Language and Questions of Culture

Cultural Intelligence in Foreign Language Learning Contexts

Abstract

The language we hear or use carries with it not only background or world knowledge but also cultural information. Listening comprehension, as one of the primary language skills, is no exception. Researchers (e.g., Ervin, 1992; Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Kito, 2000; Markham & Latham, 1987; Mueller, 1980; Othman & Vanathas, 2004) have found that the listening comprehension of ESL students is highly affected by their culture-related (e.g., religion-biased, ethnicity-biased) background knowledge and that cultural information arouses learners’ interest and motivation towards learning and comprehending a second language. Likewise, research has substantiated the pivotal role cultural intelligence or quotient (CQ) serves in individual’s success in cross-cultural interactions. CQ is a momentous multi-component individual capability with important personal, interpersonal, and work-related implications (Van Dyne, Ang & Nielsen 2007). The current study was run to examine if listening comprehension of EFL learners is correlated with their CQ and, if yes, which of the CQ components (including metacognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral CQ) better predict learners’ performance on listening comprehension. The four-factor model of CQ together with an IELTS listening exam was administered to a number of Iranian EFL learners. The results are discussed and implications are provided.

Similar Yet Different. ELF Variation in International Website Terms and Conditions of Use”

Abstract

The common-law-based standardized legal model of the terms and conditions of use of commercial websites instantiate, on the one hand, the increasingly influential role that English plays as the international language of trade and legislation, and, on the other, the disparities in legal practice among different national legal systems using English as a lingua franca (ELF). The paper investigates a small monolingual corpus of terms of use translated into English from the international websites of three international car manufacturers from three different countries of origin and legislations based in civil law: Fiat, Renault and Volkswagen. The aim is to find the similarities and differences in layout/content and terminology/phraseology of the three ELF documents: 1) against the respective source documents in the Italian, French and German national sites of, respectively, Fiat, Renault and Volkswagen; 2) among the three translated ELF documents themselves; and 3) against three terms of use taken as a reference, two of which are non-translated ENL (English as a Native Language) disclaimer templates whilst the third is a translated ELF EU Commission Legal notice. The significant intralingual variation found in the three ELF translated documents even in a highly standardized legal format such as that of the terms of use of a website is finally taken as evidence of the difference in awareness – and ultimately professionalism - by the legal drafters of the respective source texts and by the translators of the international readership of the final documents to be translated into English.

Minority Languages and Film Subtitling: An Empirical Study Based on the Translation of Culture-bound Elements from Catalan into English

Abstract

As the process of globalisation and the dominance of English as a world language expand, some regional and minority languages are becoming more marginalised due to the increasing perceived social and economic value of English and other major languages in the media. In the face of the challenges created by the globalisation process, this paper explores the translation of minority language films in the cinema industry, with special reference to the subtitling of Catalan-language films into English. The study focuses primarily on subtitling as the most common type of audiovisual translation (AVT) for this source material and enabling its distribution in the international market.

The corpus for this study comprises 14 Catalan films by the director Ventura Pons, together with their English-subtitled versions. Ventura Pons is considered one of the most internationally recognised directors of Catalan cinema today. In his films he strives to be a reference of the autochthonous culture and a signifier of cultural identity. Based on the data collected from the corpus, this study analyses the way in which the culture-bound elements (CBEs) encountered in Catalan films have been rendered from the source texts (STs) into the target texts (TTs) through the process of subtitling. For the purpose of analysis, the translation of CBEs was selected as the focal point of this study to examine the translation behaviour of subtitlers in response to the translation problem arising from the presence of numerous CBEs in the STs.

The paper investigates the translation techniques and overall strategies used in the rendering of CBEs by empirically exploring the connections among the following parameters: audiovisual constraints, interculturality, film genre, domain and translation techniques. More particularly, through a quantitative analysis of the results, the study aims to identify the most frequently recurring techniques and strategies used in such cases and to reveal symptomatic patterns of translation behaviour that may have been adopted when rendering the CBEs under study.