Translation Modalities Research Articles

Audiovisual Translation and Language Teaching

Audiovisual Translation (AVT) and foreign language (FL) learning have converged in recent decades to be an effective combination to improve language skills. Respeaking is one of the few modalities that involves oral practice, since it combines shadowing – a technique involving the immediate and simultaneous repetition of spoken language by a language learner, typically with a brief delay behind the speaker – and the subtitling practice. The present paper aims to offer a proposal on the use of respeaking in FL acquisition emphasising its advantages for FL speaking skills. First, the article will explore the current landscape of language learning and Didactic Audiovisual Translation (DAT). It will then define the concept of respeaking and examine the challenges associated with this AVT method. Subsequently, the discussion will focus on the technique of shadowing, its link to respeaking and its potential benefits for improving oral skills. Finally, the concept of didactic respeaking will be introduced. A proposal will be provided to determine what didactic materials should be used as such, and some reflections on how respeaking can be assessed in FL teaching will be made. The final conclusions reflect on the feasibility of introducing respeaking as a didactic tool in FL teaching, which could be a potential new trend in DAT. Lay summary Audiovisual translation, or the translation of audiovisual texts such as film using modes such as subtitling and dubbing, has been used in language teaching over the years to help students improve their language skills. When studying, learners still struggle when it comes to speaking in class, and they find this ability is the hardest to learn. In audiovisual translation, there is a modality called “respeaking” that involves speaking and listening at the same time. In respeaking, respeakers listen to an oral message and they repeat it so a voice-recognition software can transcribe it. This is frequently used to create live subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing so they can enjoy the programme or the event despite their hearing impairment. This enables them to understand dialogues or sounds because subtitles reflect what is going on and respeakers adapt the information to their needs. If we refer to how respeakers do their job, we can say that respeaking is one of the few modalities of audiovisual translation that involves speaking. We say this because when respeakers respeak, they do what we call “shadowing”: this means that respeakers repeat the message they are hearing out loud, so we can say they are the shadow of the original message. To do so, we will first explain what has been done in audiovisual translation and language teaching until today. Then, we will focus on respeaking, so we will define what it is and the limitations we can find in it. Here we will also talk about shadowing, and how it has been proved that it helps students to improve their speaking. After this, we will show a proposal on how to use repeaking in a lesson plan, showing the materials, the exercises and the tasks that can be done in a foreign language class, and we will wrap up the article by thinking of the applications of respeaking in language teaching and how this could be use from now on to teach languages.

Translational strategies to uncover the etiology of congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract.

While up to 50% of children requiring kidney replacement therapy have congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT), they represent only a fraction of the total patient population with CAKUT. The extreme variability in clinical outcome underlines the fundamental need to devise personalized clinical management strategies for individuals with CAKUT. Better understanding of the pathophysiology of abnormal kidney and urinary tract development provides a framework for precise diagnoses and prognostication of patients, the identification of biomarkers and disease modifiers, and, thus, the development of personalized strategies for treatment. In this review, we provide a state-of-the-art overview of the currently known genetic causes, including rare variants in kidney and urinary tract development genes, genomic disorders, and common variants that have been attributed to CAKUT. Furthermore, we discuss the impact of environmental factors and their interactions with developmental genes in kidney and urinary tract malformations. Finally, we present multi-angle translational modalities to validate candidate genes and environmental factors and shed light on future strategies to better understand the molecular underpinnings of CAKUT.

Does simplification hold true for machine translations? A corpus-based analysis of lexical diversity in text varieties across genres

Extensive studies have described the linguistic features of human translations and verified the existence of the simplification translation universal. However, little has been known about the linguistic features of machine translations, although machine translation, as a unique modality of translation, has become an integral part of translation practice. This study is intended to test whether the simplification translation universal observed in human translations also holds true for machine translations. If so, are simplification features in machine translations different significantly from those in human translations? And does genre significantly affect simplification features? To this end, we built a balanced comparable corpus containing three text varieties, i.e., machine translations, human translations and target-language originals across three genres namely contemporary novels, government documents and academic abstracts. Based on the corpus, we conducted a systematic comparison of lexical diversity, as a proxy for simplification, of different text varieties. The results show that simplification is corroborated overall in both machine and human translations when compared with target-language originals, and machine translations are more simplified than human translations. Additionally, genre is found to exert a significant influence on the lexical diversity of different text varieties. This study is expected to expand the scope of corpus-based translation studies on the one hand and to offer insights into the improvement of machine translation systems on the other hand.

Exploring Therapeutic Approaches for Vitiligo: An Inclusive Review from Translational Modalities to Alternative Therapies

Exploring Therapeutic Approaches for Vitiligo: An Inclusive Review from Translational Modalities to Alternative Therapies

“A Spanish version of EastEnders”: a reception study of a telenovela subtitled using MT

This article presents the results of three AVT reception experiments with over 200 English-speaking participants who watched a 20-minute clip of a Mexican telenovela in three different translation modalities: human-translated (HT), post-edited (PT) and machine-translated (MT). Participants answered a questionnaire on narrative engagement, enjoyment, and translation reception of the subtitles. The results show that viewers have a higher engagement with PE than HT, but there is only a statistically significant difference when PE is compared to MT. When it comes to enjoyment, the differences are more pronounced, and viewers enjoy MT significantly less than PE and HT. Finally, in translation reception, the gap is even more pronounced between MT vs. PE and HT. However, the high HTER scores demonstrate that a substantial amount of edits are necessary to render the automatic MT subtitles publishable. It is not clear that results would be comparable were subtitlers not given sufficient time or remuneration for the post-editing task.

Lexical and Pragmatic Discrepancies in Retranslating PRIDE AND PREJUDICE into Romanian. Case Study

The main line of comparative analysis within this study is to identify and explain (to the highest extent possible), some of the most scholarly relevant lexical and pragmatic discrepancies between three subsequent translations of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice into Romanian. The focal points of inquiry are systematically centered on determining the level of efficiency and accuracy of each (re)translation in relation to specific Romanian linguistic principles and norms, as well as to universal knowledge of the source text. Additionally, by means of employing the terminological frame of reference and categorizing functions of the so-called Translation Modalities Method, each translation is placed onto either end of the translating continuum, that is more onto the domesticating or the foreignizing end. Ultimately, a global conclusion is drawn as to whether the (re)translations of Pride and Prejudice can indeed contribute to a better understanding of Jane Austen’s literary complexity and artistic subtleties in this particular case.

Transgressing Translation/Translating Transgression: The Lili Elbe Digital Archive and the Modalities of Translation

This essay addresses a work that might fruitfully be approached as an international (auto)biography, the life narrative of Lili Elbe (published 1931), a major work in the history of gender variance. Using the versions of the narrative in a range of languages in the recently constructed, free-to-view Lili Elbe Digital Archive, this essay considers the many modalities of translation and transgression which comprise any effort to transition across linguistic, cultural, corporeal, epistemic, and generic boundaries. A concern with how bodies of knowledge as well as corporeal bodies are codified and circulated is fundamental not just to Translation Studies but to transgender studies and to the digital humanities as well, making these fields integral to any theoretical understanding of translation as such. It is argued not just that transgender should be understood as a mode of translation, but that translating transgender across languages, historical eras, and media provides an exemplary instance of, and a model for, the broader field of Translation Studies.

Omissions and inferential meaning-making in audio description, and implications for automating video content description

There is broad consensus that audio description (AD) is a modality of intersemiotic translation, but there are different views in relation to how AD can be more precisely conceptualised. While Benecke (Audiodeskription als partielle Translation. Modell und Methode, LIT, Berlin, 2014) characterises AD as ‘partial translation’, Braun (T 28: 302–313, 2016) hypothesises that what audio describers appear to ‘omit’ from their descriptions can normally be inferred by the audience, drawing on narrative cues from dialogue, mise-en-scène, kinesis, music or sound effects. The study reported in this paper tested this hypothesis using a corpus of material created during the H2020 MeMAD project. The MeMAD project aimed to improve access to audiovisual (AV) content through a combination of human and computer-based methods of description. One of the MeMAD workstreams addressed human approaches to describing visually salient cues. This included an analysis of the potential impact of omissions in AD, which is the focus of this paper. Using a corpus of approximately 500 audio described film extracts we identified the visual elements that can be considered essential for the construction of the filmic narrative and then performed a qualitative analysis of the corresponding audio descriptions to determine how these elements are verbally represented and whether any omitted elements could be inferred from other cues that are accessible to visually impaired audiences. We then identified the most likely source of these inferences and the conditions upon which retrieval could be predicated, preparing the ground for future reception studies to test our hypotheses with target audiences. In this paper, we discuss the methodology used to determine where omissions occur in the analysed audio descriptions, consider worked examples from the MeMAD500 film corpus, and outline the findings of our study namely that various strategies are relevant to inferring omitted information, including the use of proximal and distal contextual cues, and reliance on the application of common knowledge and iconic scenarios. To conclude, consideration is given to overcoming significant omissions in human-generated AD, such as using extended AD formats, and mitigating similar gaps in machine-generated descriptions, where incorporating dialogue analysis and other supplementary data into the computer model could resolve many omissions.

Audience reception of translated classic films: Zhang Yimou’s Hero in the digital English world

ABSTRACTAgainst the backdrop of cultural globalization, more and more Chinese films are being introduced to the Anglophone world, and Zhang Yimou’s Hero is a particularly informative case because of its huge success. The present study describes and analyzes the reception of Chinese films in the Anglophone world by conducting an in-depth case study of Hero. Drawing on sentiment analysis and corpus-based keyword analysis, we find that Hero received a positive response from both professional and general audiences in four aspects. For character, both groups preferred the complex political characters, love-hate relationships, and certain Chinese actors/actresses. For plot, both groups valued Chinese elements and the wuxia genre. Regarding the scene, both groups enjoyed the fight scenes, but the professional audiences highlighted the aesthetic value of each scene while the general audiences expressed their feelings about the beauty of the piece as a whole. Finally, in terms of translation, the professional audiences focused on the quality of subtitles, while the general audiences highlighted the modality, preferring dubbing to subtitles. This positive but differentiated reception between professional and general audiences can be attributed to cultural discounting, cultural hybridity, cultural memory, translation modalities and translation quality.

English-Ukrainian intersemiotic translation within the configuration of modes of modality in literary texts

The article highlights the main features of intersemiotic translation of a literary text, which is considered to be an expression of the author’s modality as a set of signs of various semiotic systems. Thus, the purpose of the study is to determine the linguistic and non-linguistic means of expressing modality in a literary text, the specifics of their interaction to generate meaning, and the features of their reproduction in intersemiotic translation. The object of modality in translation within a literary text is a set of signs encoded by the author of the source text and organized into a system that is decoded and reproduced by the translator both at the phonological, lexical, and syntactic levels and the semantic, emotional, and associative ones. The analysis of the category of modality from the standpoint of semiotics in literary texts involves decoding semiotic resources, symbols, and signs, taking into account the individual author’s, social, political, cultural, and national contexts. The process of interpreting and reproducing the sign configurations of individual author modality is carried out at the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic levels to achieve the corresponding aims. Thus, at the first stage, the forms and interactions of determinants are defined and interpreted whereas the second level involves consideration of the internal semantic plane of the research object, and, accordingly, at the third level, the influence and use of signs are outlined. It is proved that adequate literary translation is carried out based on the multimodality of the text that is viewed as a multimodal communication, within which meaning is generated by the configuration of different semiotic sign systems that require interpretation according to the principle of optimal relevance and creativity. The central concept of translation is semiosis as a process of interpretation of a sign and generation of meaning, that indicates the relationship of the sign with the outside world.

Integrating museum studies into translation studies: towards a reconceptualization of the source text as sensory experience in museum audio description and the notion of experiential equivalence

ABSTRACT This article focuses on museum audio description (AD) as a modality of intersemiotic translation (IT) primarily addressed to people with visual impairments. Still at an early stage of development in terms of both academic research and professional practices, museum AD lies at the crossroads of a variety of disciplines, such as translation studies (TS) and museum studies (MS). The aim of this contribution is to suggest a reconceptualization of traditional notions in TS (source text and equivalence) in the context of museum AD and encompassing the translational phenomenon per se. Theoretical considerations from MS and specific guidelines for museum AD practices will offer cross-disciplinary insights to redefine such concepts and reflect upon translation as a semiosic process in which meanings are created, rather than transferred. This article suggests the coincidence in AD of source and target texts as sensory experience and puts forth the concept of experiential equivalence.

Too late to trans-late? On belatedness and translation

ABSTRACT The paper investigates the specific temporal modality of translation identified in the phenomenon of belatedness or delay. As the departure point, it takes Walter Benjamin’s claim that a translation comes later than the original, proposing a literal reading (translation) of the term ‘later’, später. Firstly, I argue that translation cannot be reduced to a mere chronological posteriority and that only a focus on its structural lateness and an intensification of such a lateness can offer an insight into the historical nature of translation. Embracing the Benjaminian perspective, the paper tackles various issues entangled with the theme of belatedness, such as the transformation of the original, anticipation of the future and retroaction on the past. In the final part, the paper shortly discusses the affinity between philosophy and translation through discourse of belatedness.

Materials and modes of translation: Re-imagining inclusive “zero”-waste futures

In this paper, we present and reflect upon a creative and participatory approach for engaging citizens in imagining desirable “zero”-waste futures that include different values and perspectives. The approach emerged through a 4-month collaboration involving academic researchers and creative professionals and was prototyped in a formerly industrial neighborhood of Utrecht (het Werkspoorkwartier), currently being developed as a creative circular manufacturing area. With our approach, we inquire into and provide an alternative to predominant technology-centered policy visions, which portray the issues of waste as objective challenges that can be addressed through data-driven technological solutions. Such visions neglect many other perspectives and values, particularly those of citizens that face the issue of waste in everyday life, thus providing only a narrow vision of how the future might look like. To gather and articulate different perspectives on alternative “zero”-waste futures, we focus on citizen-science-inspired and speculative design methods to engage people and stimulate imagining futures that bring to light diverse values and perspectives. In the development of the methods, we work in close collaboration with creative practitioners, both in terms of anchoring the research in a real-world context and in terms of combining our different types of expertise. Reflecting on the project, we discuss the potential of our transdisciplinary approach and the co-produced methods to intervene in how we see and imagine alternative futures. We do so by taking “translation” as an analytical lens to understand how different meanings and visions are created through experiential, material, and affective modes of expression. Specifically, we will analyze the translations that occur in the processes of moving from abstract data to matters of concern, and from desirable futures to actionable presents. Looking at these multiple processes through the lens of translation will serve to investigate how different future imaginaries are generated through different materials and modalities of translation, offering different forms of engagement in shaping inclusive urban futures. Translation here will be conceptualized less as a perfect transference of information and more as an open-ended process of paying attention to different values, and identifying those matters for which to care for in our urban futures.

Revisiting simplification in corpus-based translation studies: Insights from readability research

Ever since the publication of Laviosa’s (1998a; 1998b) pioneering work, the study of lexico-syntactic simplification has held centre stage in corpus translation research concerned with the typical features of translated texts. The simplification hypothesis states that translated texts are simpler than non-translated texts. The convergence hypothesis, also discussed by Laviosa (1998a; 1998b), but less so in follow-up studies, is that translated texts are more homogeneous than original texts, that is they display less variance. To date, simplification has mostly been operationalised in CBTS as type-token ratio, lexical density, core vocabulary coverage, list head coverage and average sentence length. Relying on these parameters, previous research has produced mixed results, with simplification varying across translation modalities, language pairs and registers. The present article sets out to revisit the simplification and convergence hypotheses through the lens of NLP-informed readability research. In particular, we rely on a larger set of simplification indicators and make use of multivariate statistical techniques. We present a simplification study of Europarl corpus data in French translated from English and in non-translated French. The results show that translated French is simpler than original French, lexically and syntactically. We also find evidence of convergence that shows that translators smooth out cross-speaker lexical heterogeneity in translated parliamentary proceedings.

CD4+ T-lymphocytes exhibit biphasic kinetics post-myocardial infarction.

CD4+ T-cells facilitate wound healing post-myocardial infarction (MI) but promote left-ventricular (LV) remodeling during ischemic heart failure (HF; 8 weeks post-MI). Therefore, it is critical to understand if sustained CD4+ T-cell activation leads to this pathological response, or if phenotypically different T-cells are activated during MI vs. HF. Using flow cytometry, we found that cardiac CD4+ T-cells exhibit two distinct patterns of transmigration. First pattern consisted of a rapid CD4+ T-cell response with maximal levels seen at 3 days post-MI which return to baseline by 14 days. However, during HF we observed a 2nd phase of activation and CD4+ T-cells were ∼20-fold higher in HF as compared to sham-operated mice. Importantly, these biphasic kinetics were observed with all major T-cell subsets such as Th1, Th2, Th17, and regulatory T-cells suggesting a global change. To determine the role of this 2nd peak of T-cell activation, CD4-iDTR mice were generated and treated with DT every 10 from 28 days post-MI to deplete CD4+ T-cells during chronic HF. While littermate control mice showed increased end-systolic and end-diastolic volumes (ESV and EDV) and decreased ejection fraction (EF) from 4 to 8 weeks post-MI, depletion of CD4+ T-cells in Cre + mice significantly blunted LV remodeling and inhibited progressive increases in the EDV and ESV, and reduction in EF. This suggests that CD4+ T-cell responses occurring during HF are different than those occurring during MI and promote LV remodeling and progressive cardiac dysfunction. Temporal immunomodulation of CD4+ T-cells could be a translatable modality for ischemic HF.

Linguistic Gender Forms and Deontic Modality in Islamic Legal Translation: A Corpus-Based Study

Linguistic Gender Forms and Deontic Modality in Islamic Legal Translation: A Corpus-Based Study

Moving forward to improve SDH: the needs of Spanish audiences

ABSTRACT Although Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (SDH) is well established as a modality of audiovisual translation, many questions remain to be answered about viewers’ real needs. Despite the improvements in UNE standard 153010:2012, Spanish digital television broadcasters still do not offer equal SDH services. This limits the audience’s access to the multimedia content on their channels. This study aims to discover the needs and wishes of Spanish viewers regarding the subtitling services currently offered by Spanish digital television, to highlight the subtitle features that should be modified to enhance the accessibility of subtitling services. To collect this data, a survey was created and distributed among both the d/Deaf and hearing audiences of Spanish digital television. A total of 104 volunteers took part in the study: 42 d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing and 62 hearers. The results show that the two groups have similar opinions about the Spanish SDH service, which might benefit all users. Indeed, the new goal is to offer the best solutions for subtitling services to the widest audience possible. The study also confirms many of the findings of the Long questionnaire in Spain by Arnáiz-Uzquiza, and in the UK by Romero-Fresco.

Cognitive-discursive features of functioning of the lexical means of modality in intersemiotic translation

Cognitive-discursive features of functioning of the lexical means of modality in intersemiotic translation

Cultural markers in the Brazilian film O auto da Compadecida and its subtitles in English

This article proposes a typology of translation of cultural markers in subtitles and uses as research material the film O auto da Compadecida (Arraes, 2000) in Brazilian Portuguese and its translation, A dog's will (Magrath, Videolar, 2000). The difficulty that cultural markers generate during various translation processes is evident and is accentuated in audiovisual works, in which different elements converge (text, image, sound design, soundtrack, body language, among others). To contribute to its analysis in this context, we used the concept of cultural marks and markers (Reichmann and Zavaglia, 2014), translational modalities (Aubert, 2006b), and considered translation techniques (Nunes, n.d.) to arrive at the typology presented here, followed by examples and illustrations.

Discourse approach to conveying modality in translation

This paper highlights a brief theoretical and methodological investigation of the most widespread specific features of Translation Studies touching the development of the discourse approach in adequate conveying of modality in translation. The category of modality is examined from the point of view of an interdisciplinary approach that combines results obtained in logic, and traditional linguistics. Modality, originating in the logical philosophical tradition, is one of the most important characteristics of the utterance. It reflects cognitive activity of a person, thus expressing the connections of the objective world. As a functional-semantic category, it contains a number of evaluative means characterizing the attitude of a statement to reality, its objective significance, and the means that characterize the attitude of a speaker to the statement, which reflects its subjective side. Further studies can help to fully attain substantial progress in the analysis of the multimodal systemic functional approach to investigating the variability of expressing the means of modality in translation which may be another step towards a fuller understanding of the nature of this still poorly investigated sphere of translation. This rather interdisciplinary analysis is anchored in Hallidayan systemic functional grammar where "a text is the product of ongoing selection in a very large network of systems – a system network". Thus, a text is analyzed from the point of view of creativity and expression of various modal meanings.