J. C. Catford is a world-renowned British linguist and translation theorist, and also an outstanding representative of the linguistic school of translation. His famous work A linguistic theory of translation was first...J. C. Catford is a world-renowned British linguist and translation theorist, and also an outstanding representative of the linguistic school of translation. His famous work A linguistic theory of translation was first published by Oxford University Press in 1965, and republished in 1967. It was among the list of the series of language and linguistic studies of Oxford University. This essay attempts to interpret this great book in five aspects, namely, definition of translation, types of translation, translation equivalence, transference, and limits of translatability, and tries to probe into the positive impact of its theories on the development of translation theory and its limitations.展开更多
Insofar as the right to free speech is constitutionally protected, the article distinguishes between opinions and facts. Whereas the former is protected as a free speech matter, the latter has nothing to do with the r...Insofar as the right to free speech is constitutionally protected, the article distinguishes between opinions and facts. Whereas the former is protected as a free speech matter, the latter has nothing to do with the right to free expression Holocaust Denial concerns denying facts and therefore, it is not a question of freedom of speech. At the same vein, inquiring into the conceptual grounds of the theory of criminalization, the article provides that Holocaust Denial cannot and should not be criminalized.展开更多
This study aims to examine the relations between languages of antiquity and some words in Homer's epics, Iliad and Odyssey, that are considered the first written texts and important in terms of the richness of Greek ...This study aims to examine the relations between languages of antiquity and some words in Homer's epics, Iliad and Odyssey, that are considered the first written texts and important in terms of the richness of Greek vocabulary. Although the words in Homeric epics carry a value for ancient Anatolia, there are no studies in this field in our eotmtry. For this purpose, with the help of words we have, we will focus on: (a) bond of these words with Hittite, partially (b) some archaic qualities for some Latin words, developed later and also continued of some ground and phrases in the everyday life in the same region for centuries on the language of the people depending on the oral transmission. At the end of the study, we will discuss the changes of the words in philological level as well as in terms of the letter, sounds and meaning by used words in Homer's epics as will be explained in this study.展开更多
The article deals with the translation of German poetry into Wolof and is based on Tamsir Annes's translation of German poems under the title Tdere-Woy yi/Das Buch der Lieder. My purpose in this paper is to answer th...The article deals with the translation of German poetry into Wolof and is based on Tamsir Annes's translation of German poems under the title Tdere-Woy yi/Das Buch der Lieder. My purpose in this paper is to answer the question of how elements of the vocabulary of sciences (literature and philosophy) as well as cultural specific items are rendered in the Wolof target text. Therefore, in this work, I explore methods and strategies of translation like borrowings, paraphrases, and analyze furthermore some differences noticeable in the translation of some poems at the cultural level. These analysis-steps enable the investigation of, contextually, the central issue of "cultural translatability" and the reception of translation of European poetry into African languages in general and German poetry into Wolof in particular. The article also focuses on the importance of the reception of German poetry in Wolof as a means of intercultural communication between German and Wolof-speaking countries but as means to develop African languages like Wolof in which the translation of the selected poems has been operated.展开更多
One of the aims of the Universal Declaration on B ioethics and Human Rights (UNESCO) is to "promote respect for human dignity and protect human rights",l Here are two overarching principles at work, ensuring that ...One of the aims of the Universal Declaration on B ioethics and Human Rights (UNESCO) is to "promote respect for human dignity and protect human rights",l Here are two overarching principles at work, ensuring that the biomedical sciences fulfill their task within an ethical framework. The principle of respect for human dignity is a universal moral concept, meant to be applied in human encounters. Protecting human rights underscores the legal principle of not only affirming the fundamental equality of all human beings, but equally safeguarding it. These two principles are universally defined, but are ordinarily specified by the particular value system of individual cultures in which they are employed. It is within such particular cultural application that their relevance stands out. The thrust of this paper is that, since principles are general action guides, they actually constitute a universal language for the analysis and evaluation of all human conduct. However, there is also recognition of the fact that moral contexts vary from culture to culture, and that while the scope of the two principles above is not restricted by any particular culture, it is indeed those cultural specifics of each moral context that constitute the framework within which the principles become operational. As general action guides, I will argue that these principles lack moral relevance outside of those particular cultural settings wherein they are contextualized. Without such relevance, these principles become meaningless mantras. I will further show that such principles do not merely uphold values informed by particular cultures, but they are an embodiment of values inherent to human nature in general. Consequently, these principles do not just serve as instruments for addressing issues peculiar to "Western bioethics" or any other particular cultural setting in an exclusive sense, but are also used for moderating bioethics discourse that transcend particular cultural boundaries. I will further explain that such universal discourse is potentially instructive with regards to how cultural universals are viewed in relation to the cultural particulars, and that this discourse essentially becomes a lingua franca for cross-cultural dialogue in bioethics.展开更多
This paper examines the relationship between language, particularly language that expresses aesthetic experiences of plant life, and corporeality. The theorisation of language is a keystone towards conceptualising par...This paper examines the relationship between language, particularly language that expresses aesthetic experiences of plant life, and corporeality. The theorisation of language is a keystone towards conceptualising participatory relationships between people and the botanical world. A comparative reading of the works of Henry David Thoreau and Martin Heidegger provides a framework for approaching language as embodied participation. Despite political differences, Thoreau and Heidegger shared a mutual conviction about the generative powers of language. Thoreau's literary practice partly involved immersion in places such as swamps and forests. Fittingly, Heidegger's explication of Rilke's concept of"the Open" mirrors the participatory aesthetics of Thoreau. Both thinkers looked towards the capacities of poetics to galvanise the evolution of language. In response to the increasing dissection offered by contemporaneous theories of linguistics, Thoreau and Heidegger held the notion of language as a body in itself, one brought to life through immanence between sensuous bodies in the world. For each theorist, language was both bodily and a body. Their works evidence that multi-sensorial encounters with the natural world can be captured in language. The body of language may be engaged with as a whole living phenomenon rather than a dissected corpse as this comparative reading of Thoreau and Heidegger will intimate.展开更多
In 2012, my winter in Athens began with Aristotle's Metaphysics Zeta. Among strong classical philologists, 1 was the only student whose understanding of metaphysics had been based on Avicenna. After a while 1 found m...In 2012, my winter in Athens began with Aristotle's Metaphysics Zeta. Among strong classical philologists, 1 was the only student whose understanding of metaphysics had been based on Avicenna. After a while 1 found myself amid audiences beforehand precluded to compromise milestones of mine. But on the contrary, I embarked to reread both of the Avicenna and Aristotle from entirely different angle again. Inquiring in the concept of Being in both of the Aristotle and Avicenna was the first candidate of my decision. This paper is the result of mentioned concern. Aristotle's equivalence between the question of "what substance is" rendered to the question of "what being is" in addition to spelling out the implications of this observation done by Avicenna--basing on his own metaphysics---constitutes the body of my paper.展开更多
Jacques Derrida's engagement with Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the second part of Of Grammatology constitutes the most systematic, extensive example of deconstructive reading. Nevertheless, the problem of whether Derrida...Jacques Derrida's engagement with Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the second part of Of Grammatology constitutes the most systematic, extensive example of deconstructive reading. Nevertheless, the problem of whether Derrida reproduces Rousseau's basic claims adequately has remained a peripheral concern. This has meant that this may constitute a misreading and the consequences that this would have for the deconstructive operation itself have not adequately examined. Hence, this enquiry into Derrida's reading of Rousseau centers upon the extent to which Derrida distorts Rousseau's text in order to be able to confirm deconstruction's radical theoretical positions.展开更多
This paper examines the expression of being from the syntactic perspective in the framework of Cassirer's philosophy of language in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. It first introduces the debate about the validity ...This paper examines the expression of being from the syntactic perspective in the framework of Cassirer's philosophy of language in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. It first introduces the debate about the validity of the question of being between the logical and ontological perspectives, represented by J. S. Mill's attempt to annul the question and Heidegger's counter argument. It then moves to the syntactic perspective by using Aquinas' statement that in every apprehension being should be present, and then reconsiders the function of copula in a sentence. The main part of this article follows Cassirer's argument by picking up the so-called "war of the giants" between the Heraclitean flux and the Parmenidean immovable being in the context of language in Plato's three dialogues, namely Cratylus, Theaetetus, and Sophist. It then moves on to Cassirer's Kantian scheme of analysis to handle the Platonic question, and argues that words and sentences are different moments of unit formation in our consciousness. It concludes with Cassirer's argument of the priority of sentence over words, and that the concentration merely on the copula is a limited approach to the question. The purpose of this paper is to show Cassirer's contribution to the problem of being by shifting the attention from semantics to the syntax and by breaking new ground from neo-Kantianism, and offers an approach to understand the role of language in our knowledge of the objective world which is neither purely nominal nor realist.展开更多
This paper aims at investigating the teletandem learning interactions between a group of Brazilian students from Instituto Federal de Educagao, Ciencia e Tecnologia do Estado de Goias, Brazil, and a group of foreign s...This paper aims at investigating the teletandem learning interactions between a group of Brazilian students from Instituto Federal de Educagao, Ciencia e Tecnologia do Estado de Goias, Brazil, and a group of foreign students from two German universities. In this study, the Brazilian students helped their foreign partners with Portuguese learning and were helped by them in the English learning. The participants used a synchronous computer software called Openmeetings and also an electronic dictionary as a complementary tool. Adopting a qualitative perspective in the data collection and analysis, this case study was conducted in the second semester of 2010. The data were collected by means of conversation sessions through Openmeetings and were analyzed in the light of studies on sociocultural theory as well as on tandem/teletandem language learning researches. The data analyses showed that the participants used English as an anchoring language to work with Portuguese and English itself, and German was introduced in the teletandem sessions. The data also showed that the whiteboard and the electronic dictionary were used as complementary resources to the use of audio and video for the language learning process the participants engaged in.展开更多
The article concerns the normative value of truth in relation to lie. Based on arguments derived primarily from ancient philosophers (Eubulides, Plato, Aristotle), medieval philosophers (St. Augustine, St. Thomas A...The article concerns the normative value of truth in relation to lie. Based on arguments derived primarily from ancient philosophers (Eubulides, Plato, Aristotle), medieval philosophers (St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas), the thinker of the Renaissance---Machiavelli, the main philosopher of the Enlightenment--Kant, the 19th-century author of Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche), and contemporary thinkers such as Derrida and Lacan, the author considers here truth as a normative value. Lying is relative to the truth, and it has no ontological legitimacy, even it cannot exist without truth itself. In the final part of the article, the author concludes that the truth, however, cannot lead to clearly had effects, be harmful or cause pain disproportionate to the effects caused by lie. Therefore, it must coexist with the good--the other parent value. Only when both values complement each other can we talk about the normative value of truth. The truth should be correlated with other values on which value systems are based, especially the good of a person or group of persons, avoiding harm towards others, and the protection of a person's health and life. Only then can the truth be appropriate to use. It is not an immovable foundation, but a dynamically functioning value, in which language and the ethical (active) dimensions provide the value of the specified situations. The truth can be a double-edged sword: It may hurt, but it can defend itself. The latter function seems to be the most important type of the normativity of truth.展开更多
The present study attempts to contribute to the understanding of how preschool children with immigrant background in German Switzerland acquire standard German. It addresses mainly some methodological issues in langua...The present study attempts to contribute to the understanding of how preschool children with immigrant background in German Switzerland acquire standard German. It addresses mainly some methodological issues in language assessment. Results from a pilot study also show negative effects of the dialectal environment on the children s acquisition of a standard variety of L2.展开更多
文摘J. C. Catford is a world-renowned British linguist and translation theorist, and also an outstanding representative of the linguistic school of translation. His famous work A linguistic theory of translation was first published by Oxford University Press in 1965, and republished in 1967. It was among the list of the series of language and linguistic studies of Oxford University. This essay attempts to interpret this great book in five aspects, namely, definition of translation, types of translation, translation equivalence, transference, and limits of translatability, and tries to probe into the positive impact of its theories on the development of translation theory and its limitations.
文摘Insofar as the right to free speech is constitutionally protected, the article distinguishes between opinions and facts. Whereas the former is protected as a free speech matter, the latter has nothing to do with the right to free expression Holocaust Denial concerns denying facts and therefore, it is not a question of freedom of speech. At the same vein, inquiring into the conceptual grounds of the theory of criminalization, the article provides that Holocaust Denial cannot and should not be criminalized.
文摘This study aims to examine the relations between languages of antiquity and some words in Homer's epics, Iliad and Odyssey, that are considered the first written texts and important in terms of the richness of Greek vocabulary. Although the words in Homeric epics carry a value for ancient Anatolia, there are no studies in this field in our eotmtry. For this purpose, with the help of words we have, we will focus on: (a) bond of these words with Hittite, partially (b) some archaic qualities for some Latin words, developed later and also continued of some ground and phrases in the everyday life in the same region for centuries on the language of the people depending on the oral transmission. At the end of the study, we will discuss the changes of the words in philological level as well as in terms of the letter, sounds and meaning by used words in Homer's epics as will be explained in this study.
文摘The article deals with the translation of German poetry into Wolof and is based on Tamsir Annes's translation of German poems under the title Tdere-Woy yi/Das Buch der Lieder. My purpose in this paper is to answer the question of how elements of the vocabulary of sciences (literature and philosophy) as well as cultural specific items are rendered in the Wolof target text. Therefore, in this work, I explore methods and strategies of translation like borrowings, paraphrases, and analyze furthermore some differences noticeable in the translation of some poems at the cultural level. These analysis-steps enable the investigation of, contextually, the central issue of "cultural translatability" and the reception of translation of European poetry into African languages in general and German poetry into Wolof in particular. The article also focuses on the importance of the reception of German poetry in Wolof as a means of intercultural communication between German and Wolof-speaking countries but as means to develop African languages like Wolof in which the translation of the selected poems has been operated.
文摘One of the aims of the Universal Declaration on B ioethics and Human Rights (UNESCO) is to "promote respect for human dignity and protect human rights",l Here are two overarching principles at work, ensuring that the biomedical sciences fulfill their task within an ethical framework. The principle of respect for human dignity is a universal moral concept, meant to be applied in human encounters. Protecting human rights underscores the legal principle of not only affirming the fundamental equality of all human beings, but equally safeguarding it. These two principles are universally defined, but are ordinarily specified by the particular value system of individual cultures in which they are employed. It is within such particular cultural application that their relevance stands out. The thrust of this paper is that, since principles are general action guides, they actually constitute a universal language for the analysis and evaluation of all human conduct. However, there is also recognition of the fact that moral contexts vary from culture to culture, and that while the scope of the two principles above is not restricted by any particular culture, it is indeed those cultural specifics of each moral context that constitute the framework within which the principles become operational. As general action guides, I will argue that these principles lack moral relevance outside of those particular cultural settings wherein they are contextualized. Without such relevance, these principles become meaningless mantras. I will further show that such principles do not merely uphold values informed by particular cultures, but they are an embodiment of values inherent to human nature in general. Consequently, these principles do not just serve as instruments for addressing issues peculiar to "Western bioethics" or any other particular cultural setting in an exclusive sense, but are also used for moderating bioethics discourse that transcend particular cultural boundaries. I will further explain that such universal discourse is potentially instructive with regards to how cultural universals are viewed in relation to the cultural particulars, and that this discourse essentially becomes a lingua franca for cross-cultural dialogue in bioethics.
文摘This paper examines the relationship between language, particularly language that expresses aesthetic experiences of plant life, and corporeality. The theorisation of language is a keystone towards conceptualising participatory relationships between people and the botanical world. A comparative reading of the works of Henry David Thoreau and Martin Heidegger provides a framework for approaching language as embodied participation. Despite political differences, Thoreau and Heidegger shared a mutual conviction about the generative powers of language. Thoreau's literary practice partly involved immersion in places such as swamps and forests. Fittingly, Heidegger's explication of Rilke's concept of"the Open" mirrors the participatory aesthetics of Thoreau. Both thinkers looked towards the capacities of poetics to galvanise the evolution of language. In response to the increasing dissection offered by contemporaneous theories of linguistics, Thoreau and Heidegger held the notion of language as a body in itself, one brought to life through immanence between sensuous bodies in the world. For each theorist, language was both bodily and a body. Their works evidence that multi-sensorial encounters with the natural world can be captured in language. The body of language may be engaged with as a whole living phenomenon rather than a dissected corpse as this comparative reading of Thoreau and Heidegger will intimate.
文摘In 2012, my winter in Athens began with Aristotle's Metaphysics Zeta. Among strong classical philologists, 1 was the only student whose understanding of metaphysics had been based on Avicenna. After a while 1 found myself amid audiences beforehand precluded to compromise milestones of mine. But on the contrary, I embarked to reread both of the Avicenna and Aristotle from entirely different angle again. Inquiring in the concept of Being in both of the Aristotle and Avicenna was the first candidate of my decision. This paper is the result of mentioned concern. Aristotle's equivalence between the question of "what substance is" rendered to the question of "what being is" in addition to spelling out the implications of this observation done by Avicenna--basing on his own metaphysics---constitutes the body of my paper.
文摘Jacques Derrida's engagement with Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the second part of Of Grammatology constitutes the most systematic, extensive example of deconstructive reading. Nevertheless, the problem of whether Derrida reproduces Rousseau's basic claims adequately has remained a peripheral concern. This has meant that this may constitute a misreading and the consequences that this would have for the deconstructive operation itself have not adequately examined. Hence, this enquiry into Derrida's reading of Rousseau centers upon the extent to which Derrida distorts Rousseau's text in order to be able to confirm deconstruction's radical theoretical positions.
文摘This paper examines the expression of being from the syntactic perspective in the framework of Cassirer's philosophy of language in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. It first introduces the debate about the validity of the question of being between the logical and ontological perspectives, represented by J. S. Mill's attempt to annul the question and Heidegger's counter argument. It then moves to the syntactic perspective by using Aquinas' statement that in every apprehension being should be present, and then reconsiders the function of copula in a sentence. The main part of this article follows Cassirer's argument by picking up the so-called "war of the giants" between the Heraclitean flux and the Parmenidean immovable being in the context of language in Plato's three dialogues, namely Cratylus, Theaetetus, and Sophist. It then moves on to Cassirer's Kantian scheme of analysis to handle the Platonic question, and argues that words and sentences are different moments of unit formation in our consciousness. It concludes with Cassirer's argument of the priority of sentence over words, and that the concentration merely on the copula is a limited approach to the question. The purpose of this paper is to show Cassirer's contribution to the problem of being by shifting the attention from semantics to the syntax and by breaking new ground from neo-Kantianism, and offers an approach to understand the role of language in our knowledge of the objective world which is neither purely nominal nor realist.
文摘This paper aims at investigating the teletandem learning interactions between a group of Brazilian students from Instituto Federal de Educagao, Ciencia e Tecnologia do Estado de Goias, Brazil, and a group of foreign students from two German universities. In this study, the Brazilian students helped their foreign partners with Portuguese learning and were helped by them in the English learning. The participants used a synchronous computer software called Openmeetings and also an electronic dictionary as a complementary tool. Adopting a qualitative perspective in the data collection and analysis, this case study was conducted in the second semester of 2010. The data were collected by means of conversation sessions through Openmeetings and were analyzed in the light of studies on sociocultural theory as well as on tandem/teletandem language learning researches. The data analyses showed that the participants used English as an anchoring language to work with Portuguese and English itself, and German was introduced in the teletandem sessions. The data also showed that the whiteboard and the electronic dictionary were used as complementary resources to the use of audio and video for the language learning process the participants engaged in.
文摘The article concerns the normative value of truth in relation to lie. Based on arguments derived primarily from ancient philosophers (Eubulides, Plato, Aristotle), medieval philosophers (St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas), the thinker of the Renaissance---Machiavelli, the main philosopher of the Enlightenment--Kant, the 19th-century author of Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche), and contemporary thinkers such as Derrida and Lacan, the author considers here truth as a normative value. Lying is relative to the truth, and it has no ontological legitimacy, even it cannot exist without truth itself. In the final part of the article, the author concludes that the truth, however, cannot lead to clearly had effects, be harmful or cause pain disproportionate to the effects caused by lie. Therefore, it must coexist with the good--the other parent value. Only when both values complement each other can we talk about the normative value of truth. The truth should be correlated with other values on which value systems are based, especially the good of a person or group of persons, avoiding harm towards others, and the protection of a person's health and life. Only then can the truth be appropriate to use. It is not an immovable foundation, but a dynamically functioning value, in which language and the ethical (active) dimensions provide the value of the specified situations. The truth can be a double-edged sword: It may hurt, but it can defend itself. The latter function seems to be the most important type of the normativity of truth.
基金funded by the Kar man Fundationpart of an ongoing project on Ger man as a second language in the dialectal environment in Ger manpeaking Switzerland ,supervised by Prof. Elke Hentschel and Prof. Iwar Werlen,University of Bern.
文摘The present study attempts to contribute to the understanding of how preschool children with immigrant background in German Switzerland acquire standard German. It addresses mainly some methodological issues in language assessment. Results from a pilot study also show negative effects of the dialectal environment on the children s acquisition of a standard variety of L2.