Browsing by Subject "Translation"
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Item Creating Instructions for a Cross-Cultural Audience: A Collaboration with Students in Trieste, Italy(2018-04-23) Kratzke, MeganThe core principles of technical writing and communication (TWC) and web design are critical when creating online materials for a cross-cultural audience. The purpose of this document is to explain the process of creating an effective online instruction set for use and translation by students in Italy. This project was completed in the WRIT 3562W class at the University of Minnesota, under the instruction of Professor Brandi Fuglsby. As the technical communicator in this project, I was able to apply the TWC principles I’ve learned throughout my coursework to a real-life situation, and for an audience that lives amongst a different culture, and for whom English is not their first language.Item Direct vs. Translated Writing: What Students Do and the Strategies They Use(University of Minnesota, 2000) Cohen, Andrew DThis study explored an alternative approach to short essay writing on language assessment tasks. Thirty-nine intermediate learners of French performed two essay-writing tasks: writing directly into French as well as writing in L1 and then translating into French. Two-thirds of the students did better on the direct writing task across all rating scales; one-third, better on the translated task. While raters found no significant differences in the grammatical scales across the two types of writing, differences did emerge in the scales for expression, transitions, and clauses. Retrospective verbal report data from the students indicated that they were often thinking through English when writing in French, suggesting that the writing tasks were not necessarily distinct in nature. Since the study was intended to simulate writing situations that students encounter in typical classroom assessments, the findings suggest that direct writing may be the most effective choice for some learners when under time pressure.Item Dos eygene Daytshland: Anthologizing Jewish Multilingualism in and beyond the Habsburg Empire(2022-05) Weinshel, MeyerFor the past century, anthologies containing German poetic texts in Yiddish translation have appeared in and beyond the former Habsburg Empire. Broadly conceiving translations as a series of “unfinished” published and unpublished texts that appeared before and after the Second World War, this dissertation traces the circulation in and beyond Central Europe of German-language poetry in Yiddish, and points to a relatedness between two seemingly disparate Jewish language groups that fell victim to marginalization, genocide, and displacement. In so doing, this dissertation maps contiguities “between” the languages used by Yiddish readers, writers, and translators. Furthermore, these contiguities destabilize traditional definitions of Ashkenazi Yiddish-Hebrew bi-/multilingualism within Eastern European Jewry, by noting the prolonged engagement with German and German Jewish culture across space and time. What emerges instead, is a longer, still-unfolding history of multilingual, communal, Jewish textual memory (i.e., translation). Often overlooked in the monolingual environs of North America and Israel, these texts have the ability to challenge English- and Hebrew-language hegemony that continues to render encounters with Yiddish and other languages obsolete, to instead provide resilient, multilingual, and diasporic Jewish cultural models.Item Genome-wide pharmacological modulation of cap-dependent translational control(2013-12) Braziunas, Jeffrey JosephThe first step of cap-dependent translation is mediated by the mRNA cap-binding protein eukaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E). Although involved in translating nearly all cellular transcripts, mRNAs vary widely in their translational response to eIF4E activity changes. Prior studies of mRNA structure revealed several features governing eIF4E responsiveness; however, most of this knowledge is based on comparison of two levels of eIF4E activity with unclear physiological relevance. To identify mRNA structural features that govern genome-wide ribosome recruitment across a full range of physiological eIF4E activities, we precisely modulated eIF4E activity using an eIF4E-inducible system together with 4Ei-1, an inhibitor of the eIF4E-5'mRNA cap association. We identified genes that were more (4E hypersensitive) or less (4E hyposensitive) responsive to eIF4E activity changes than average. Distinct characteristics associated with each class: 4E hypersensitive genes had longer 5'UTRs with higher GC content, longer 3'UTRs with lower GC content; more AU-rich elements and a higher density of unique microRNA targets sites than typical genes. Importantly, these structural characteristics predicted the translational response across the dose range of 4Ei-1. Gene ontology analysis showed an association between 4E hypersensitive genes and proliferation; and cell cycle experiments with 4Ei-1 validated this result. A search for the outcome and mechanism of this proliferative gene activation in a physiological setting revealed that abrupt gain of eIF4E function in quiescent cells first triggers G0 exit and then cell cycle transit at least partially by increasing ribosome recruitment to cyclins C and D1. Whereas cyclin C is not necessary for this effect; cyclin D1 is indispensable, although not sufficient. Our findings provide important insights into mRNA properties of eIF4E-modulated translational control.Item Literary cartographies: Lu Xun and the production of world literature.(2011-03) Dooghan, Daniel M.This dissertation addresses three critical issues in the emergence of world literature as both a scholarly discipline and a pedagogical project. Using the prominent modern Chinese writer Lu Xun as a case study, the project challenges the unstated assumptions that have thus far undergirded world literature. First, it probes the tacit acceptance of translation as a necessity for the teaching of world literature. However, rather than predictably but pointlessly calling for the necessity of reading in the original, I instead argue that the history of a text's translation can be as instructive as the text itself. Looking at both Lu Xun's translations of Western works into Chinese, and translations of Lu Xun's works into Western languages reveals compelling stories about the influence of imperialism and the Cold War on the bidirectional reception of these texts. Second, the dissertation interrogates the aims of world literature as an area of study. Rather than casting it as an inclusive mode of representation, I envision world literature as a means of theorizing globalization on a cultural level, free of crassly economic paradigms. I analyze Lu Xun's exceptionally broad reading of both Chinese and Western texts to articulate an aesthetic epistemology that enables the development of high-resolution models to chart the movement of texts and ideas. Finally, I position Lu Xun neither as a Chinese writer, nor as an ill-defined "world" author, but as an active participant in both national and transnational literary discourses. As such, he serves as a counterexample to the tacit reliance on national categories found in many anthologies of world literature.Item Looking to the East: Chinese Revolutionary Cinema 1949-1966.(2012-06) Chan, Ka YeeThe "Seventeen Years" (1949-1966), a period of abundant film production under the communist regime in China, has been called the "missing years" in the historiography of Chinese cinema. Rather than defining films produced during that era simply as "propaganda" in negative terms, this study locates the attractions of Chinese revolutionary cinema as a form of education and entertainment. First, picking up the forgotten threads of socialist internationalism in postcolonial studies, this project highlights the Soviet presence in Chinese film history and the creation of anti-colonial solidarity with Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America in Chinese film discourse. Second, this study seeks to fill an important gap in the global circulation of film theory by looking at how Chinese translators and film critics re-read, redefined, and reinvented Soviet montage and Constantin Stanislavski's realist acting system through the work of translation. Third, this project turns to various permutations of realism as an aesthetic and an ideology in Chinese revolutionary cinema by establishing a dialogue with socialist realism as an overall communist aesthetic. Contrary to the logic of Cold War binarism, I argue that the creation of a Chinese revolutionary film aesthetics was predicated upon not so much the open refusal to speak the enemy's language--classical Hollywood narration and Soviet montage--but the translation and tacit appropriation of both for the purpose of creating a revolutionary aesthetics that negotiates foreign cinematic precedents with Chinese aesthetic traditions in literature, opera, drama, and painting.Item Review of My Daughter, My Son, The Eagle, The Dove by Ana Castillo(Voices from the Gaps, 2005) McNally, Amy; Chadwick, GraceItem The Song That Goes Like This: The Art of Theatrical Sign Language Interpreting and Translating(2014-06-06) Mielke, KaitlynWhat sets theatre sign language interpreters apart from their colleagues in non-theatre settings is that they focus not only on the mechanics, but the theatrics of their craft. After examining the role of the theatre interpreter and current interpreting models, a new model is proposed that reflects the overlapping roles of actors and theatre interpreters. This leads to the understanding that theater accessibility for Deaf and Hard of Hearing patrons is a shared responsibility among the constituents that form the theatergoing experience as whole.Item Translating Music intelligibly: Musical paraphrase in the Long 20th Century(2013-12) Orosz, Jeremy WhiteThis dissertation is a study of the practice of musical paraphrase in the long 20th century. Musical paraphrase is defined as the adaptation, alteration, or embellishment of musical material, often borrowed from another source. My project is built around a single guiding question: If a composer borrows music from another source and alters it for use in a new context, how is this accomplished, and what are their motivations for doing so? This collection of five case studies provides a representative (if not comprehensive) sample of the many practices we might call paraphrase. In Chapter 1, I explore the metaphor of musical translation. In Chapter 2, I examine the practice of altering music for use on television, which I call "copyphrase." Chapter 3 is a study of musical caricature. The final two chapters are about musical paraphrase as creative stimulus--using pre-existing music as the aesthetic point of departure for crafting something new. In Chapter 4, I focus on the film music of John Williams, and in Chapter 5, I explore the late works of Alban Berg.Item Unexpected repeat associated proteins(2011-02) Gibbens, Brian BallardSpinocerebellar ataxia type 8 (SCA8) is one of a number of dominantly inherited disorders caused by triplet CTG*CAG repeat expansions (2). While investigating the mechanisms of SCA8, Dr. Ranum's lab made the surprising discovery that CAG*CTG expansion constructs express homopolymeric polyglutamine, polyalanine and polyserine expansion proteins without an ATG start codon (3). This repeat associated non-ATG (RAN) translation occurs in transfected cells and lenti-viral transduced cells and brains. Additionally, in vivo mouse and human data demonstrate that RAN-translation across human SCA8 and myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) CAG expansion transcripts results in the accumulation of SCA8 polyalanine and DM1 polyglutamine expansion proteins (3). RAN-translation can occur across CAG expansions in a number of different sequence contexts, but the mechanism of this newly discovered phenomenon, which does not follow the previously described rules of translational regulation, is completely unknown. To gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of RAN-translation and their potential role in microsatellite disorders, I chose to test the hypothesis that RNA sequence variations within and outside of the repeat affect the efficiency of RAN-translation. Data described in my thesis support the following conclusions: 1) the efficiency of RAN-translation in different frames can be positively and negatively affected by the nucleotide sequence within and around the repeat tract; 2) non-ATG translation in rabbit reticulocyte lysates (RRLs) is much less permissive than in HEK293T and N2a cells, initiates with methionine, and requires close cognate start codons (e.g. ATT and ATC); 3) RAN-translation in multiple frames can occur in the presence or absence of an ATG-initiated open reading frame; 4) cellular factors found in HEK293T and N2a cells substantially enhance RAN-translation compared to cell free RRLs; 5) RAN-translation is enhanced across repeat motifs which form hairpin structures. These data have led me to propose two models for RAN-translation: the "stalling model" and the "IRES-like model". The stalling model proposes that scanning ribosomes are stalled by repeat-containing hairpins until translation is initiated and that permissive initiation is increased when hairpins or RNA binding proteins interact with the ribosome and its associated translation initiation factors. The IRES-like model proposes that repeat containing hairpins facilitate RAN-translation by mimicking an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) to recruit the ribosome and initiation factors and initiate translation at non-ATG sites.Item Unreading multilingualisms of the Korean diaspora(2013-07) Kim, Eun JooThis project critiques the impulse to read literature and culture of the Korean diaspora as representative of individual(s), culture(s), or community(ies), and the long-standing focus on what difference looks like. Each of my primary texts has been written or performed by Korean diasporic women in the past three decades. My primary materials also include both Korean and English, and most include a third or even a fourth language. While still attending to visual reading practices, my project privileges the sound of difference. I attend to how these different sounds are represented on the printed page, the cinematic screen, and the theatre stage. Each of these genres and media allows multilinguality to be expressed in different and very specific ways. My methodology consists of "unreading" contemporary texts. By unreading, I mean the practice of disrupting and deconstructing more dominant languages, vocabularies, and reading practices, guided by Rey Chow's discussion of "unlearning" and Kandice Chuh's work on deconstructing the "Asian American subject." With this approach, I investigate how relations of power are represented in cultural productions. I begin with a discussion of the modernization and democratization of the Korean language, particularly during the period of Japanese colonization. It is within this context that I read the historical traces that emerge in the language(s) of contemporary works. I then consider the grammatical, social, political, and cultural implications of eliciting a specific Western-derived first-person singular subject from a more (potentially deliberately) ambiguous Korean context. In the second half of this project, I turn to the media of film and television to argue that historical traces of the phenomena of early cinema, particularly during Korea's colonial period inform the translation and communication technologies featured in contemporary films of the Korean diaspora. The layering of subtitling in noraebang scenes enacts a doubling of both screens and subtitles, introducing rich layers of textuality while recalling the titles of early cinema. I conclude by considering the specific contributions of this project to the field of Asian American studies.Item Untranslating the Maghreb: reckoning with Gender in literature and film from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia(2014-04) Bliss, Greta KatherineOrientalist cultural translation remains immanent to the creation and reception of Maghrebi women's fiction. However, recent literary and cinematic texts from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia problematize and critique this dynamic. Reappropriating both the process of translation and the highly charged figure of the Maghrebi heroine, Maghrebi women's cultural production performs a literary, cinematic, and critical intervention that I call "untranslation." Untranslation thwarts Orientalist translation through a variety of mechanisms including narrative deferral, the use of alternative linguistic and religious idioms, the reappropriation of technology and modernity, and the deployment of self-ethnography. Resisting the notion that "postcolonial" or "World" literature and film readily translates a known Other, untranslation calls for a new understanding of Maghrebi women's fiction as participating in its own scholarly and pedagogical productions of meaning.