1,721,127 research outputs found
'Circus English'?:Investigating English as an academic lingua franca at BA study group meetings at Roskilde University
No full text
Introduction: ‘Behind a veil, unseen yet present’ – on norms in sociolinguistics and social life
No full text
A study of the translation of the book A Game of Thrones
No full textAbstract This project investigates how language variation has been translated interlingually, from a source text to a target text and what implications this might have resulted in. It investigates whether the meaning of language variation has been transferred directly or if meaning has been gained or lost in the translation process. The research’s empirical data is based on the fantasy novel A Game of Thrones, published in 1996 by the American author George R. R. Martin, as well as the Danish translation of the book Kampen om Tronen which has been translated by Poul Bratbjerg Hansen. Through analysis it was discovered that Martin stylises his novel so that it portrays a form of archaic language as well as it includes a group of characters who speak English as a second language. These two examples of language variation has been the center of attention in conducting this project. In order to attain a satisfactory answer to this research, a distinction between two theory chapters has been made. Whilst the first chapter is aimed to provide us with translation theory, the second chapter provides theory regarding language variation. The first chapter regards translation theory, including elements like equivalence, synchrony and diachrony. We further include a chapter on the visibility of the translator, drawing on theory by Schleiermacher, Nida, Venuti and Schjoldager. The theories of translation are applied in our project in order to get a wider and more nuanced understanding of the field of translation as a whole. This further implies that we have a broader understanding of our deselections and strengthens the perspective that our project would have looked differently, had we chosen to apply other theories. We have chosen to utilise the taxonomy of Schjoldager’s macro- and microstrategies in order to have a vocabulary and point of reference when analysing our empirical data. The second theory chapter includes a description of Standard English, sociolinguistic indexicality and English as a Lingua Franca. Knowing what Standard English entails, we can distinguish these characteristics to the language variation Martin creates, and with indexicality and English as a Lingua Franca we are able to explain why certain characters are stylised in certain ways and what meaning this gives to the text. The principled way of finding excerpts from the book is done by including only the chapters which concerns the character Daenerys. This limits our empirical data significantly, going from over 70 chapters to only 10. As this is still a vast quantity, we further limit ourselves by choosing to focus on the dialogue of the characters of Khal Drogo and Daenerys’ handmaids. The method for finding excerpts regarding the archaic language variation is slightly different, since we here are simply analysing the words that give the text an archaic impression. Through corpora we are able to prove whether the assumed archaic examples are indeed old or not. Through the used theory, the project concludes that the examples of language variations are not equally represented in the source text and target text. Instead, the analyses show that the language variation disappears to a large extent in the target text, both in regards to the archaic lexical choices as well as the Dothraki use of English as a second language. Based on the examples from the analyses, we are able to conclude that the characteristics of a target text oriented macrostrategy is present, and that the target text has been through a domestication process in order to better address the Danish recipients. Finally, we include a brief list of suggestions as to how the translation might have been done differently to keep the effect of the language variation present in the source text.Abstract This project investigates how language variation has been translated interlingually, from a source text to a target text and what implications this might have resulted in. It investigates whether the meaning of language variation has been transferred directly or if meaning has been gained or lost in the translation process. The research’s empirical data is based on the fantasy novel A Game of Thrones, published in 1996 by the American author George R. R. Martin, as well as the Danish translation of the book Kampen om Tronen which has been translated by Poul Bratbjerg Hansen. Through analysis it was discovered that Martin stylises his novel so that it portrays a form of archaic language as well as it includes a group of characters who speak English as a second language. These two examples of language variation has been the center of attention in conducting this project. In order to attain a satisfactory answer to this research, a distinction between two theory chapters has been made. Whilst the first chapter is aimed to provide us with translation theory, the second chapter provides theory regarding language variation. The first chapter regards translation theory, including elements like equivalence, synchrony and diachrony. We further include a chapter on the visibility of the translator, drawing on theory by Schleiermacher, Nida, Venuti and Schjoldager. The theories of translation are applied in our project in order to get a wider and more nuanced understanding of the field of translation as a whole. This further implies that we have a broader understanding of our deselections and strengthens the perspective that our project would have looked differently, had we chosen to apply other theories. We have chosen to utilise the taxonomy of Schjoldager’s macro- and microstrategies in order to have a vocabulary and point of reference when analysing our empirical data. The second theory chapter includes a description of Standard English, sociolinguistic indexicality and English as a Lingua Franca. Knowing what Standard English entails, we can distinguish these characteristics to the language variation Martin creates, and with indexicality and English as a Lingua Franca we are able to explain why certain characters are stylised in certain ways and what meaning this gives to the text. The principled way of finding excerpts from the book is done by including only the chapters which concerns the character Daenerys. This limits our empirical data significantly, going from over 70 chapters to only 10. As this is still a vast quantity, we further limit ourselves by choosing to focus on the dialogue of the characters of Khal Drogo and Daenerys’ handmaids. The method for finding excerpts regarding the archaic language variation is slightly different, since we here are simply analysing the words that give the text an archaic impression. Through corpora we are able to prove whether the assumed archaic examples are indeed old or not. Through the used theory, the project concludes that the examples of language variations are not equally represented in the source text and target text. Instead, the analyses show that the language variation disappears to a large extent in the target text, both in regards to the archaic lexical choices as well as the Dothraki use of English as a second language. Based on the examples from the analyses, we are able to conclude that the characteristics of a target text oriented macrostrategy is present, and that the target text has been through a domestication process in order to better address the Danish recipients. Finally, we include a brief list of suggestions as to how the translation might have been done differently to keep the effect of the language variation present in the source text
The right to Cherangany Hills: a conflict between Kenya Forest Service and Sengwer
No full textFormålet med dette projekt er at belyse, hvorfor det oprindelige Sengwer-folk fik overskredet deres rettigheder i Verdensbankens miljøbevaringprojekt Natural Resource Management Project (NRMP) i Cherangany Hills i Kenya i perioden 2007-2013. For at undersøge dette fænomen benyttes der et casestudie af NRMP, hvor der inddrages teori fra fagområderne planlægning, rum og ressourcer og politologi. Disse teorier er Scott Campbells planlægningstrekant og Robert Jackson og Carl Rosbergs teori om svage stater. Planlægningstrekanten beskriver, hvilke konflikter der kan opstå i planlægningssammenhænge, når der er flere interesser i spil. Derfor bruges teorien til at identificere konflikten i NRMP. Teorien om svage stater forklarer, hvorfor nogle afrikanske stater ikke formår at udføre statsførelse i praksis, hvor hele befolkningens velfærd bliver tilgodeset. Det er ifølge teorien afgørende, om en stat formår at udføre empirisk statsførelse, og projektet analyserer derfor, om Kenya besidder de empiriske træk ved en stat. Det konkluderes af projektets undersøgelse, at Kenya var en svag stat i perioden hvor Natural Resource Management-projektet fandt sted, og at det især var Kenyas svage magtapparat, der var skyld i, at Verdensbankens policy for behandling af oprindelige folk blev overskredet.The purpose of this project is to investigate why the Kenyan indigenous Sengwer people of Cherangany Hills were evicted from the Embobut Forest as a result of the World Bank funded conservation project The Natural Resource Management Project (NRMP) from 2007 to 2013. The project uses a single case study to investigate the phenomena of the violations towards the Sengwer people. The theories used in the study derive from the courses Planning, Spaces and resources and Political science. The chosen theories are The Planner’s Triangle developed by Scott Campbell, and the theory of weak states in Africa by Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg. The Planner’s Triangle describes the conflicts of interest that arise when the operators have different points of views in planning. It is used to identify the conflict in the NRMP where both the government and the Sengwer People are important operators. The the-ory of weak states explains why many postcolonial African states cannot manage to perform empirical statehood where all citizens benefit by independence. This project uses the theory to explain why the conflict in the NRMP arises. It is concluded that Kenya was a weak state according to the theory of Jackson and Rosberg in the timespan between 2007 and 2013 when the NRMP was executed. This was especially due to its weak apparatus of power, the Kenya Forest Service, that did not manage to implement the World Bank policy on Indigenous Peo-ples, and therefore the Sengwer People were violated, in discrepancy with the agreement be-tween the World Bank and the government of Kenya
- …
