LRC

Saja Al Ahmari and Jawaher Al Enzi, two MA students, delivered a presentation titled Translation and Culture at the seminar organized by the Language Research Center of King Khalid University held on November 28, 2018. The seminar was held on the King Abdullah Road campus. In their presentation, they focused on the cultural awareness required for proper translation. They introduced some such specialized terms relevant to the translation theory as ‘dynamic equivalence’, etc. They showed some strategies for the knotty problem of finding equivalence for culture-specific terms. Such strategies included, but were not limited to, naturalization, neutralization, and compensation. Naturalization, they said, is a method of translating target cultural concepts by encoding them in their original target language forms. Compensation, on the other hand, they added, is a standard lexical transfer in which the meaning of the source language text is somehow lost in the process of translation. Compensation often results in ‘over-translation’ as opposed to ‘under translation’. They tried to focus on the close relation between successful translation and understanding the culture of both the source language and the target language. They introduced some interesting examples from different cultures, and how ‘literalism’ does not work out the culture-related problems. One example was taken from German which uses a phrase meaning literally ‘to have tomatoes on one’s eyes’. This is rendered into Arabic as على عينيه غشاوة, obliterating any sense related to literal ‘tomatoes’. More interestingly, they drew the audience’s attention to the fact that some target texts excelled their source counterparts in quality. One example is Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Al Khayyam’s Persian quadruplets into English in 1859. Despite the desperate attempt by other successors like Robert Graves and Omar Ali Shah in 1967, they failed to produce a translation that would replace Fitzgerald’s. The seminar was an overall success. Date: 11-29-18 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique

Saja Al Ahmari and Jawaher Al Enzi, two MA students, delivered a presentation titled Translation and Culture at the seminar organized by the Language Research Center of King Khalid University held on November 28, 2018. The seminar was held on the King Abdullah Road campus. In their presentation, they focused on the cultural awareness required for proper translation. They introduced some such specialized terms relevant to the translation theory as ‘dynamic equivalence’, etc. They showed some strategies for the knotty problem of finding equivalence for culture-specific terms. Such strategies included, but were not limited to, naturalization, neutralization, and compensation. Naturalization, they said, is a method of translating target cultural concepts by encoding them in their original target language forms. Compensation, on the other hand, they added, is a standard lexical transfer in which the meaning of the source language text is somehow lost in the process of translation. Compensation often results in ‘over-translation’ as opposed to ‘under translation’. They tried to focus on the close relation between successful translation and understanding the culture of both the source language and the target language. They introduced some interesting examples from different cultures, and how ‘literalism’ does not work out the culture-related problems. One example was taken from German which uses a phrase meaning literally ‘to have tomatoes on one’s eyes’. This is rendered into Arabic as على عينيه غشاوة, obliterating any sense related to literal ‘tomatoes’. More interestingly, they drew the audience’s attention to the fact that some target texts excelled their source counterparts in quality. One example is Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Al Khayyam’s Persian quadruplets into English in 1859. Despite the desperate attempt by other successors like Robert Graves and Omar Ali Shah in 1967, they failed to produce a translation that would replace Fitzgerald’s. The seminar was an overall success. Date: 11-29-18 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique

Associate Professor Michael Hadzantonis conducted a workshop on Frame Theory and Footing in Linguistic Anthropological Analysis, which was organized by the Language Research Center of King Khalid University, on November 14, 2018. He provided an in-depth explanation of ‘Footing and Framing Theory,’ a theory based on the ways in which discourse is contextually deconstructed and anthropologized. AP Hadzantonis, while highlighting the history of this theory, discussed Erving Goffman, who pioneered micro-sociology, who evidenced social constructions of the self, and who subsequently developed concepts of framing and frame analysis. While including mention of Volosinov (1929; 1973), Hadzantonis substantiated the shortcomings of the study of language structures, and hence one that rigidly overlooks context and is therefore isolated from social life. To remedy for this, he added, is to emphasize reported speech, as its structures expose active relations between messages. AP Hadzantonis emphasized the pragmatic applications of Footing and Framing. An effective application of this, he suggested, exposes multi-party sequences of talk of different participants and evidence actions of hearers and multi-party interactive organization of utterances. It also models analyses of types of speakers coexisting within speech. He finally demonstrated a diagrammatic model of a participation framework. The Part 1 session was informative, interactive, and thought-provoking, and leads into the forthcoming Part 2. Date: 11/14/2018 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique Multimedia Source: Mohammed Jabir

Associate Professor Michael Hadzantonis conducted a workshop on Frame Theory and Footing in Linguistic Anthropological Analysis, which was organized by the Language Research Center of King Khalid University, on November 14, 2018. He provided an in-depth explanation of ‘Footing and Framing Theory,’ a theory based on the ways in which discourse is contextually deconstructed and anthropologized. AP Hadzantonis, while highlighting the history of this theory, discussed Erving Goffman, who pioneered micro-sociology, who evidenced social constructions of the self, and who subsequently developed concepts of framing and frame analysis. While including mention of Volosinov (1929; 1973), Hadzantonis substantiated the shortcomings of the study of language structures, and hence one that rigidly overlooks context and is therefore isolated from social life. To remedy for this, he added, is to emphasize reported speech, as its structures expose active relations between messages. AP Hadzantonis emphasized the pragmatic applications of Footing and Framing. An effective application of this, he suggested, exposes multi-party sequences of talk of different participants and evidence actions of hearers and multi-party interactive organization of utterances. It also models analyses of types of speakers coexisting within speech. He finally demonstrated a diagrammatic model of a participation framework. The Part 1 session was informative, interactive, and thought-provoking, and leads into the forthcoming Part 2. Date: 11/14/2018 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique Multimedia Source: Mohammed Jabir

Dr. Mohammad Shuaib Asiri delivered a presentation titled Comparing Multiple Choice, Verb Conjugation, and Error Correction in Grammar ‎‎Assessment at a Language Research Center seminar held on October 24, 2018. His presentation was about his research in grammar assessment. Dr. Asiri first compared selected-response tasks with constructed task formats. He identified the negative outcomes of the former. In his research, he said, he had chosen three types of tasks used in grammar assessment: Multiple choice, verb conjugation, and error correction. His research questions were about task formats’ correlation with the measurement of grammatical ability, performance on task formats relationship with strategy use and their correlation with the elicitation of answer explanation. Dr. Asiri conducted his research on 106 intermediate-level students. He explained in detail the findings of his research questions. Dr. Asiri concluded that multiple choice tasks differ significantly from verb conjugation and error correction tasks in measuring grammatical ability in terms of whether they reflect learners’ ability to recognize a rule or produce something on their own. The use of strategies, he added, varies across three tasks mentioned above in terms of test management and test-wiseness. There is a positive correlation, he said, between the difficulty involved in tasks and answer explanation. He recommended there be more constructed tasks than selected-response ones so that proper learning takes place, and task formats, he emphasized, must be incorporated with language skills. The seminar was very interactive and an overall success. Date: 10/24/2018 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique

Dr. Mohammad Shuaib Asiri delivered a presentation titled Comparing Multiple Choice, Verb Conjugation, and Error Correction in Grammar ‎‎Assessment at a Language Research Center seminar held on October 24, 2018. His presentation was about his research in grammar assessment. Dr. Asiri first compared selected-response tasks with constructed task formats. He identified the negative outcomes of the former. In his research, he said, he had chosen three types of tasks used in grammar assessment: Multiple choice, verb conjugation, and error correction. His research questions were about task formats’ correlation with the measurement of grammatical ability, performance on task formats relationship with strategy use and their correlation with the elicitation of answer explanation. Dr. Asiri conducted his research on 106 intermediate-level students. He explained in detail the findings of his research questions. Dr. Asiri concluded that multiple choice tasks differ significantly from verb conjugation and error correction tasks in measuring grammatical ability in terms of whether they reflect learners’ ability to recognize a rule or produce something on their own. The use of strategies, he added, varies across three tasks mentioned above in terms of test management and test-wiseness. There is a positive correlation, he said, between the difficulty involved in tasks and answer explanation. He recommended there be more constructed tasks than selected-response ones so that proper learning takes place, and task formats, he emphasized, must be incorporated with language skills. The seminar was very interactive and an overall success. Date: 10/24/2018 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique

On Monday, December 12, 2016, Mr. Erich Beer presented a talk on Reading Comprehension in the seminar series presented by the Language Research Center of the Faculty of Languages and Translation. The talk was titled: "From the top of a pole 100 feet high, how do you step forward? Questions, Intuitions, and pointers relating to Reading Comprehension." Mr. Beer started by explaining the intriguing title and then proceeded to share the result of a poll he had conducted. Two groups had been surveyed: male English teachers teaching in the faculty (Graiger and Mahala campuses) as well as graduating male students (Graiger). The two groups had been given the same questions except for one question which was only applicable to teachers. The questions dealt with reading habits and views regarding the teaching of reading comprehension respectively.  Mr. Beer compared and contrasted the responses from the two groups for the information of the audience. Sometimes the views of the groups compared favorably, and at times they were widely divergent. The presentation was followed by a lively question-and-answer session. The session ended with two gift vouchers being given away to the first two members of the audience who could answer a competition question correctly. It was an engaging and thought-provoking presentation enjoyed by those present. Mr. Beer's Appraisal  He writes: "The presentation (material) itself did not tie all the loose ends together, and there wasn't a proper interpretation of the survey result. Also, the preamble was disproportionately long. There were, however, several thought-provoking ideas that could be pursued, and a few innovations besides. I am an artist, not a scientist - I love (creative) ideas and get deliciously overwhelmed by them. They are like the contents of Pandora's box let loose - I simply can't nicely and neatly box them in, so I just let them be. Overall, I think, it was an engaging presentation, even somewhat entertaining." Date: 12/12/2016 Source: MD Adil Multimedia contribution: MD Sirajul Islam

On Monday, December 12, 2016, Mr. Erich Beer presented a talk on Reading Comprehension in the seminar series presented by the Language Research Center of the Faculty of Languages and Translation. The talk was titled: "From the top of a pole 100 feet high, how do you step forward? Questions, Intuitions, and pointers relating to Reading Comprehension." Mr. Beer started by explaining the intriguing title and then proceeded to share the result of a poll he had conducted. Two groups had been surveyed: male English teachers teaching in the faculty (Graiger and Mahala campuses) as well as graduating male students (Graiger). The two groups had been given the same questions except for one question which was only applicable to teachers. The questions dealt with reading habits and views regarding the teaching of reading comprehension respectively.  Mr. Beer compared and contrasted the responses from the two groups for the information of the audience. Sometimes the views of the groups compared favorably, and at times they were widely divergent. The presentation was followed by a lively question-and-answer session. The session ended with two gift vouchers being given away to the first two members of the audience who could answer a competition question correctly. It was an engaging and thought-provoking presentation enjoyed by those present. Mr. Beer's Appraisal He writes: "The presentation (material) itself did not tie all the loose ends together, and there wasn't a proper interpretation of the survey result. Also, the preamble was disproportionately long. There were, however, several thought-provoking ideas that could be pursued, and a few innovations besides. I am an artist, not a scientist - I love (creative) ideas and get deliciously overwhelmed by them. They are like the contents of Pandora's box let loose - I simply can't nicely and neatly box them in, so I just let them be. Overall, I think, it was an engaging presentation, even somewhat entertaining." Date: 12/12/2016 Source: MD Adil Multimedia contribution: MD Sirajul Islam

Nabeel Ali Sayed, FLT MA student, delivered a presentation on an empirically based Etymological study organized by Language Research Center on October 17, 2016. In his presentation titled Arabic is in English, he delved deeper into the genetic relationship between English and Arabic. The primary objective of the study was to enhance Saudi EFL learners’ ability to understand English. He identified some related issues such as Arab EFL learners’ lack of interest and motivation in learning English.  He emphasized the fact that English is not a new language and it can be acquired by Arab EFL learners quickly. At the same time, English native speakers can learn Arabic easier than before. While focusing on etymology, he gave some interesting example words which were borrowed from Arabic. Finally, he maintained that etymology plays a vital role in developing students’ language skills.     It is worth mentioning that two female campuses (Al Samer and King Abdullah Road) also joined the seminar through video conferencing. Date: 10/17/2016 Primary Source: MD Adil Multimedia Contribution: MD Sirajul Islam

Nabeel Ali Sayed, FLT MA student, delivered a presentation on an empirically based Etymological study organized by Language Research Center on October 17, 2016. In his presentation titled Arabic is in English, he delved deeper into the genetic relationship between English and Arabic. The primary objective of the study was to enhance Saudi EFL learners’ ability to understand English. He identified some related issues such as Arab EFL learners’ lack of interest and motivation in learning English.  He emphasized the fact that English is not a new language and it can be acquired by Arab EFL learners quickly. At the same time, English native speakers can learn Arabic easier than before. While focusing on etymology, he gave some interesting example words which were borrowed from Arabic. Finally, he maintained that etymology plays a vital role in developing students’ language skills.     It is worth mentioning that two female campuses (Al Samer and King Abdullah Road) also joined the seminar through video conferencing. Date: 10/17/2016 Primary Source: MD Adil Multimedia Contribution: MD Sirajul Islam