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On the job market today, people with a (very) good knowledge of a foreign language, such as German, are in demand. Candidates are required to submit their application documents in this language. Unfortunately, having grammatical correctness and a rich vocabulary are not enough to write a job application and a CV. In order to prepare these documents correctly, it is necessary to know the differences between one's own and the other culture, in this case the culture of German-speaking countries. The aim of this paper is to present the findings of an exploratory study examining errors students made naming and expressing selected elements of the non-lingual reality that represent a specific kind of reflection of new and often foreign realities in covering letters and CVs. Due to the limited framework of this paper, it is focused on intercultural aspects. While these seem to be very simple, they may cause difficulties because of the characteristic way they are presented in the acquired language, such as the use of courtesy rules, the recording of the date, giving of personal data, writing about foreign languages skills or providing information about a driving licence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity in the classroom should inspire teaching and learning that maximizes the students’ abilities and language competency. Humanity in education is based on respect, dignity, transparency, and compassion. It should be the foundation for the classroom environment before implementing any framework. Offering compassion for all learners is a strength. This conceptual paper invites educators to consider bilingual and multilingual learners’ literacies by proposing a new framework for moving culture forward in the classroom, the ‘MultiSemiotic Architecture Framework.’ I explore the tenets of the framework which are critical literacy, multiliteracies, transmultiliteracies sustaining pedagogy, new literacies, and translanguaging that facilitate justice in the classroom using semiotics. This framework aims to empower teachers, parents, communities, and schools with alternate approaches to consider their students’ literacy assets and cultural interests through a lens of opportunity. This framework has been tested with in service teachers, and a concrete example is provided that shows how the constructs in the framework could be applied in a lesson. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of globalization, cultural exchanges have been widely concerned. And the translation of Chinese literary works has become a trend. Due to the pivotal position of architecture name in literary works, coupled with the rich connotations and communicative function, architectural translation is of great. The building names in the classical novel Hong Lou Meng contained meaningful Chinese cultural connotations, so when translating these names, the literature and culture elements should be taken into consideration. This paper makes a comparative study between Yang Xianyi's and Hawkes' translation on the base of language and culture, picking up some typical buildings to do the case study and exploring the charm of Chinese ancient architecture culture. At last, in the hope of giving some reference to the practical translation process, the paper will give some suggestions in some architecture translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Glottotheory is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With the rise of live streaming commerce, the relationship between consumers and content creators on the short-video platforms has become closer, forming a peculiar culture and language in each consumer community, which promotes the short-video platforms to become a natural breeding ground for forming consumer communities. While such communities give birth to its own language and culture from the interaction between content creators and consumers, this kind of co-creation can not only enhance the consumers’ trust to improve commodity premium space, but also strengthen the ties within the community and spread the information outside the communities, and consequently, expand community scale. Based on the view of the value co-creation from the language and culture among content creators and consumers in the communities, this study starts from the point of product type, employs consumers’ Willingness to pay premium (WoPP) as a proxy variable of brand advocacy in the co-creation of cultural and language values in consumer communities, and conducts three single-factor experiments between two groups. By analyzing the experimental results, this study identified the influence under the potential relationship mechanism, social comparison, and found another variable that can moderate the relationship, consumer trust, portrays the relationship between the product types of the live streaming commerce and the consumers’ WoPP, and explores the mediating effect of social comparison and the moderate effect of consumer trust effect. This paper also analyzes and discusses the WoPP caused by the co-creation of cultural and language values co-created by creators and consumer communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural knowledge is an integral part of the language teaching process in EFL situations. The difficulties facing students in this area have negatively affected their ability to communicate successfully and translate accurately. Nonetheless, the debate over the significance of involving cultural aspects in the language classroom has continued in the local Saudi context. The language weaknesses resulting from the lack of sufficient cultural perspective can also be observed and confirmed in this region. Students' understanding of culture-specific words and concepts is the area that is affected the most when a disconnection occurs between language teaching and cultural knowledge. Thus, in this paper, the researcher examines the impact of this disconnection by outlining the extent to which cultural knowledge is incorporated into EFL language courses. This study also focuses on documenting the language use examples that illustrate the difficulties faced by students in this regard, which is an aspect that is missing from several previous studies in the local context. The data examined in this study were collected through open-ended questionnaires and organizing focus group discussions. The analysis of the results reveals that the cultural component of language teaching is not satisfactory for the English major students surveyed in this study. The research participants also described the kind of cultural knowledge missing from their curriculum and the specific areas affected by that. The study concludes with several suggested solutions that focus on the resources available to Saudi students (and other students in the same circumstances) and on utilizing the most recent developments in online education in the past two years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista EntreLínguas is the property of Revista EntreLinguas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Differences in the structure of languages, social development and background of authors, lexical and stylistic features of literary work hinder a completely equivalent translation. During artistic translation, a translator must correctly recognize and consider semantic, emotionally expressive, cultural, historical, associative-figurative and socio-local information in the translated piece of work. The theoretical part of the paper focuses on defining of the concept of “artistic translation”, its features and goals, as well as discussing of the main difficulties and obstacles for creation of adequate translation. The second, practical part presents the results of a comparative analysis of Kazakh translations of R.L. Stevenson's novel “Treasure Island” and of a survey on English-Kazakh translation problems held among undergraduates majoring in translation studies. The research is carried out among students of the 1st-2nd year undergraduate program majoring in translation studies in the middle of the academic year. In total, 40 students volunteered and took part in the study. The authors conduct a questionnaire to determine the students’ level of grammatical proficiency and general knowledge of translation from English and Kazakh. The experimental work clearly demonstrates that the above-mentioned problems and issues are also present in Kazakh student community and emphasizes the importance of further study of English-Kazakh translation and development of relevant translation strategies and acknowledged criteria for assessment of translated works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colour plays a key role in people's communication. Languages represent the gradation of colours in nature by a series of discrete categories. These categories of colour differ along with the different cultures. Colour distinctions and meanings also play a major role in different religions. A certain colour may have a particular meaning in Christianity and another different meaning. There is no single language is said to include all colour variations. Colour distinctions and meanings play a major role in different religions. A certain colour may have a particular meaning in Christianity and another different meaning. This paper aims at identifying the basic colour terms in the Glorious Qur'an and making structural and semantic analyses of them. It is hypothesized that the Glorious Qur'an contains particular colour terms that occupy various grammatical classes and indicates specific functions. Furthermore, some are linked to each other by semantic relations. The major findings arrived at are the following: there are six basic colour terms used in the Glorious Qur'an; they are white, black, green, yellow, blue, and red. Colour terms used in the Glorious Qur'an have various structures in Arabic syntax. Secondly, semantic variations are found in many verses of the Glorious Qur'an that include colour terms. Thirdly, cultural differences affect the usage of colour in language. Finally, the use of colour terms in the Glorious Qur'an is meant to apply different functions of the terms, such as the visual, the aesthetic, the symbolic, and the expressive functions. one colour might be interpreted in one way in a language and in a totally different way in another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents both teacher and student reflections relating to activities undertaken during the developmental stages of a Cross-Curriculum Multicultural K-6 Art Program. The Art Program, developed in association with the Quality Teaching Framework, has been designed to engage student learning and promote creativity. Throughout the duration of the program students were encouraged to create individual and unique artworks enabling them to reflect on values and attitudes towards language and culture. Students developed deep knowledge about art appreciation and the processes required to create quality art pieces. In addition, students demonstrated a growing awareness and appreciation of language and cultural identity through the learning experiences presented. The Art Program implements elements of the Quality Teaching Framework, the Italian K-6 Syllabus, the Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus and the Professional Standards for accomplished teaching of languages and cultures. Essentially, the aim of the Art Program has been to provide students with meaningful and authentic learning opportunities designed to enhance linguistic, cultural and artistic awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the 250-year status of their language as an oral language (but see below the reference to Georg Brandes [1888]) the only hard evidence we have just what the Doukhobors' language was like, are the interviews conducted with Doukhobor elders in the 1960's, i.e., those speakers who had brought the language with them in their mass migration to Canada in 1899. Some glimpses can also be gained by the study of their ritual texts (psalms, prayers, and hymns) that fortunately had been collected and written down in the early 20th century by the Bolshevik Russian land surveyor in a book called Životnaja Kniga duxoborcev (Bonč-Bruevič, Vladimir. 1909 [1954].) There is a debate as to how the title of this book is best translated into English, The Book of Life or The Living Book. I believe that The Living Book currently has the edge. Before being collected and written down, this book was also oral, and much of the language reflected the spoken practice (Schaarschmidt 1995). At all times, the illiterate Doukhobors had access to members of their community that performed the written tasks for them, such as dealing with the bureaucracy of the Russian Empire. And because of their forced move from the Crimea to Transcaucasia, the Doukhobors' previous exclusive contacts with South Russian now faced Russian-Turco-Tataric bilingualism. The latter can still be traced rather easily: of the ever decreasing number of elders in their seventies and up, many remember bits and pieces of Turco-Tartaric words and expressions that are published in a series of articles in the Doukhobor monthly Iskra by a former and now retired Russian-language teacher in the Doukhobor area of British Columbia (see, for example, Popoff 2013). In addition, many Doukhobor surnames show Turco-Tataric influence. What is often not so clear is whether the Turco-Tartaric words came into Standard Russian before the contact of Doukhobor Russian with Turco-Tartaric, and it is our role as etymologists to determine that on the basis of multi-volume dialect dictionaries or field work in the still extant Doukhobor oral language area within Georgia. For any moribund language that in the past had multiple functions there arises the question of the relationship between language death and the preservation of culture, a largely unresolved issue in sociolinguistics. On the one hand, there are cases of large-scale language loss with the retention of at least some elements of culture (to wit, Ukrainian in Canada, Sorbian in Germany, many First Nations in North America, and, as will be demonstrated in the present research article, Doukhobor Russian in Canada and Georgia). The present paper will deal with a small subtopic in this large field, i.e., the loss of "special" languages, such as the "ritual language" as used by the Doukhobors as well as their oral language that they brought with them to Canada in 1899 and that was partially recorded by linguists, such as Harshenin (1961; 1964; 1967). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is an appreciation of the work of Anne Turvey as a teacher, a teacher educator and a researcher. It discusses her evolving responses (1988–2015) to government-driven changes in the teaching of English in schools and teacher education. It shows how throughout this period she supported practices informed by Vygotskian theory and by a close attention to the cultures of London school-students. In doing so, she contributed significantly to the development, in hard times, of less reductive and impoverished versions of English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the meaning and use of the German word Herr as a form of address, in a historical and cross-linguistic perspective. The paper argues that despite their apparent insignificance, generic titles used daily across Europe, and in all the parts of the world to which European languages have travelled, can reveal complex and intricate webs of cultural assumptions, attitudes, and values, as well as how these assumptions, attitudes, and values change across time and space. Terms of address available for everyday use in a particular language can provide keys to the inmost recesses of the speakers' cultural and mental worlds. But if we are to use these keys effectively, we need some basic locksmith skills. Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) semantics, with its stock of primes and molecules and its mini-grammar for combining these into semantic texts, provides both the necessary tools and the necessary techniques. It allows us to practice semantic microanalysis with rigor and accountability, while at the same time exploring big questions of values, history, and culture. There has been an upsurge of interest in nominal terms of address in recent years, but as illustrated by the rich and valuable recent volume S'adresser à autrui (2014), edited by Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni, research of this kind focuses on frequencies, forms, and functions, with virtually no mention of meaning -- as if basic titles such as Monsieur and Madame, Signore and Signora, or Herr and Frau had no meaning at all. As a result, while formal and functional aspects are carefully examined, the secrets hidden in the meanings of such words (and in their semantic evolution) escape scholars' attention. To uncover these secrets and to bring to light their cultural significance, we need an appropriate methodology. By putting the German word Herr under the microscope, this paper demonstrates that NSM is a methodology that allows it to be done in illuminating and empirically verifiable ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Libri & Liberi is the property of Croatian Association of Researchers in Children's Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research paper analysed the positive politeness strategies used by Oprah Winfrey and her guests in the Oprah Winfrey Talk Show. By analysing four full interviews for each group (African-Americans and Caucasians), the study also aimed to investigate the effect of the speaker's ethnic background on the use of positive politeness strategies in Oprah Winfrey Talk Show. Based on Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness framework, the study revealed that both Oprah and her guests employed positive politeness strategies when addressing each other to avoid face threatening or face damage. The data also revealed that Oprah and her Caucasian guests used more positive politeness strategies than with the African-Americans. In addition, it was found that the most frequently used strategies in Oprah's talk with both groups were "Seek agreement", "Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)", "Give (or ask for) reasons", "Presuppose/raise/assert common ground" and "Assert or presuppose S's knowledge of and concern for H's wants", respectively. However, the study showed that there was a difference in the use of positive politeness strategies due to the addressee's ethnic group background (African-American and Caucasian). However it was not dominant. Based on the findings, this article concludes with some implications for foreign/second language speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language and social identity are indispensably related and dependent on each other. In many cases, the language of a community defines and constructs the identity of the community; it is very much evident in the case of Darma people. The entire Darma community is known after the language that they speak, which is, Darma. Of late, the community is facing an identity crisis as their language amidst pressures from the dominant languages like Hindi, is shifting. Though, the shift appears to be Linguistic, it has some deeper repercussions as the whole Darma culture is affected. This research paper attempts to locate possible reasons of language shift and its sociocultural effect on the community, for instance, lack of school education in Darma medium is one of the reasons of language shift among others which is distancing these people from their culture and training them in other dominant languages and cultures like Hindi and English. Furthermore, on the basis of the findings, the paper finds that Darma language needs to be protected and preserved not only to save an endangered language but also to help Darma people retain their identity and culture which are embedded in their language. The study has been conducted by using observation method and personal interview with the respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores children's language socialization into kin-based peer relationships in Amdo, Tibet. I examine spontaneous interactions in one extended family to show how children link place and kinship using spatial deixis, the grammatical system that encodes context-dependent reference to location, in Amdo Tibetan. I analyze uses of spatial deixis in two interactive routines: (1) peer-group play, and (2) children's scaffolding of infants' roles in multiparty participation frameworks. I argue that children use their emerging deictic repertoires to 'spatialize kinship,' mapping kinship relations onto the immediate spaces of co-present interactions as well as the enduring places of the village's geography. Previous studies have noted that culturally specific forms of relationality influence adults' uses of deixis by shaping the pragmatics of interactive settings. Building on these insights, the data from Amdo demonstrate the need to consider cultural associations between place and kinship when examining the acquisition of deixis in early childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper concerns itself with a study of the cultural-based language teaching issue, particularly with the issue of some practical techniques for teaching culture in the EFL classroom. We want to emphasize the importance of cultural acquisition in the study of language courses, and to present a range of practical techniques that have been found to be effective and successful in cultural-based courses and a few tips that can help to make the teaching of culture a better experience for both teachers and students. The purpose of this paper is to explore effective approaches of culture communication transmission in English classroom teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews and questions concepts of self and identity behind current models of intercultural competence within foreign language education. It explores the role of non-cultural spaces, silence and spirit in communication and considers what it could mean to educate for intercultural competence from a spiritual perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes a reading of social media entries related to Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso--an Overseas Filipino Worker who was arrested for alleged drug trafficking in Indonesia on April 2010, and was granted a reprieve from execution on 29 April 2015. The paper uses concepts drawn from Gabriella Cole's study on trolling and Henry Jenkins' notion of spreadable media to interpret the shift in social media response to Veloso's reprieve-from the initial tweets and other entries of support to statements of hate marked by "ingrata" and other related hashtags. Computer-aided social media analytics was also featured as tools for mapping patterns in social media trends that can be useful in understanding the culture of trolling and social media in a particular issue, political administration, and/or society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals for Istrian & Mediterranean Studies / Annales: Series Historia et Sociologia is the property of Historical Society of Southern Primorska of Koper and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Collegium Antropologicum is the property of Croatian Anthropological Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The main purpose of the article is to demonstrate that the challenges translators of poetry face are similar to those imposed by actual intercultural communication. Significantly, they are even more dramatic due to the fact that poetry is always a deliberate reflection of national cultural values. Poetic language is not only a tool and means of communication, but also a special reflection of culture. On the one hand, it implements cultural values appealing to the majority of native speakers, on the other, it affects the cultural value system of readers and determines what is acceptable or unacceptable. A poetic text is analysed as a cultural phenomenon, a sign, where language is a form and meaning is a system of cultural values. All in all, the paper focuses on the emic approach to the interpretation of cultural values expressed in poetry, and the way they are reflected in translations. Highlight is given to the potential of poetry in developing empathy. The analysis of poetic works by R. Frost, W. Whitman and E. Dickinson and their Russian translations is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estudos em Educação is the property of Jose Luis Bizelli, editor of Revista Ibero-Americana de Estudos em Educacao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Implied Meanings / Teksto Slėpiniai is the property of Vytautas Magnus University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although development goals are usually set as targets that must be achieved in a development process, experience with development goals in Africa has tended to underscore underperformance either in terms of a shortfall in the targets attained or in terms of inadequate pursuit of specific goals. To illustrate this syndrome, the African Union's New Partnership for African Development and the Millennium Development Goals will be used as a case study. Neither of them includes language as a significant factor in the realization of the expected goals. In fact, most of the inadequacies observed are often attributed to socioeconomic causes. In this paper, I argue that these inadequacies cannot be fully accounted for without reference to the role of language coupled with attendant sociocultural constraints. By their very nature, virtually all the goals require participation by the populace, and the most effective means of ensuring their inclusion is the use of a language or languages which will facilitate and maximise such participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the cross-linguistic study of subjective experience as expressed, described and construed in language cannot be set on a sound footing without the aid of a systematic and non-Anglocentric approach to lexical semantic analysis. This conclusion follows from two facts, one theoretical and one empirical. The first is the crucial role of language in accessing and communicating about feelings. The second is the demonstrated existence of substantial, culture-related differences between the meanings of emotional expressions in the languages of the world. We contend that the NSM approach to semantic and cultural analysis (Wierzbicka 1996; Gladkova 2010; Levisen 2012; Goddard 2011; Goddard and Wierzbicka 2014a; Wong 2014; among other works) provides the necessary conceptual and analytical framework to come to grips with these facts. This is demonstrated in practice by the studies of "happiness-like" and "painlike" expressions across eight languages, undertaken in the present volume. At the same time as probing the precise meanings of these expressions, the authors provide extensive cultural contextualization, showing in some detail how the meanings they are analyzing are truly "cultural meanings". The project exemplified by the volume can also be read as a linguistically-anchored contribution to cultural psychology (Shweder 2004, 2003), the quest to understand and appreciate the mental life of others in a full spirit of psychological pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from an exploratory study that investigated the perceptions of a group of Hong Kong university students concerning their identities in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) contexts. Qualitative data were collected primarily via in-depth interviews with a group of second-language speakers of ELF who use English with people from different first-language and cultural backgrounds on a regular basis. The analysis revealed that these participants came to terms with their identities as non-native speakers of English and emphasized the importance of maintaining their cultural identities as Hong Kong or Chinese speakers of ELF. In addition, most of them valued their 'multicompetence' in English, Cantonese and Putonghua when speaking English in ELF situations. The inquiry also found that some participants' identification with other non-native speakers of English within the ELF community was rather selective and that different members within the ELF community were not perceived as equally ideal speakers of ELF. The study offers some valuable insights into the identities of ELF speakers and the wider ELF community within an Asian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]