Evidence from life science, cognitive science, and philosophy supports the hypothesis that knowledge is a central norm of the human practice of assertion. However, to date, the experimental evidence supporting this hypothesis is limited to American anglophones. If the hypothesis is correct, then such findings will not be limited to one language or…

The purpose of this research is to investigate the variable production of English Object-Experiencer (OE) psych predicates among 80 L1 Thai EFL first-year university students. Psych verbs are notable for posing difficulty for learners due to a unique property that violates Grimshaw's (1990) Thematic Hierarchy. The participants were given a cloze…

Translation is an act of communication across dissimilar cultures. In as such, cultural expressions or idioms are a particularly salient translation challenge, especially when translating between two distinct languages spoken by two different nations. Idioms convey rich cultural connotations, and so require consideration of both cultural and…

The applicability of Vantage Theory (VT), a model of (colour) categorization, to linguistic data largely depends on the modifications and adaptations of the model for the purpose. An attempt to do so proposed here, called Extended Vantage Theory (EVT), slightly reformulates the VT conception of vantage by capitalizing on some of the entailments of…

Suggests that translational efficiency and effectiveness could be advanced by the same consideration of grammatical patterns that is standard with lexical items. Decries the absence of the type of grammar that could be a useful reference tool for translators and exegetes and describes some of its characteristics. (MES)

Discusses problems in contemporary translation theory, particularly in terms of the number of semantic distinctions a given language may draw. (CLK)

Compared responses of English-French bilinguals performing semantic categorization and lexical decision tasks using translation-priming stimuli. Using the same stimuli, priming effects were significantly stronger in semantic categorization than in lexical decision, suggesting the translation-priming effect in the former is mediated by semantic…

This paper discusses factors contributing to differing translations of the same source text, arguing that translation occurs on a continuum rather than having absolute criteria and procedures. Issues examined include the formal properties of the text, the text's "invariant core of meaning," stability in the semantic elements of the text, the text…

Expounds Firth's views on the problems of translation and surveys theories of translation by some Firthian linguists. Defines the concept of meaning and the concept of varieties within a language, discussing various dialect categories and other categories that relate to constant features of speakers' and writers' use. (MES)

A system for classifying (coding) translations of sentence-length or similar material is presented and illustrated with codings of entries in the "Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Classical Quotations." Problems in coding are discussed, relating especially to intertextuality, intention, and ownership. The system is intended for pedagogic use, and…

Discusses the translator's need for help from structural linguistics and the inadequacy of the response of linguistics to so-called translation problems. Two German-French syntax problems are given as examples and a solution is offered from a translator's point of view. (AMH)

It is suggested that contrastive linguistics, the systematic comparison of two languages, be considered in the preparation of instructional materials and as a choice of teaching methods and techniques for training tranlators and interpreters. The contrastive analysis hypothesis suggests that the major source of errors committed by learners of a…

This paper examines the semantic and structural characteristics of a basic pattern in English and discusses Spanish equivalents. A sentence-by-sentence analysis is made with consideration of transformations on the basic patterns in both languages. Translation and transformation complications in the two languages are illustrated. The equivalence…

An analysis of the instrumental case in four languages (English, Hungarian, Kongo, and Nepali) compares expressions of each of the deep cases of instrumentality (tool, body part, material, and force) in each language. Observations are based on a translation exercise given to native speakers of the languages and on follow-up interviews. The…

Papers, all in French, presented at a conference on linguistics include: "Machine Translation: Historic Aspects" (Ghada Attieh); "Translation and Conditioning" (Stephanie Bedard); "Semantic or Pre-Semantic Structures? From Perception to Causation" (Denise Belanger); "Presentation of Poetry Sung in Maroc"…