It is a well-known fact that Japan harbors relatively few competent speakers of English as a Second Language. The general level of written and spoken English is low in Japan, although English...Show moreIt is a well-known fact that Japan harbors relatively few competent speakers of English as a Second Language. The general level of written and spoken English is low in Japan, although English Language Teaching is a major priority at Japanese secondary and tertiary education. On average, most Japanese learners obtain at least 6 years of written and spoken English language training, and it therefore seems surprising that the end result is seemingly disappointing. This thesis aims to analyze the main factors contributing to this lack of success and pinpoint which one it is that mostly causes the failure.Show less
Education is becoming increasingly digital. However, the scientific foundation for this trend does not seem to be very strong. It is in no way certain that digital materials enhance learning...Show moreEducation is becoming increasingly digital. However, the scientific foundation for this trend does not seem to be very strong. It is in no way certain that digital materials enhance learning outcomes. This thesis researches ways of representing knowledge through digital text, with a specific focus on education. When digitising a text, different elements of that text might change, like the structure and its navigational options. This thesis examines those elements with the help of literature research and practical examples of digitised text. Theories of reading are discussed, and the relationship between medium and message is seen to be central. Case studies exemplify different possible elements of digital text. Next, educational theory related to digital text is discussed to assess the potential of those elements in digital educational material. A conclusion is that developers should be careful adopting digital material without proper research into the consequences. Multimedia material seems the most promising of the options discussed. Learning to read long-form text seems to remain crucial, even though shorter texts are the trend. Deep, sustained and active reading is required for a good learning experience. When developing new learning materials, the quality of that material should come first, before the choice of the medium. This evaluation should be made carefully, and right now paper seems to offer better educational potential.Show less
The aim of this MA Thesis is to study and compare domestication and foreignization in the manga translations of scanlation and official publications by analyzing and comparing the translations of...Show moreThe aim of this MA Thesis is to study and compare domestication and foreignization in the manga translations of scanlation and official publications by analyzing and comparing the translations of the verbal and visual text of the original manga. This study is a comparative analysis of three translations of the same source text. The material employed in this study is the first volume of Azumanga Daioh (2000) along with the translated versions of the same volume in English by two English publishers, namely ADV Manga (2003) and Yen Press (2009) and the scanlation by Manga- Basket (2008). The translations have been analyzed using five categories of verbal and visual text, which are culture specific elements, wordplay, overall writing style, onomatopoeia and pictorial elements. By looking at the translation methods used in the five categories I will determine whether and to which degree the translations are foreignized or domesticated.Show less
Westergaard et al. (2005, 2012) have shown that some dialects of Norwegian, contrary to Standard Norwegian, may violate the Verb Second requirement in some or all types of wh-questions. Focussing...Show moreWestergaard et al. (2005, 2012) have shown that some dialects of Norwegian, contrary to Standard Norwegian, may violate the Verb Second requirement in some or all types of wh-questions. Focussing on Northern Norwegian, I discuss the optionality of the Verb Second requirement in wh-questions with simplex wh-phrases in this dialect. Based on data from Norwegian informants, as well as previous literature on this dialect, an analysis of the optionality of Verb Second will be given. This analysis builds on Sportiche’s approach on clitic movement in Romance languages (1996). It is shown that in Northern Norwegian complex wh’s move like phrases, whilst simplex wh’s can move (long-distance) as phrases as well as heads, analogous to the movement of Romance clitics. As an alternative analysis, the possibility that Northern Norwegian simplex wh’s undergo phrasal movement but merge into C0, is also discussed on the basis of the head movement account by Matushansky (2006).Show less
Although racism and racial issues are not about the color of people’s skin in itself, the symbolic meanings given to color do determine who is affected by acts of discrimination and who is not. But...Show moreAlthough racism and racial issues are not about the color of people’s skin in itself, the symbolic meanings given to color do determine who is affected by acts of discrimination and who is not. But there is more to racism than it simply being about dark skin versus fair. Even among skin tone, variations that exist in terms color across the range of dark to fair, the type of discrimination faced by people differs. On a related yet deceptively different topic skin color is also strongly tied to beauty ideals. The focus for this thesis lies on the Japanese market. The question that is answered is: what does white skin stand for within Japanese society and is this beauty ideal of fair skin directly linked to a desire to emulate white people?Show less
In this thesis I sketch out a poetics of the love letter. With this poetics I propose that the structure of the love letter generates an uncanny form of textual presence of the lover in the text....Show moreIn this thesis I sketch out a poetics of the love letter. With this poetics I propose that the structure of the love letter generates an uncanny form of textual presence of the lover in the text. The lover’s presence is suggested by an interplay of three basic modes of address: the narratological mode of address (Bal, M.); the apostrophic mode of address (Culler J. et al.); the dialogic mode of address (Bakhtin, M. M.). This poetics of the love letter is mainly based on the close reading of the love letters of M. Tsvetajeva to A. Bachrach (1923) and the epistles of A. Chekhov and O. Knipper (1899 - 1904).Show less
In deze masterscriptie analyseer ik op welke manier de Poolse en Nederlandse vloekcultuur van elkaar verschillen en welke vertaalproblemen bij het vertalen van vloekwoorden kunnen voorkomen. In het...Show moreIn deze masterscriptie analyseer ik op welke manier de Poolse en Nederlandse vloekcultuur van elkaar verschillen en welke vertaalproblemen bij het vertalen van vloekwoorden kunnen voorkomen. In het corpusonderzoek dat ik ten behoeve van mijn scriptie uitvoerde, heb ik vloekwoorden ‘chuj’, ‘jebać’, ‘kurwa’, ‘pierdolić’ en hun afleidingen die niet letterlijk zijn gebruikt, onder de loep genomen om het brede spectrum aan vertaalstrategieën van krachttermen te laten zien.Show less
