Suggests that miscommunication is accepted as an inevitable feature of intercultural communication. Points out that psychic unity, the anthropological concept of a fundamental biological homogeneity of man's mental life, is the unexamined property which makes communication of any sort possible. (56 references) (Author/CK)

Suggests that in studying English grammatical structure, English/French translation students establish a broader understanding of the language, which in turn enables them to better tackle the gymnastics of translation. Considers the value of studying the gender categorization of inanimate objects. (SG)

Discusses a didactic model for translation based on textual linguistics that incorporates a model second external reader in the translation process. Although translation is necessarily sentence oriented, this method considers the entire text that must eventually satisfy a pragmatic external purpose. (51 references) (CFM)

Discusses the assumptions underlying the training of technical translators versus technical translation, and their differing notions of quality. Addresses integrating translation and documentation, implications for training, and cross-cultural procedures. (SR)

Translators of the Adult Attitudes toward Continuing Education Scale used a combination of back translation, committee approach, bilingual and decentering techniques, administration to bilinguals, and pilot testing. They recommended careful selection of bilinguals; pragmatic, ethnographic, and linguistic principles; and third to fifth grade…

Focuses on pronouns of address, especially the second person singular, in which many European languages make distinctions according to the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the person addressed. Discusses the problems these distinctions present (especially in literary works) to translators who work in languages where such nuances are…

Argues that nonliterary texts are often so muddled and inaccurate in their formulation that they call for exegesis and in-depth rewriting. Concludes that nonfiction translators become creative in their own right but in a different sense than the one usually connected with these terms in the context of literary translation. (NKA)

Argues that in literary translation, like the case of the two African novels in translation under examination, cross-cultural communication and miscommunication problems may occur. (14 references) (Author/VWL)

Offers a personal view of international technical communication. Discusses computer-assisted translation, machine translation, machine interpreting, and the future of international technical communication. (SR)

A total of 42 of 100 students completed a distance education course on translation from English into Spanish at a Spanish university. Course evaluation indicated that emphasis must be on stimulating students' independent skill acquisition and responsibility, as well as the attitudes and discipline needed for careers as translators. (SK)

Argues that there is a way to teach genre without asking students to mimic surface features mindlessly or--perhaps more insidious--to attempt richer executions of genres only to fall short without knowing it. Suggests that when genre functions in the world are better understood, this understanding supports rather than undermines work in the…

Guidelines for working with translators in training situations include meeting them beforehand, identifying their comfort level, clearing jokes, giving them copies of handouts, acknowledging their presence, trying a brief introduction in the local language, speaking slowly, and using simple sentence structure. (JOW)

The Structured Query Language (SQL) forms a substantial component of introductory database courses and is supported by almost every commercial database product. One disadvantage of SQL is that it does not provide a universal quantification construct. Queries that have twisted universal and existential quantifiers can be stunning for students,…

The authors induced tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs) for English words in monolinguals and bilinguals using picture stimuli with cognate (e.g., vampire, which is vampiro in Spanish) and noncognate (e.g., funnel, which is embudo in Spanish) names. Bilinguals had more TOTs than did monolinguals unless the target pictures had translatable cognate…

Publishing literature in translation in the United States is, generally, a fool's game. Publishing literature in translation for young readers is lunatic. The sad fact is that very few publishers are commissioning translations because they tend to be expensive, time-consuming, and unsuccessful in the marketplace. This article discusses the…