The key assumption in this text is that machine translation is not merely a mechanical process but in fact requires a high level of linguistic sophistication, as the nuances of syntax, semantics and intonation cannot always be conveyed by modern technology. The increasing dependence on artificial communication by private and corporate users makes this research area an invaluable element when teaching linguistic theory.

This book presents a study of interpreter-mediated interaction in New York City small claims courts, drawing on audio-recorded arbitration hearings and ethnographic fieldwork. Focusing on the language use of speakers of Haitian Creole, Polish, Russian, or Spanish, the study explores how these litigants make use of their limited proficiency in English, in addition to communicating with the help of professional court interpreters. Drawing on research on courtroom interaction, legal interpreting, and conversational codeswitching, the study explores how the ability of immigrant litigants to participate in these hearings is impacted by institutional language practices and underlying language ideologies, as well as by the approaches of individual arbitrators and interpreters who vary in their willingness to accommodate to litigants and share the burden of communication with them. Litigants are shown to codeswitch between the languages in interactionally meaningful ways that facilitate communication, but such bilingual practices are found to be in conflict with court policies that habitually discourage the use of English and require litigants to act as monolinguals, using only one language throughout the entire proceedings. Moreover, the standard distribution of interpreting modes in the courtroom is shown to disadvantage litigants who rely on the interpreter, as consecutive interpreting causes their narrative testimony to be less coherent and more prone to interruptions, while simultaneous interpreting often leads to incomplete translation of legal arguments or of their opponent's testimony. Consequently, the study raises questions about the relationship between linguistic diversity and inequality, arguing that the legal system inherently privileges speakers of English.

This book presents a collection of state-of-the-art work in corpus-based interpreting studies, highlighting international research on the properties of interpreted speech, based on naturalistic interpreting data. Interpreting research has long been hampered by the lack of naturalistic data that would allow researchers to make empirically valid generalizations about interpreting. The researchers who present their work here have played a pioneering role in the compilation of interpreting data and in the exploitation of that data. The collection focuses on both of these aspects, including a detailed overview of interpreting corpora, a collective paper on the way forward in corpus compilation and several studies on interpreted speech in diverse language pairs and interpreter-mediated settings, based on existing corpora.

In an age of migration, in a world deeply divided through cultural differences and in the context of ongoing efforts to preserve national and regional traditions and identities, the issues of language and translation are becoming absolutely vital. At the heart of these complex, intercultural interactions are various types of agents, intermediaries and mediators, including translators, writers, artists, policy makers and publishers involved in the preservation or rejuvenation of literary and cultural repertoires, languages and identities. The major themes of this book include language and translation in the context of migration and diasporas, migrant experiences and identities, the translation from and into minority and lesser-used languages, but also, in a broader sense, the international circulation of texts, concepts and people. The volume offers a valuable resource for researchers in the field of translation studies, lecturers teaching translation at the university level and postgraduate students in translation studies. Further, it will benefit researchers in migration studies, linguistics, literary and cultural studies who are interested in learning how translation studies relates to other disciplines.

Ovid in China offers a fresh look at an ancient Roman author in a Chinese context and often from a Chinese perspective. The seventeen essays in this volume, by a group of international scholars, examine Ovid's interaction with China in a broad historical context, including the arrival of Christian missionaries in 1294, the depiction of Ovidian scenes on 18th-century Chinese porcelain, the growing Chinese interest in Ovid in the early 20th century, a 21st-century collaborative project to translate Ovid's poetry into Chinese with commentary, and comparative studies on such themes as conceptualization of time, consolation, laughter, filicide, and revenge.

This volume covers descriptions and interpretations of social and cognitive phenomena and processes which emerge at the interface of languages and cultures in educational and translation contexts. It contains eleven papers, divided into two parts, which focus respectively on the issues of language and culture acquisition and a variety of translation practices (general language, literature, music translation) from socio-cultural and cognitive perspectives.

Over the last two decades, interest in translation around the world has increased beyond any predictions. International bestseller lists now contain large numbers of translated works, and writers from Latin America, Africa, India and China have joined the lists of eminent, bestselling European writers and those from the global English-speaking world. Despite this, translators tend to be invisible, as are the processes they follow and the strategies they employ when translating. The Translator as Writer bridges the divide between those who study translation and those who produce translations, through essays written by well-known translators talking about their own work as distinctive creative literary practice. The book emphasises this creativity, arguing that translators are effectively writers, or rewriters who produce works that can be read and enjoyed by an entirely new audience. The aim of the book is to give a proper prominence to the role of translators and in so doing to move attention back to the act of translating, away from more abstract speculation about what translation might involve.

I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies The two sermons edited and translated here for the first time are primary material from the years before the establishment of the Fatimid caliphate in 297/909. The authors have been identified as Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Shi'i and Abu’l-‘Abbas Muhammad, two brothers who were central to the success of the Ismaili da'wa in North Africa. Da'wa, a term used to describe how Muslims teach others about the beliefs and practices of their Islamic faith, therefore provide a unique view of the nature and development of Islam throughout history. In this case, the primary texts shed light on the development of Islam among the Berbers of the Maghreb. The first text by Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Shi'i shows how the arguments for belief in the 'imamate' of the family of the Prophet, that is, the Shi'a belief that all imams should be spiritual descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and his household, were developed and presented to bring new adherents to the cause. The Book of the Keys to Grace by his elder brother Abu’l-‘Abbas, too, concerns not only the centrality of the imam in the faith but also sheds light on the hierarchy of the da’wa in this early period and its organisational sophistication. Both texts also reveal the contemporary theology propagated by the Ismaili da’wa, including for instance, the powerful analogy of Moses/Aaron and Muhammad/’Ali, the awareness of a variety of religious traditions and the use of detailed Qur’anic quotations and a wide range of hadith. As such they constitute primary source material of interest not only for Ismaili history but for this early period of Islam in general.

Taking a cognitive approach, this book asks what poetry, and in particular Holocaust poetry, does to the reader - and to what extent the translation of this poetry can have the same effects. It is informed by current theoretical discussion and features many practical examples. Holocaust poetry differs from other genres of writing about the Holocaust in that it is not so much concerned to document facts as to document feelings and the sense of an experience. It shares the potential of all poetry to have profound effects on the thoughts and feelings of the reader. This book examines how the openness to engagement that Holocaust poetry can engender, achieved through stylistic means, needs to be preserved in translation if the translated poem is to function as a Holocaust poem in any meaningful sense. This is especially true when historical and cultural distance intervenes. The first book of its kind and by a world-renowned scholar and translator, this is required reading.