailed analysis of the types of corrections performed by human stenographers when creating clean transcripts, and propose a model that is able to handle the majority of the most common corrections. In particular, the proposed model uses a framework of monotonic statistical machine translation to perform not only the deletion of disfluencies and insertion of punctuation, but also correction of colloquial expressions, insertions of omitted words, and other transformations. We provide a detailed description of the model implementation in the weighted finite state transducer (WFST) framework. An evaluation of the proposed model on both faithful transcripts and speech recognition results of parliamentary and lecture speech demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed model in performing the wide variety of corrections necessary for creating clean transcripts.

Cigar Use Misreporting Among Youth: Data from the 2009 Youth Tobacco Survey, Virginia

Researchers have suggested that adolescents' cigar use has increased beyond the rates being reported on tobacco use surveys. Differences in content knowledge and everyday colloquial expressions may be responsible for misreporting of cigar use. To determine whether cigar use is subject to systematic misreporting, we compared reports of general cigar use ("During the past 30 days, on how many days did you smoke cigars, little cigars, and cigarillos?") with reports of brand-specific use ("During the past 30 days, on how many days did you smoke Black & Milds?") among a statewide sample of adolescents in Virginia. We examined data from 3,093 youth who completed the 2009 Virginia Youth Tobacco Survey to determine differences in the rate of misreported cigar use (ie, those who reported Black & Mild use but did not report cigar, little cigar, or cigarillo use) for youth with varying demographic profiles and conditions. More than one-half of Black & Mild users (57.3%) did not report general cigar use. Cigar use misreporting was most prevalent among older adolescents, blacks/African Americans, current users of cigarettes and hookah, and youth diagnosed with asthma. General cigar-use items on statewide surveys significantly underestimate the prevalence of youth cigar use. More comprehensive measures of cigar use may be beneficial in assessing tobacco use among groups most likely to misreport their tobacco use, such as African Americans and youth diagnosed with asthma.

Towards an inter-language of talking science: exploring students’ argumentation in relation to authentic language

In this paper we explore the idea that learning science involves appropriation of the school-science language and how it manifests in the classroom. This is done through an analysis of peer group discussions in Swedish secondary schools; discussions that served both as an arena for learning and as a research tool. In this arena, the students are offered opportunities of communicating, evaluating and arguing knowledge claims. The analysis focuses on the intersection between social languages (colloquial and scientific), and epistemological/conceptual aspects of biological evolution. We explore how words (especially Vygotsky’s meaning and sense of words) and semantic patterns manifest in the students’ talk. Specifications are made step by step in negotiations, and the groups of students talk more and more in line with school-science language. We understand this to rely on the establishment of an arena where technical terms and scientific models may be introduced, negotiated, and made sense of, in particular in relation to personal and everyday experiences. The students use an inter-language where colloquial expressions serve as an asset in sense-making.

Humor in code-mixed airline advertising

This article examines how humor works in the code-mixed advertising campaigns of the Spanish airline company Vueling. Drawing on the fetishism approach to multilingual advertising (Kelly-Holmes, 2005) and the theory of incongruity (Raskin, 1985), this paper explores three main types of humorous deviations in Vueling campaigns: structural, phonetic, and visual. The analysis confirms that humor in Vueling ads is produced by deviations at the formal rather than semantic level of language, specifically through the insertion of foreign languages (mainly English and French) into Spanish colloquial expressions. These foreign elements are partially “domesticated” into local Spanish frames by creative code-mixing mechanisms that serve to break readers’ expectations and trigger a comical reaction. Another finding of this analysis is that in most Vueling ads, humor works according to an incongruity-resolution pattern since the subtle humor of many rhymes, puns, and plays on words is only appreciated by a Spanish audience who knows some English and French and is familiarized with certain cultural references and sayings used in Spain.

"We weren't laughing at them . . . We're grieving with you": Empathy and Comic Vision in Welty's The Optimist's Daughter

In March 1969, The New Yorker published one-hundred-page story that Eudora Welty later revised and expanded into Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Optimist's Daughter. This early version of novel inspired near-ecstatic review by Reynolds Price, who claimed that story was Welty's strongest, richest (58). (1) Price especially praised Welty's skillful synthesis of tragedy and comedy and argued that story's ending imparts a complicated sense of joy as protagonist Laurel transcends roles she has played as victim and judge and moves to higher state ofcomprehension, which is always (72-73). Subsequent critics have not sought to build upon Price's ideas about relationship between tragic and in The Optimist's Daughter, (2) despite fact that Welty herself alluded to significance of this relationship; in 1986 interview, Welty told Patricia Wheatley, There's even some in The Optimist's Daughter, to do with funeral--which is probably going too far. But life is that way (qtd in Black 8). Those scholars who have commented on in novel have tended either to regard work as comedy of manners in which small-town prejudices and human weakness are satirized (Gretlund 142), or to propose some variation of thesis, first articulated by Robert Brinkmeyer, that the subversive force of challenges Laurel's humorless perfectionism and preoccupation with past (440). To Brinkmeyer, Fay is flawed because of her selfishness and rejection of memory but is nonetheless thoroughly given to life-giving forces of carnival spirit, spirit which, in Bakhtin's theory, is ultimately in its vision of (435). (3) Of those critics who have followed Brinkmeyer, Axel Nissen offers most thorough treatment of in The Optimist's Daughter. Using Susan Sontag's theory of sensibility as framework for his analysis, Nissen delights in novel's endlessly permutating puns, delicious colloquial expressions, and comic oneliners (220). Nissen comes closest of any critic to addressing interaction of and tragic in novel, (4) but his conclusion that camp as utilized by Wehy, not require that we empathize with Fay, or even like her, or Laurel for that matter, but that we appreciate both of them in all their idiosyncratic and at times ludicrous humanity (228), underscores critical element missing from his study and from previous studies: an extensive consideration of connection between and empathy. This is serious gap in scholarship given key role that ideas about empathy play in theories of comedy in general and in evaluations of Welty's brand of in particular. A substantial number of critics have long associated empathy and in Welty's works. Alun R. Jones exemplifies perspective of many scholars in asserting that Miss Welty moves with assurance through those worlds of feeling where comedy and meet and become inseparable and that her work shows how tragic feeling can be expressed in laughter, and laughter in her work is often release of otherwise unbearable pathos (180). In an interview with Jo Brans, Welty herself expressed related sentiments about relationship between empathy and while being careful to distinguish between her conceptions of comic, which Welty associated with humor, and comedy, which she did not explicitly define. In response to Brans's assertion that seems to me that your writing is basically comic. There is almost always that sense of harmony and reconciliation at end, Welty replied, Yes, I think it's part of tragic things. It intrudes, as it in life, in even most tragic situations. Not comedy--I would say does (70). The connection between and empathy reappeared as one of Welty's key themes in an interview with Tereza Marques de Oliviera Lima. In this interview, author stated that the true sense of humor is a human apprehension of other human beings and that [h]umor encompasses outlook on life and interplay of character: of past, sense of family and all those things (9). …

Collaborative Discussion and Peer Review Activity in Computer-Mediated EFL Writing

The aim of this study was to investigate the learners’ performance on online peer review activity and their views on computer-mediated writing interaction in English. Students were assigned to be engaged in online activities with given tasks and topics to be discussed during the online collaborative activities. Furthermore, the students were involved in reciprocal teaching during the course of the term. In order to answer questions, 64 samples of group writing were collected and analysed. After finishing online activities, students were asked to fill in the questionnaire and open-ended survey to find out learners’ views on online activity. The study showed that in online peer review activity, learners were interested in finding grammatical errors, providing additional grammatical explanations, paraphrasing the sentences, commenting on styles of writing, suggesting colloquial expressions, performing self-repair and self-clarification, adding post interaction, translating some words into English and so on. By the same token, learners made some incorrect suggestion as well. In the view of online writing and peer review activity, there were more positive opinions than negative ones. Learners showed more favorable attitude on direct instructions, guidance and feedback from the teacher. Learners generally showed strong interests in online collaborative learning and high expectations on the improvement of writing ability through online activities.

DELETED TEXT IN A MANUSCRIPT. GALEN ON THE EYE AND THE MARC. GR. 276.

DELETED TEXT IN A MANUSCRIPT. GALEN ON THE EYE AND THE MARC. GR. 276.

Impact of E-dictionaries on Arab students’ translation strategies

This paper sets out to investigate the impact of e-­­dictionaries on Arab students’ translation skills and strategies. To this effect, expressions or sentences including culture-­­specific, idiomatic, collocational, and colloquial expressions as well as syntactic complex structures were given to some Arab translation students at Bahrain University. The results showed a considerable effect of e-­­dictionaries on the strategies the students employed in rendering the given texts. It was found that e-­­dictionaries very often opt for word-­­for-­­word translation and formal (literal) equivalence in search for meanings of lexical elements. More complex structure was found to pose greater challenge to both e-­­dictionaries and students. On the other hand, familiarity with lexical elements made the translation task much easier. The paper concludes with a summary of the problems both e-­­dictionaries and Arab students normally encounter when attempting problematic issues from English into Arabic.

Roll the Bones

Page 11 March–April 2008 Roll the Bones Paula Koneazny The Marvelous Bones of Time: Excavations and Explanations Brenda Coultas Coffee House Press http://www.coffeehousepress.org 140 pages; paper, $15.00 In The Marvelous Bones of Time, poet-investigator Brenda Coultas returns to scavenging and collecting , pursuits that underpinned her wonderful first book, A Handmade Museum (2003). Once again, she hitches (or hinges) together two seemingly disparate manuscripts, “TheAbolition Journal” and “ALonely Cemetery.” In her author’s statement, she explains that these two projects are “connected by my exploration of narrative, folklore, found materials, and place.” Billie Holiday’s chilling rendition of “Strange Fruit” might be an appropriate soundtrack for such investigations into anAmerican heartland still marked by the legacy of “that peculiar institution,” slavery. Perhaps it is precisely the strangeness of this history that brings forth all manner of conjure—from UFO abductions, monsters, and ghosts to séances and spirit guides. For here the borders between the normal and the paranormal, between phenomena and dreams, tale tales and true tales, horror stories and historical accounts, prove permeable indeed. In “The Abolition Journal,” Coultas turns her attention to the North/South, free state/slave state border that separates Indiana and Kentucky. For her, border crossing is at once literal and symbolic: I was born between the free side and the slave side, my head crowning on the bridge. I fully emerged in an elevator traveling upward in a slave state. I have shopped in the slave state and eaten barbecue there. I have walked along the riverbank in the slave state and looked out at a free state. Her use of such expressions strikes me as salutary; she’s not just rehashing history, but examining how it has become embedded in a landscape and language with which she is on intimate terms. Many of the poems in “TheAbolition Journal” include lists of town names, team names, colloquial expressions, taunts, and jokes. The author states that she wanted to explore “what remains of the past in the local idioms of my county, including the lost origins of the names of villages and townships and the traces of ninteenth-century Americana still present in its culture.” She connects her personal history to communal history, situating herself in relation to certain touchstones; for example, the date of the last lynching in Indiana (“I was born fifty-eight years after the lynching of three in the county seat”) and the Emancipation Proclamation: Born ninety-three years after My mother born in Indiana sixty-two years after Her mother born in Kentucky 1896 Her mother born in Kentucky, and during her lifetime The first grandchild born 121 years after the news of Emancipation In the course of her inquest, Coultas searches county records for evidence pertaining to her ancestors : “Question: are there any abolitionists hanging from my family tree?” It is with such lines that this poet truly shines, as she packs significance into a few ordinary words, probing the sore spot where experience becomes metaphor. When reading “The Abolition Journal,” one must recall Langston Hughes’s famous poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” for rivers and bridges are prominent features of American landscape, history, and literature and connect so much, including Brenda Coultas andAbraham Lincoln. Lincoln, also born in Kentucky and raised in Indiana, resembles the author in another more provocative way: “We were white and so could cross the river.” Blacks also crossed the river, of course, some ferried from slave state to free; others kidnapped on the “free” side and “returned” to the slave side by unscrupulous men, both Northerners and Southerners. Nowadays, Coultas reports in what sounds like supreme irony, anAfricanAmerican man commutes from L.A. to Kentucky to visit family members who, once having returned there, refuse to leave. He calls Owensboro, Kentucky, their new hometown, “Heaven.” Coultas probes the sore spot where experience becomes metaphor. Whereas “The Abolition Journal” proves to be as necessary a piece of writing as the author’s earlier “The Bowery Project,” “A Lonely Cemetery,” book 2 in The Marvelous Bones of Time, does not seem as essential. This subsequent, independent investigative project is divided into four parts: “A Lonely Cemetery ,” “The Robert...

Le Roman de Brut: The French Book of Brutus, Arthur Wayne Glowka

MLR, 102.2, 2007 503 how a study of its textsand descriptions, inwhich the signature of the lexicographers can be felt,can enable us tograsp the 'intertextualityof the age' (p. 373). The subject of style as treated in this research is farfromexhaustive, but enables us better tounderstand the steps taken in thediscipline and the state of studies in stylis tics today.A few minor points mar thework. Rather bizarre and incongruous inan aca demic register,Georges Kleiber's use of some colloquial expressions inhis article on demonstratives ('ce n'est pas une galere' in a footnote (p. 282), 'voici labete' (p. 283), 'cene sont pas des demonstratifs coton' (p. 296)) seems completely inappropriate. The index does notmention eitherMozart or La Bruyere, who is theobject of an analysis. The diversity ofmethodologies aswell as some of the rather technical and sometimes abstruse academic vocabulary make some of these analyses barely accessible to the lay man, but restricted to specialists. Overall, thequality of some of these articlesmakes ita remarkable piece of researchwhich one can only recommend to scholars interested in the application of style and stylistics to grammar, linguistics, and literature. UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD MICHAEL ABECASSIS Le Roman de Brut: The French Book ofBrutus. By WACE. Trans. and introd. by ARTHURWAYNE GLOWKA. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 279) Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 2005. 434 pp. $48. ISBN 978-o-86698-322-8. One must applaud Arthur Wayne Glowka forpublishing the firstcomplete metrical translation ofWace's 14,866 -lineRoman deBrut ( 155) so soon after Judith Weiss's prose translation (Wace's 'Roman deBrut': A History of the British (Exeter: Univer sityofExeter Press, I999; rev.edn 2002)). His purpose is to 'offer[a] verse translation beside Weiss's prose translation as a gesture toward providing the reader with a sense of the poetry of the original' (p. xxvii). The potential beauty of verse transla tionsnotwithstanding, Glowka's choice ofunrhymed English iambic tetrameter (with some variation) to echoWace's largelyunaccented Old French octosyllabic rhyming couplets isproblematic, especially when coupled with numerous misreadings. Glowka's principal strength ishis love of poetry and his sense of Wace's voice. His use of repetitionmirrors one ofWace's favourite stylistic techniques, a single verb formused in a series of lines e.g. duna, in Arthur's gift-giving (11.I0599-609, io6 i i, I06 I3-I6)-and ismore authentic thanWeiss's elimination of the verbal repetition in favour of a list: Duna deduiz, dunajoiels, He gaveadornments;he gave jewels; He gaveplaythings, Duna levriers, duna oisles, He gave out hounds; he gave out birds; he gave jewels, he gave Duna pelicuns,duna dras, He gaveout furs;he gaveout clothes; greyhounds, birds, Duna cupes,duna hanas He gaveout cups; he gaveout goblets[...] furs, cloth,cups, (11.Io6oI-o4) (Glowka) goblets [. .. (Weiss,p. 267) Glowka succeeds at recreating the tension and energy ofWace's battle scenes, as in Arthur's battle with theMont-Saint-Michel giant, though the tension isnot always substantially greater than in Weiss: 504 Reviews Artur fuforment airus Arthurwas quite angrythen; Arthur's bloodwas E merveilles fuengiegnus; Wondrous was his ability. rousedand hewas Corucied fuepour out. He was worked up, and hewas scared. also amazingly wily. EfforSasei tantcum ilpout; He forced himselftodo his best. Both angryandafraid, A sei traitede seiempeinst, He struggled tocompose himself. hemade everyeffort: Grant vertuout,pas ne sefeinst; He had greatstrength; he did notfaint. hepulled the giant to (11.II529-34) (Glowka) himandpushedhim violently. As hewas verystrong, he did not hesitate[. . .] (Weiss, P. 291) Types of frequentmisreadings which erode confidence include those in italics above and Hoel's response toArthur, 'Sire, dist il,enmeie fei, I Mult paroles raisnablement, I Nuls n'i puetmettre amendement' (11.I09 I0-I 2),where paroles is translated as a noun and raisnablementas an adjective: "'Sire", he said, "it ismy creed I That many reason able words I Cannot improve a single thing"' (11. I09IO-12) (Weiss: "'Sire", he said, "upon my word, you speakmost reasonably, no one could better it"', p. 275). Glowka misses opportunities to evoke the epic, using 'neck' rather than 'brain' for cervele (11. I 1548) inArthur's fatal blow against the giant, reminiscent of skull-splitting, brain-spilling deeds from...

Medical IELTS: A Workbook for International Doctors and PLAB Candidates

The native English speaker, particularly if monolingual, should be thoroughly humbled by the awesome task which faces many potential colleagues from overseas in acquiring sufficient English language skills to work in the NHS. Not only is good standard and technical English required to function at all in the medical field, but also a working knowledge of idiomatic language is essential to work proficiently. This excellent book is designed as a workbook to help prospective international medical graduates and other healthcare workers do just that and is aimed at those studying for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board (PLAB) examinations in particular. It is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the specifics of vocabulary and language use in the clinical setting and the second written for students sitting the examinations, exploring points of grammar and vocabulary which might be expected in the various papers. These are preceded by an explanation of how to use the book to best advantage, including suggestions for ways to augment vocabulary. The first part of the book is a comprehensive guide to current language and vocabulary as used in the medical setting. It begins with general chapters on communicating with patients and taking a history, suggesting the most colloquial and succinct ways of posing a question to elicit a useful and accurate response from the patient. Within the history-taking chapter, there is useful information on what occupations like ‘being in HR’ involve or what a ‘chippy’ does for a living. Interestingly, it requires four full pages to cover all the terms for alcohol and drug consumption, while exercise needs only a paragraph and includes the term ‘couch potato’. The subsequent chapters within this first section deal with the various systems of the body and include ways in which patients describe their symptoms, how these should be understood by the doctor and ways in which the technical language of medicine can be translated into everyday English for the patient. The emphasis is on the importance of two-way communication between patient and doctor with the patient needing to understand what the doctor is talking about just as much as the doctor needs to understand the patient. This whole section provides a very useful guide to current language usage in the medical context and would be an invaluable reference book for the puzzled physician to have at hand in the clinic. The only criticism is the lack of an index where one might easily discover, for example, the meaning of ‘popping your clogs’ or ‘brewer's droop’ without having to trawl through the entire book to do so. The second and larger part of the book is a presentation in workbook form of particular language points, topics and vocabulary which might be faced by the candidate facing the IELTS or PLAB examinations. It takes the form of short chapters on a grammatical point (e.g. confusing words and false friends) or a theme (e.g. politics) and requires very specific answers to be given to the questions posed, often from lists provided. It provides the student with a comprehensive coverage of grammar and vocabulary and requires considerable attention to detail. Answers are provided at the back of the book. This book is highly recommended for international doctors as an accessible and clear guide to current English usage. It is very readable, well organised and could be used by both examination candidates as a workbook and by practising doctors as a reference guide to the innumerable idioms and colloquial expressions with which their patients may bombard them in the clinic.

Translating overactive bladder questionnaires in 14 languages

Objectives Overactive bladder (OAB) affects millions of people worldwide. Identifying patients and measuring OAB’s impact on symptom severity and patients’ health-related quality-of-life is necessary to ensure proper treatment and facilitate communication among patients, clinicians, and caregivers. To accomplish this, the Overactive Bladder questionnaire (OAB-q) and its subsets instruments, the OAB-q Short-Form and the OAB-V8, were developed in U.S. English. To measure the impact of OAB cross-culturally, we performed the linguistic validation of these instruments in Danish, English (Canada), French (Canada and France), Italian (Switzerland), German (Switzerland), Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Swedish, and Turkish. The linguistic validation was conducted following a rigorous method to ensure conceptual equivalence between the original and its translations. Methods In each country, a specialist monitored the process, which included six steps: (1) two forward translations; (2) comparison and reconciliation of the translations; (3) back-translation; (4) comparison of the source and back-translation; (5) review by one urologist or gynecologist; and (6) a comprehension test using patients. Results The translation of symptom-related adjectives such as “uncomfortable,” “sudden,” “accidental,” “uncontrollable” proved challenging. The subtle differences in the meaning of symptomatic items increased the difficulties to find equivalents. Issues regarding the appropriateness of certain concepts and idiomatic terms emerged during cognitive debriefing. The terms “urge,” “desire,” “urination,” “commute,” “drowsy,” and “escape routes” were not retained literally and were replaced by colloquial expressions. Conclusions The 14 versions of the OAB-q, OAB-q Short-Form, and OAB-V8 were successfully validated linguistically to facilitate data collection cross-culturally and the international comparison of symptom bother and health-related quality of life in patients with OAB.

How many idioms are there in English?

The word idiom and its derivatives idiomatic, idiomatically and idiomaticity are used with a wide range of meanings. Idiomatic English is used to refer to fluent language use that sounds like that of a native speaker. Items loosely classed as idioms include colloquial expressions, collocations, acceptable but unusual expressions, and opaque multi-word units. If linguists are pressed to define what an idiom is, they usually say that an idiom is a multi-word unit where the meaning of the whole unit is not clear from the meaning of its parts. The purpose of this paper is to report on a study where one particular use of the term idiom was very carefully defined and to show what the effects of the application of this careful definition were on coming up with a definitive list of idioms. It is argued that carefully distinguishing idioms from other multiword units makes sense for the teaching and leaming of multi-word units because different approaches are needed for the different types of multi-word units. Phrasal verbs were not included in the study.

Naming the Pandemic: Semantic and Ethical Foundations of HIV/AIDS Shona Vocabulary

Tlie article investigates the names tliat the Shona-speaking people1 in conlempunii 1/ Zimbabwe create and use in casual communication on the Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS), the messages transmitted through these nnmes and the ethical motivation for preferring these names to the I'liglish teun, Hl\'/ AIDS. We refer to the Shona names as indirection verbal strategies that take the form of euphemisms, metaphors, colloquial expressions and slang. Hmoeivr, the motivation for preferring an indirect communication mode is best iindeistood in the context of the notion of politeness that govern human interaction and speech on issues pertaining to sex, ilhiess and death in Shona society.

Translating the Short-Form Headache Impact Test (HIT-6) in 27 countries: methodological and conceptual issues.

The process of translating the Short-Form Headache Impact Test (HIT-6) in 27 countries and the comparability of the content of the translations is discussed. HIT-6 translations were developed using a standard forward-backward translation process, including a cognitive debriefing step and international harmonization of the translations. Prior to translating the HIT-6, modifications were made to the English-language source form, to improve translation equivalence. In general, the HIT-6 was not difficult to translate. The most difficult items included colloquial expressions such as 'fed up' and words whose intended meaning changed in translation such as 'school' or 'lie down.' Subjects generally found the HIT-6 translations to be clear and relevant. The translation process resulted in questionnaires that are both culturally appropriate and comparable in content.