Studies on Science and Culture

Higher Linguistic Education from the Perspective of Reforms:

New Approaches, Prospects, and Challenges
P. J. Wells and S. Zolyan Editors

UNESCO-CEPES Studies on Science and Culture

Viorica Popa Venera Ioni Editorial assistance

Maria-Ana Dumitrescu Assistant editor (External collaborator)

ISBN 978-92-9069-198-3 UNESCO Series 2011

Contents
From the Editors ........................................................................................................ 5

Part I Addressing the Challenges of Globalization and Inter-Culturalisation in Higher Education

14-Point Yerevan Declaration of Partner Universities on the Principles of Cooperation in Higher Education......................................................................... 9 The University in the Creative Economy and Knowledge-Based Society ............... 13 Suren ZOLYAN Effective University Research .................................................................................. 19 Yuri I. LOSEV Cooperation with CIS Universities ........................................................................... 23 Yuri A. SUKHAREV Support in Training Professional Translators and Interpreters at Minsk State Linguistic University............................................................................................ 27 Alexandr PONIMATKO Armenian Perspectives on International Collaboration in Science, Higher Technology, and Innovation............................................................................... 29 Samvel G. HAROUTIUNIAN, Vardan H. SAHAKIAN, and Mihran S. SHARAMBEYAN The Importance of Developing Forensic Linguistics in Armenia ............................. 35 Robert KHACHATRYAN

Part II Cultural Competences through Linguistics

Literary Translation and Preservation of Presuppositional Idiom Content ............45 Hranush TOVMASYAN Proverbs and Sayings from the Perspective of Cultural Identity ............................ 57 Gayane V. YEGHIAZARYAN The Game Concept in the Writings of Huizinga and Wittgenstein ....................... 67 Sharmagh Romik ABRAHAMYAN

Semiotics and Translation of Literary Works .......................................................... 79 Diana HAMBARDZUMYAN The Cognitive Aspect of Lexicalization in English and Armenian............................ 83 Lilit BADALYAN Contrastive Analysis of Excessiveness in English and Armenian .......................... 89 Hasmik S. KAJBERUNY

Part III New Approaches to Higher Language Teaching

Implementing the Bologna Process Objectives in Translator and Interpreter Training at SSLMIT-Trieste ................................................................................. 97 Maurizio VIEZZI Internalized Language Learning through LQuests ................................................107 Lusine FLJYAN Teaching Languages at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.......................115 Darejan TVALTVADZE and Ramaz KURDADZE Globally-Oriented Foreign Language Teaching through Close-Reading...............123 Elena L. MARYANOVSKAYA A Conceptual Approach to the Development of Multilingual Competence ........129 Melanya ASTVATSATRYAN Notes on Contributors ...........................................................................................137 UNESCO-CEPES PUBLICATIONS .............................................................................143

From the Editors

The current volume represents a selection of research papers, speeches and presentations delivered at the international conferences Higher Linguistic Education from the Perspective of Reforms: New approaches, prospects and challenges and Language through Culture, convened in Yerevan, Armenia from the 15th to 18th of November 2010. Regular fixtures in the universitys academic calendar, this years conferences were organized on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary celebrations of Yerevan State Linguistic University V. Brusov (YSLU). These high profile jubilee events were attended by over 200 institutional leaders, researchers, teachers, and students from the Black Sea region and Eastern Europe, together with religious leaders, government representatives and international invited experts. The conferences were not only conceived to celebrate an important milestone in the history of YSLU, but also as a timely opportunity to reflect on the reform initiatives in higher linguistic education from multiple stakeholder and national perspectives, to forge greater ties and institutional networks between transregional language learning faculties, and to high-light the importance and power of learning culture through language and language through culture. The international events strongly emphasized how higher education institutions are perfectly placed for mobilizing globalized dialogues within and between regional and international learning cultural contexts. Todays learning communities are more diverse than ever before, embracing as a consequence multi-national stakeholders of students, teachers, researchers, institutional leaders, policy makers, graduates and employers. It is therefore essential that such dialogues be they face-to-face, virtual or augmented be actively promoted and supported by cosmopolitan higher education institutions. In a globalised world, doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, artists and entrepreneurs, all need to function in multi-cultural environments and to learn how to work alongside people of different nationalities, with different mother tongues, religious beliefs, traditions and cultural work ethics. This reality requires learning institutions to actively build new knowledge staircases to compliment cognitive intelligence and emotional intelligence with a new cultural intelligence. Such approaches are especially important for smaller nation states such as Armenia where the cultivation of multicultural values and cross-cultural understanding is vital for increasing cooperation between other nations and higher education institutions. YSLU has thus adopted a policy of incorporating a multicultural approach across academic curricula.

From the Editors

UNESCO places high importance and value on cultural intelligence though the creation of international and regional opportunities for the exchange of ideas and experiences in higher education in order to encourage students and faculty to learn from and with each other beyond traditional national constraints, to better understand and appreciate common challenges and differences, as a way of promoting peace, fostering tolerance and celebrating cultural diversity. At the parallel Anniversary Rectors Conference, thirteen higher education institutions from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, the Russian Federation and Ukraine formally committed to furthering and strengthening their roles as agents of increasing cultural intelligence through inter-cultural appreciation, dialogue, research and cooperation by adopting the Yerevan Declaration of Partner Universities on the Principles of Cooperation in Higher Education, thus building the foundations for turning common regional challenges into collective regional opportunities. The celebrated American portrait painter John Singer Sargent once remarked that A portrait is a picture of someone with something wrong with the mouth. Language is the mouthpiece of lifes portrait, and provides a voice that can be heard regardless of where it is painted or who the artist is. In her inaugural address, the Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova urged the Organizations member states to work towards a new humanism1. In an age where it is said that the laptop is mightier than the sword, we are confident that the vibrant and varied voices in this unique collection will take us a step closer to our shared vision of a renewed humanism, spread so effectively by the power of the spoken word.

Address by Mrs. Irina Bokova on the occasion of her installation as Director General of UNESCO; UNESCO, 23 October 2009 (available at: http://www.unesco.org/en/rapprochementof-cultures/).

Part I

Addressing the Challenges of Globalization and Inter-Culturalisation in Higher Education

14-Point Yerevan Declaration of Partner Universities1 on the Principles of Cooperation in Higher Education2
PREAMBLE
Education is a universal value, which contributes to a deeper interpersonal, confessional, and international understanding, improves the quality of life, and creates sustainable benefits for present and future generations. Education, based on the use of new communication and innovative technologies, cooperation and intercultural dialogue, creates unprecedented opportunities and poses a challenge for science society. Today, when it is already possible to envisage the future academic achievement, there is a need for active discussion on the working out and the use of new approaches to the development of higher education and the elaboration of new institutional strategies in the field of education and science. We, the participants of the Rectors Conference, who have met in Yerevan, Armenia, on November 16, 2010, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Yerevan State Linguistic University named after Valeriy Brusov,3

TAKING INTO ACCOUNT:

the fact that in the 21st Century, education should become public knowledge for the benefit of all peoples; the urgent need to improve the scientific potential of universities and their integration into the international creative economy;

Eurasia International University (Armenia), Ilia State University (Georgia), Irkutsk State Linguistic University (Russian Federation), Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (Georgia), Kiev National Linguistic University (Ukraine), Minsk State Linguistic University (Belarus), Moscow State Linguistic University (Russian Federation), Piatigorsk State Linguistic University (Russian Federation), Ryazan State University S. Yesenin (Russian Federation), State University of Gavar (Armenia), Tatar State University of Humanities and Education (Russian Federation), Yerevan State Linguistic University V. Brusov (Armenia), Yerevan State University (Armenia).
2
3

YSLU 2010. Valeriy Yakovlevich Bryusov (1873- 1924) - Russian poet, scientist, and a great friend of Armenian culture (Ed.).

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Yerevan Declaration

recommendations and conditions of the Bologna, Lisbon Conferences, the Declaration of the Universities of Europe after 2010 (2005), the European Charter of Universities (2008), the Prague Declaration (2009), and the Declarations of Graz (2003, 2010) about the call to improve the overall management of universities, develop adequate educational programmes, and meet the needs of a dynamic market; the need to establish a new relationship between education, science, and society, to address global challenges; that information and communication technologies provide an opportunity for greater collaboration and integration of existing resources;

PROCLAIM THE FOLLOWING:

1. Universities perform a pivotal role in the implementation of innovative tasks in order to create a common area through training, based on the results of fundamental research. Strategies for the next decade must be revised and developed to enhance the role of education and science within the new context of globalization processes. 2. Considering the development of partnerships between the universities it is necessary to put a new impetus to inter-university cooperation by continuing the further development of joint training programmes, as well as by working out new structures and strategies of international exchange at university, national and international levels. 3. The work on the development of scientific potential of the universities should be based on the regional and international cooperation, first of all, carried out by long-term joint projects. The use of information and communication technologies through the establishment of networks should be expanded as a means of promoting the free dissemination of knowledge. 4. The improvement of the structure and the content of training programmes, the opening of new directions for the preparation of staffing needs of a knowledge society, the development of lifelong education, expansion of the structure of innovative development and training, support and comprehensive development of the leading scientific and pedagogical schools as the foundation of highquality university education at all levels requires close and constructive cooperation between universities in order to successfully complete the initiated reforms and provide favourable conditions for the new projects. 5. A new worldview experience associated with contemporary processes of globalization and internationalization puts the cultural meanings and symbols of all ages and peoples into a state of permanent intercultural polylogue, ensuring mutual understanding and social solidarity among peoples. Intensification of

Yerevan Declaration

11

political and intercultural dialogue contributes to the inter-ethnic cohesion, enhances the role of language learning and the spread of multilingualism. The expansion of intercultural communication determines the leading role of higher education in the development of cultural, social and economic relations between countries, nations and peoples. 6. The core of the modern humanitarian education is to foster shaping of civic identity, which is characterized by the interaction of universal and national components in a multicultural mechanism of value perception of the world, knowledge and understanding of intercultural communicative aspects of the language which ensure successful communication and social adaptation. 7. The development of a common approach to quality assurance and improvement of language education in all types of higher education institutions, harmonization of training programmes are a key factor in developing a unified European Higher Education Area. 8. The development of innovative trends in linguistics has a unique humanitarianapplied value and ensures the formation of a new humanitarian thinking and social behaviour. The concentration of research capability on the language and culture is a prerequisite for intellectual breakthrough in understanding the socio-political, cultural and confessional processes, and it fosters the formation of new patterns of development of countries and communities. The change in human needs and interests leads to the construction of a new model of the world that is inevitably reflected in the language and in its specialized professional subsystems. 9. The paradigm of learning the language through culture and culture through the language opens up new prospects of understanding of modern social processes, the awareness of the role of common values of human civilization, as well as national and regional cultures. The multidimensional nature of the relation of language and culture, their relationship and interaction actualize the problem of understanding in the intercultural dialogue. The necessity of creating global peace in the dialogue attaches special importance to education and creates new opportunities for the actualization of interdisciplinary and intercultural relations which open new prospects for the development of language and humanistic education. 10. Universities should integrate and develop the research component at all levels of education, which allows forming a new generation of people capable of thinking and a multilateral response to the challenges of a changing world. In this regard, the mission of the partner universities is to promote further development of joint research strategies and their initiated policies. 11. Development of joint programmes for quality control of university programmes and their implementation, the formation of inter-university committees on

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Yerevan Declaration

quality audit in higher education will form the basis of mutual trust and closer cooperation between the partner universities. 12. Development and expansion of links between universities through the exchange of scholarships for education and training will enhance long-term relationships, sharing experiences and information between the partner universities. 13. Attracting students to the elaboration of new approaches in higher education promotes their critical thinking and active participation in educational processes. The establishment of inter-university services, associations of students support is one of the most important areas of strengthening the partnership between the universities. 14. We, the participants of Rectors Conference - representatives of both developing and developed countries, different cultures and civilizations of the East and the West, Europe and Asia, with different cultural and historical traditions, believe that: higher education has common goals and objectives and does not admit any division or discrimination, [this] Declaration is a practical expression of the new commitment to strengthening the inter-university relations and, in the years [to come], [it] may serve as a strategic guide for partnership within the framework of cooperation between the partner universities, participants of the Conference. It is open to accession by all the universities that share the above-mentioned principles. Yerevan, 16 November, 2010 Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov

The University in the Creative Economy and Knowledge-Based Society

Suren ZOLYAN

ABSTRACT
The article touches upon the problem of the development of the universities within the context of the creative economy and knowledge-based society. The implementation of new creative and innovative approaches requires significant investments, as well as the establishment of favourable conditions for the internationalisation of academic programmes. It is necessary to use new institutional strategies for developing a unified educational space, which will contribute to the extension of mutual trust between partner universities. New institutional strategies are needed with a view to developing a unified educational space contributing to confidence building between partner universities. Numerous political statements, conference and seminar results, and special studies attest to the fact that the modern university is able to function adequately as a component of the creative and innovative economy and of the knowledge-based society. The question here is whether a university can function adequately outside this environment? Moreover, if such an environment does not exist, can the university itself induce the creation of such conditions? The implementation of creative and innovative educational approaches requires more new investments, as compared to those that would be necessary to maintain traditional academic education. Hopes for market-based mechanisms, given the global crisis, can inspire very few people. As stated in the Prague Declaration (EUA, 2009),
when private support weakens and business falters public funding is essential to guarantee continuity. Europe cannot afford to run the risk of losing a generation of talented people or of a serious decrease in research and innovation activity.

In this regard, the countries of the European Union plan to invest at least 2% of GDP in higher education, and in science, up to 3%. This is certainly a positive development, but it can create serious problems for universities that cannot count on such a significant investment. The aim of the Bologna process is to create a common higher education space and establish common priorities and goals, as well as mechanisms for achieving them (mobility, accreditation, quality control, etc. But the differences in economic opportunities, as

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S. Zolyan

well as the presence of numerous political and legal restrictions, fail to be taken into account: visa and immigration regime, unequal access to information, and financial resources, to name just a few. Given the de facto inequality, internationalisation of education may lead to the fact that universities in emerging economies may become less competitive, which in turn, negatively affects the ability and opportunity of innovation development of these countries. Instead of integration in the post-industrial information society, these countries could be left at a pre-industrial stage of development. Thus, a paradoxical situation is created: in countries with emerging economy, the internationalisation of higher education may lead to a lack of competitiveness of universities; at the same time, internationalisation creates a chance to overcome the lack of resources and properly carry out innovative and creative functions. Due to internationalisation, in Armenia, the higher education system has acquired external dimensions and expanded the boundaries of the nation-state. In the absence of genuine international cooperation, the universities are highly vulnerable to external and internal negative factors, as the external functions are becoming determining, and are aimed at self-preservation in the developing or underdeveloped market, whereas the main functions of universities (creation and transfer of knowledge) are irrelevant. The severity of the problems and the lack of resources would not allow solving the situation through gradual improvements and local effects, which might lead to imitation effects. For the results to have a tangible impact on social and economic processes there is a need for significant, fundamental reforms. The question arises: is the system of higher education, in general, or a separate higher education institution, in particular, able and ready to implement the fundamental reforms which are needed to facilitate the creation of a new educational reality and maintain the functions of an incubator for new types of educational institutions? Is a university, which is still a part of the old system, capable of creating a new educational environment and initiating a new type of educational structure? There is no doubt that this is possible only in the context of internationalisation. Both the experience of Baron Mnchausen, who has pulled himself out of the swamp, and the concepts of the theory of systems, have taught us that, to achieve the goals, the externally-obtained energy must exceed the energy that is needed to maintain the existence and compensation for in-system entropy. The selforganization process begins with setting up links between previously unrelated elements. Here two variants are possible. In the first case, the mechanistic approach, in the spirit of William Ashby, it is necessary to ensure that changes from disorganized to organized system require a connection to a more powerful machine - the cause of self-organization can only be some external agent acting on the system S as its input (Ashby, 1958). Despite its positive aspects, the

The University, Creative Economy, and Knowledge Society

15

implementation of this approach has serious negative consequences, since: (i). National universities have become subsidiaries of foreign institutions - cheap labour receives orders from abroad and adjusts to external market. (ii). The phenomenon of brain-drain is thriving. (iii). The orientation on borrowed programmes could create a situation of academic second hand. (iv). In case the powerful machine shuts down, the process of degradation is inevitable (as it occurred after the collapse of the USSR). The second approach, in the spirit of Bertalanffy (1962), aims not at seeking external donors, but rather at increasing the degree of openness, selfdifferentiation, and complexity. This requires, first of all, to create the conditions for self-organization and sustainable development and to focus on developing an environment defined by the positive interest and competitive creative economy. Trying to avoid the reproduction of the old in new conditions, we should focus on the creation of new elements, in the new circumstances that are open for cooperation and fair competition. As it has already been mentioned, the modern university is an element and product of the creative economy. However, in the countries with emerging economies, these elements even if they exist, are isolated from each other and are forced to operate as a subsystem of fairly primitive economic and political systems, and innovative university is forced to overcome the resistance to adverse political, economic and social conditions. The task of universities is to create conditions for the unification of diverse elements into a single system, by elaborating and implementing programmes for innovative and creative changes and to establish a single chain: creative university - creative economy - creative society. All those interested in market development creative services, must maintain the exchange of information, ideas, models, thus creating an actively functioning set. In the initial stage, the universities should become the core of the creative economy, later to become its integral part. Models of educational services should be diversified, based on the principle of innovation, creativity and ability to promptly respond to rapid change and transformation, thus having the capacity to outline a favourable environment for themselves, from interconnected autonomous structures and contribute to the market transformation through scientific, socio-cultural, and technological innovation. Such transformation may be effected by the internationalisation of both the university and all the functions that are necessary for its adequate operation. Through the integration into the inter-university network, the university becomes a component of the international creative economy. Modern educational technologies allow considering all universities as a single body. To paraphrase Pascal, all universities of the world act as a single university, which exists always and everywhere.

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S. Zolyan

The mode of cooperation, in such a case, should not be focused merely on experience sharing, but rather on the joint work, aimed at shaping the intrauniversity competitive environment and product. In the contemporary world, the range of functions of human activities is limitless. The same is true with the boundaries of knowledge, skills and information. This means that the demand for knowledge and skills comes forth in a huge diversity of forms. Consequently, there are no restrictions for close cooperation and mutually beneficial competition. In a process like this there is no need for positions that were fixed once and forever; on the contrary, periodically, the roles should be shifted: Donor -> Partner -> Customer -> User -> Creator, which, on the one hand, allows adequately assessing, revaluating, and updating the product and needs, and, on the other hand, creates a situation of global interdependence. As an attempt of possible implementation of these principles in higher intercultural education and higher education in humanities, it seems appropriate to quote some of the provisions stipulated in the 14-Point Declaration of Partner Universities on the Principles of Cooperation in Higher Education, adopted at the Rectors Conference marking the 75th anniversary of Yerevan State Linguistic University V. Brusov. Education, based on new methods of communication and innovative technologies, cooperation, and intercultural dialogue, creates unprecedented opportunities and brings forward new challenges both for science and the society (Preamble). Today, as it has become possible to foresee the future academic achievements, there is a need for active discussion on working out and implementation of new approaches to the development of higher education and the elaboration of new institutional strategies in the field of education and science (Preamble). The development of a common approach to quality assurance and improvement of linguistic education, as well as harmonization of curricula are key factors in developing a unified Higher Education Area (Point 7). The development of innovative trends in linguistics [] ensures the formation of new humanitarian thinking and social behaviour (Point 8). The concentration of research capacities on the language and culture is a prerequisite for intellectual breakthrough in understanding the sociopolitical, cultural and confessional processes, and fosters the formation of new patterns of development of countries and communities. The change in human values, needs and interests leads to the construction of a new model

The University, Creative Economy, and Knowledge Society

17

of the world that is inevitably reflected in the language and in its specialized professional subsystems (Point 8). The paradigm of learning the language through culture and culture through the language opens up new prospects of understanding contemporary social processes as well as in realizing the role of common values of human civilization, as well as national and regional cultures. The multidimensional nature of the relation of language and culture, their relationship and interaction actualize the problem of understanding in the intercultural dialogue. The necessity of creating global peace attaches special importance to education and creates new opportunities for the actualization of interdisciplinary and intercultural relations which open new prospects for the development of education in humanities (Point 9). Development and expansion of links between universities through the exchange of students and training will enhance long-term relationships, sharing experiences and information between the partner universities (Point 12).

REFERENCES
Ashby, W. R. (1958). [Introduction to cybernetics] (In Russian). Moscow: IL. Bertalanffy, L. von (1969). . .: [General system theoryA critical review. In General systems, VII, 1962, pp. 1-20]. (In Russian). Moscow: Progress. European University Association (EUA), (2009). Prague Declaration. Available at (http://www.eua.be/fileadmin/user_upload/files/Publications/EUA_Prague_Declaration_European_ Universities_-_Looking_forward_with_confidence.pdf)

Effective University Research

Yuri I. LOSEV

ABSTRACT
The paper recommends a series of guidelines to university research, while taking as an example the Institute of Foreign Languages, a division of Ryazan State University (RSU). The author would demonstrate that the centre laboratory department triangle, functioning in the Institute, has effective results, due to prompt and permanent feedback, with integration as the key word in development and research. Ryazan State University (RSU), named for S. A. Yesenin, is a classical higher education institution uniting numerous subdivisions, sharing a common long-term strategy and aimed at gaining comparable goals in academic development. However, paying a visit to Yerevan State Linguistic University, we would like to illustrate our academic potential by the example of one of our subdivisions, the Institute of Foreign Languages. The Institute of Foreign Languages has been established with a view to integrating the efforts of several departments, laboratories, and centres pressing towards a smoother transition to the module-rating system. Thus, integration should be the key-word of this article. The Institute consists of a number of departments, laboratories, and centres, the common goal of which is: (1) our successful integration into the European educational community, and (2) catering for the needs of the Ryazan region and the whole of the Russian Federation. We enjoy our collaboration with the Methodological Centre, headed by I. I. Khaleeva and actively seek their advice. Our centres investigate regional and national academic needs and explore the Institutes academic potential. The data attained by the centres allow us to set up specific laboratories, which, in their turn, recruit specialists among the faculty. Our researchers sharing experience with their foreign counterparts, which allows for the publication of joint papers and the application of results in the educational process. Thus, in 2009, our international team, consisting of the staff of the Global Education Centre, the Intercultural Communication Laboratory, the Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, the Department of Germanic Languages and FLT, the Department of Oriental and FLT, and distinguished scholars

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Y. I. Losev

from the USA and Canada (Tony Kirkwood, Kenneth Tye, Elizabeth Heilman and others), brought their efforts together in a joint monograph, Visions in Global Education, edited by Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker. The staff of the European Language Centre and the Lifelong Learning Laboratory co-authored a monograph on The Methodology of Foreign Language Teaching: Tradition and Innovation. The staff of the European Language Centre and the Lifelong Learning Laboratory, together with the researchers of Thuringen Institute for Professional Development (Germany), compiled a bilingual glossary of concepts denoting innovation processes taking place in comprehensive schools, in Germany and the Russian Federation. The joint result was acknowledged by the Ministry of Education of Germany. The centre laboratory department triangle is effective due to prompt and permanent feedback, which registers the changing needs of the departments, the growth of their academic potential, and the requirements of the regional and national science. The data gathered by the departments and centres are forwarded to the laboratories, a process meant to improve the research efficiency. Since September 2010, the Institute of Foreign Languages has been jointly engaged in research with the Confucius Institute, hosted by RSU, focusing on multilingual education. The latter is one of the priority issues of the Centre of Oriental Languages. One of our teachers has defended a doctoral thesis, Teaching a Second Foreign Language in the Conditions of Multilingual Competence Formation (Illustrated by the Japanese language). The personnel of other centres and laboratories also deals with the problems of multilingual competence development, as the variety of foreign languages taught at our University keeps expanding. It opens up ample possibilities of research on multilingual competence. Thus, we have signed an agreement on issuing joint publications with the representatives of the Humanitarian Faculty of the University of Almeria (Spain). The results of our research are published in the international quarterly journal, Inostrannye Yazyki v Vysshei Shkole [Foreign Languages in Higher School]. The journal publishes works of Russian and foreign linguists and methodologists. We are planning to set up a special column featuring the activities of the Confucius Institute and prospects of collaborative research. The same journal publishes papers presented at local and international conferences. In April, 2010, the Institute of Foreign Languages hosted the international conference, The Linguistic and Methodological Premises of Effective Multicultural Communication, attended by colleagues from Armenia and Moldova. The second issue of the journal (2010) published the materials submitted by the participants from the Russian Federation, Armenia, and Moldova.

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21

The journal has a shifting rubrication, which secures its mobility and allows for the presentation of the most urgent topics and of the contemporary events of national and international importance. Thus, Issue 3 (2010) was dedicated to the 85th anniversary of Valentin Devkin, an eminent Russian lexicologist and lexicographer. The majority of the papers were submitted by his disciples. Our Armenian colleagues regularly contribute their works to our journal, thus winning our sincere gratitude. The journal, which has nearly 300 subscribers, accepts papers written in Russian, English, and German. The Institute makes it possible for teachers and students to integrate their research by setting up small teams and by publishing the students research results in an annual journal. Moreover, our students demonstrate their achievements, publishing their works in international journals, such as Metsenat i Mir [Maecenes and the World], edited by L. Osepyan. The university integrates the research work of its subdivisions and takes part in various projects, devoted to the study of the past and present influence of the Russian culture influence in the world. Thus, our university staff members are involved in the project, Russian Alaska, sponsored by the Russian World Foundation. We have a long-lasting relationship with Yerevan State Linguistic University. We hold joint conferences, take part in translation forums, organise joint workshops and lectures. We hope that our cooperation will remain mutually beneficial and we are committed to its development.

Cooperation with CIS Universities

Yuri A. SUKHAREV

Dear Armenian friends, Dear guests of the conference, Ladies and gentlemen, Today we are celebrating an important date in the life of the Yerevan State Linguistic University its 75th anniversary. In conjunction with this event, the Basic Organization for languages and cultures in the CIS member states has convened for its session. As you all are undoubtedly aware, Professor Irina I. Khaleeva and Professor Suren T. Zolyan were among the founders of the Basic Organization. The idea to establish a special network for the interaction and cooperation between the higher education establishments was proposed at the conference of the rectors of linguistic universities and institutes of the former republics of the USSR, in 1998, during their meeting with the Chairman of the State Duma. In 1999, the project received additional support at the session of the CIS Council for the InterParliamentary Assembly. In 2000, the Moscow State Linguistic University was awarded the status of the Basic Organization for languages and cultures in the CIS member states, at the session of the Council of the heads of governments of the CIS member states. Several sessions of the Basic Organization took place, gradually growing into the Forums The dialogue of languages and cultures in the CIS member states in the 21st Century. The first such forum was held on March 16, 2004, in Moscow, under the auspices of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS, and the latest, the 6th forum, on November 9-10, 2010, in Baku. In 2009, the session of the Basic Organization established the Inter-university Council on religious education in the CIS member states. There was a corresponding agreement signed by the participating universities; the Council approved the Charter for the Inter-university Council on religious education in the CIS member states. The Inter-university Council was officially presented to the participants of the World Forum for religious culture, held in Astana (Kazakhstan), in October 2010. Since the establishment of the Basic Organization, the Moscow State Linguistic University has begun teaching all the CIS languages. Classes are held by native speakers from the affiliated universities. The Moscow State Linguistic University has opened centres for the Armenian, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Moldovan, and

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Y. A. Sukharev

Ukrainian languages and cultures. These centres represent the basis for cooperation between various universities. Among them, we should mention the Yerevan State Linguistic University, the Baku Slavic University, the Minsk State Linguistic University, the Kazakh National University, named after al-Farabi, the Kazakh University of international relations and world languages, named after Abylai khan, the Kyrgyz National University, named after Zh. Balasagyn, the Bishkek Humanitarian University, the Baltsk State University, named after Aleco Russo (Moldova), the Russian-Tajik Slavic University, the Tajik State Institute for languages, the Uzbek State University for world languages, the Kiev National Linguistic University, the National Pedagogical University, named after M. P. Dragomanov. Thanks to this networking, it has been possible to create and publish new textbooks on the CIS languages, to design innovative educational materials for linguistics and intercultural communication. For instance, with the assistance of the Inter-State Fund for humanitarian cooperation between the CIS member states, we have been able to publish the textbook on the Armenian language, designed for the learners of this language, on the basis of previously created elementary linguistic and communicative skills. The publication is bilingual. The five modules are based on specially selected topics, which stimulate the learners interest towards the discussed problems of present-day Armenia, its history and culture, as well as allow the learners to draw intercultural and historical parallels. The tasks develop students communicative activity and thus contribute to the development of the intercultural competence, as well as create conditions for students unsupervised activities. The book is provided with a glossary. In 2004, at its session in Astana, the Council of Ministers of foreign affairs of the CIS member states acknowledged the activity of the Moscow State Linguistic University in such areas as the preparation of the standards for education in the spheres of linguistics and intercultural communication, the revival of the scientific, educational, and methodological cooperation between the educational establishments in the CIS member states, the establishment of the centres for the languages and cultures of the CIS member states. On November 25, 2008, the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS, at its plenary meeting granted its support to the model educational standards for teaching Baccalaureate and Masters Degree courses in such subjects as regional studies, linguistics and intercultural communication, developed by the CIS universities. Prior to this session, the Basic Organization had met, in 2005, in Yerevan, where these model educational standards received comprehensive scientific evaluation, analysis, and approval.

Cooperation with CIS Universities

25

The fact that, in 2007 2008, the Moscow State Linguistic University participated in the National educational project, where it presented its Lingua-park innovative educational project, contributed to a breakthrough in the dialogue between languages and cultures. The geopolitical nucleus of this programme was the establishment, in 2007, of the International Institute for the languages of the CIS member states. This joint project of the universities within the Basic Organization was supported by the Conference of the CIS ministers for education. It is important to emphasize that the establishment of the International Institute for the languages of the CIS member states has resulted from the 10-year long effort the Moscow State University has put into consolidating the community of the CIS universities around the modernization of the linguistic education in the CIS countries, into the upgrading of the curricula and the methods of teaching with the aim to jointly identify the intercultural communicative competences, based on the principles of democracy, plurality, tolerance, the common historic and civilization background of the CIS peoples, which lie at the basis of the present-day intercultural dialogue. Currently, the International Institute for the languages of the CIS member states offers seven educational programmes (linguists, teachers, translators, and interpreters). These programmes implement the principally new concept of foreign language learning, of developing intercultural communicative competence, including the professional communicative competence. The implementation of these programmes finds its practical manifestation in the creation of the next generation study materials, calls for innovative approaches to the preparation of bilingual educational materials for the specialities requiring the development of professional intercultural competence. A new direction in the activities of the Basic Organization is closely connected with the cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Taking into account the long-term versatile links between the Moscow State Linguistic University and the universities in China, the development of networking in the new format has been a mere continuation of the work we conducted earlier, as part of the Basic Organization. Together with our partners in the Basic Organization, we have designed the educational programme for Regional Studies, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication in the CIS and the SCO Universities and finalized it at the session of the Basic Organization, held on May 28, 2009, at Moscow State Linguistic University. The participants agreed to establish a Consortium of humanitarian universities in the CIS and SCO member states and to set up for this purpose an Institute for Regional studies.

26

Y. A. Sukharev

We continue our work to develop the dialogue between languages and cultures of the CIS and SOC member states and are planning to carry out the following steps to implement the joint educational programme: To design the structure and identify the methodology and materials for the main educational programmes for regional studies, linguistics and intercultural communication in the CIS and SCO member states; To classify the linguistic and didactic competences necessary for the implementation of the new educational programmes and technologies, with a view to training highly-qualified specialists in the languages of the CIS and SCO member states; To determine the models of the intercultural communicative competences for the languages of the CIS and SCO member states; To work out the methodological foundations for textbooks and other educational resources aimed at developing the professional and intercultural communicative competences, in order to ensure communication between the peoples of the CIS and SCO member states; To continue our work in developing and publishing comprehensive educational materials for the study of the languages of the CIS and SCO member states. All the above shall allow to considerably promote the successful intercultural dialogue between the CIS and the SCO member states as an indispensable part of the first networking system for the cooperation between the higher education institutions on the post-Soviet territory the Basic Organization for languages and cultures in the CIS member states.

Support in Training Professional Translators and Interpreters at Minsk State Linguistic University
Alexandr PONIMATKO

ABSTRACT
The present paper brings to light the main trends in the organisational and instructional support for the training of professional translators and interpreters at Minsk State Linguistic University, within the framework of the Memorandum on Mutual Understanding, signed between the United Nations and the University. The training of translators and interpreters within the framework of the Memorandum on Mutual Understanding,1 signed between the United Nations and Minsk State Linguistic University (MSLU), will be based on the two main principles: systematic approach and functionality. The systematic approach is presented by the methodical unity of teaching all subjects and disciplines included in the curriculum of the University studies. The curriculum takes into account the specific features of specialists work in the UN language services, subject to the common didactic model and objective: formation of professional competencies of a translator and an interpreter. This didactic model is flexible and can include short-term modules within the framework of the common curriculum. It allows for the ensuring of the functional approach in training specialists, while taking into consideration the fields, situations, and themes of the prospective professional activities. The basic disciplines of the University training make possible for the students the understanding of all aspects of a translators/an interpreters job: linguistic, social and cultural, and socially-induced activities, including: translation types; the role of translation in the world and of the communicative alternatives of translation; theoretical fundamentals of consecutive, simultaneous interpreting as well as translation; theoretical translation models and techniques. Within the framework of these disciplines the following issues are also covered: legal basis of a translators/interpreters activities; duties of translators and interpreters; a translators code of professional ethics; professional organisations of translators and interpreters; a translators charter; basics of the diplomatic protocol (etiquette), and fundamentals of an interpreters note taking.
1

Memorandum on Mutual Understanding was signed on 18 January 2010.

28

A. Ponimatko

The main focus in training will be placed on the theory and practice of translation and interpreting, but comprehensive training of a specialist is impossible without a wide range of general educational and interdisciplinary subjects. This will be ensured by the humanities and general professional disciplines included in the basic curriculum. At the same time, lecture courses on the Relevant World Problems and Structure and Activities of International Organisations and Their Role in the International Relations System will be available for the students, as an additional module, aimed at raising awareness of future translators and interpreters of the problems to be discussed in the texts to be translated. This will also ensure students conscious participation in the translation/interpreting process. The content of the courses aims at emphasizing the functional aspect of the students future activities. The practical studies will be divided into two categories: (i.) speech practice, with classes of the first and the second foreign language, as well as of Russian; and (ii.) translation of mostly economic and public policy texts, and of the official documents released by international organisations. The Russian language, as a basis of any translation process, will be taught during the whole period of training in various forms: practical stylistics, text and discourse analysis, grammar and spelling. The Russian language syllabus is aimed at the comprehensive learning of science-technical, publicist, media, institutional, legal, and economic discourses, both in speech and in writing. We consider the Russian language a key component of a translators/ an interpreters professional culture. Translation classes will include two types of translation (from language B into language A and from language C into language A) as well as classes aimed at the development and improvement of skills in editing and modern information technologies used in translation. All the classes in practical translation will be taught by professional, practicing translators only.

Armenian Perspectives on International Collaboration in Science, Higher Technology, and Innovation

Samvel G. HAROUTIUNIAN, Vardan H. SAHAKIAN, and Mihran S. SHARAMBEYAN

ABSTRACT
The present report aims at highlighting major activities carried out on the part of the State Committee of Science (SCS) of the Republic of Armenia (RA) Ministry of Education and Science. Particularly, this paper shall dwell upon the measures taken with a view to regulating the statutory-legal base, the on-going programmes on science funding, activities directed at supporting young scientists as well as at expanding international collaboration. The authors have also outlined the main directions of SCS policy for the coming years, with an emphasis on those initiatives aimed at realizing long-term investment projects, which will lead to the expansion of the collaboration with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries.

INTRODUCTION
Armenias State Committee of Science (SCS) was established on October 1, 2007, by Decision no. 231, of the President of the Republic of Armenia. The ultimate objectives and tasks set before the SCS are listed below. Improvement of the structure of scientific and technical potential of the Republic and establishment of a productive system of scientific staff training. Support the development of the science sector, as a prerequisite of providing for the state security, nations economic, educational, and cultural development. Elaboration and implementation of the scientific and technical policy. Participation in the elaboration of the innovation policy. Since its establishment, SCS has elaborated several important statutory-legal documents, which are already adopted by the Armenian Government. They run as follows: The Order, Criteria, and Principles of Establishing Scientific Centres The Principles and Criteria of Setting Priorities of Scientific and Technical Development in the Republic of Armenia (RA)

30

S. G. Haroutiunian et al.

The Program of Unifying Armenian Scientists Worldwide Science Development Strategy over 2011-2020 RA Priorities of Scientific and Technical Development 2011-2014 The following documents have been drafted and forwarded to the RA Government, for approval: The New Order on Budgetary Funding of the Scientific and Technical Activity The Order, Criteria, and Principles of Establishing Research Universities

ON-GOING PROGRAMMES
A central factor of the SCS policy consists of its support granted to young specialists. In this respect, we would point out some activities developed under the SCS umbrella: organization of summer schools; assistance provided to talented young scientists, with a view to their participation in international conferences and symposiums; conducting annual, specialized, youth competitions on scientific topics (including international ones); encouraging Master and post-graduate students participation in grant projects of republican importance (25% of the overall number of participants is involved in various scientific initiatives). In order to maintain the development of the science sector, it has become essential to expand international collaboration. Within the short period since the establishment of the SCS, several agreements of cooperation have been signed, among which the Agreements with the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, France), the Civilian Research Development Fund (CRDF, USA), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the State Committee of Science and Technology of the Republic of Belarus, the Belarus Republican Foundation for Fundamental Research, Centre for Nuclear Research (CNR, Italy) deserve particular attention. The elaboration of several important agreements is underway, namely agreements on cooperation between SCS and its counterparts in Germany, China, India, etc. Based on the signed agreements, there have already been launched calls for co-funding joint projects in priority scientific fields.

Perspectives on Collaboration

31

Several worth mentioning measures have been undertaken in the sphere of information technologies, among which we can state the successful realization of the Armenian National GRID Initiative. As far as innovation and advanced technologies are concerned, then it should be stated that, in 2011, three innovation projects are to be launched, with the overall budget of USD 1.5 million). The co-funding of projects will involve the private sector.

PRIORITIES OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA (2010-2014)

The development of science is closely connected with the progressive developments in the modern world. It is due to the latter that SCS has taken a keen interest in creating an atmosphere which will make it possible for our Republic to share the highest ranking positions in acquiring and applying knowledge alongside the developed countries. The creative and dynamic society of the 21st Century imposes its priorities. With this aim in view, we have set the following list of priorities for the coming five years: Armenology, Social Economic Sciences, the Humanities Life Sciences New Sources of Energy, Renewable Energy Advanced Technologies, Information Technologies Earth and Space Studies, Rational Nature Utilization Basic Sciences for Key Applied Research

STRATEGY ON ENHANCING SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL COOPERATION WITH THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND CIS COUNTRIES
The ultimate objective of the Strategy consists in establishing the synergy of education, science, technology, and innovation. The steps to be taken in this direction include: creation of a favourable economic environment for scientific organizations, including cultivation of mechanisms ensuring concessional loans; establishment of commercialization systems and deployment of research results;

32

S. G. Haroutiunian et al.

establishment of innovation centres on the basis of state and non-state institutions; reorganization of several scientific institutions involved in applied research into innovative ones; support the establishment of venture foundations and mechanisms of insuring innovation risks; promoting the role of the state in licensing and patenting research results.

INNOVATIVE COOPERATION WITH CIS AND EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

The Republic of Armenia submitted for approval about 40 project-proposals in nanotechnologies, life sciences, ecology and rational nature management, information and telecommunication technologies, aviation and space technologies, training of scientific personnel within the framework of the Interstate Target Programme on Innovative Cooperation between CIS countries for the period up to 2020. Among them, the following project-proposals are worth mentioning: Cultivation of technologies for cavitation-induced conversion of graphite into diamond; Development of a portable optical biosensor of a new type, for investigating nano-bio-systems and ecological control of the environment; New brain hormone against neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimers disease. The following proposals have been submitted as a main approach to cultivating tech-job proposals of the Interstate Target Programme on Innovative Cooperation between CIS states, for the years up to 2020: Creation of a united information field with the application of up-to-date infrastructure (GRID net); Establishment of venture foundations, which are among the most productive instruments of funding and commercializing technical elaborations and technologies (combining state and private sectors); Development and application of an interstate database on independent experts, as well as specialized expertise organizations; implementation of an independent system of scientific-innovation expertise;

Perspectives on Collaboration

33

Development of productive mechanisms for funding and co-funding joint programmes, by national and international investment foundations as well as by providing long-term concessionary crediting; Collaborative cultivation of target manuals, with a view to providing a system of training and retraining scientific personnel in the fields of innovative industry, including adapted material for on-line training.

CONCLUSION
Today, more than ever, we are in need of science. In the modern world, where knowledge develops and transforms at a rapid pace, the support of R&D projects and their implementation in the countrys economy has acquired a deeper significance. In the 21st Century, the development of a creative medium and its introduction into the society will represent the major incentives for the nations sustainable development. The establishment of a coherent system of education, science, economy, and innovation will be the most reliable precondition ensuring economic growth.

The Importance of Developing Forensic Linguistics in Armenia

Robert KHACHATRYAN

ABSTRACT
The overarching premise, in this concept paper, is to reiterate the actuality of the interaction between linguistics and legal studies. The objective of the present paper is to offer brief overview and reveal the paramount importance of developing Forensic Linguistics in Armenia, based on the established schools and practices. As language and law studies advance in Armenia, courts may become contingent upon scientific relationships as admissible evidence and may intensify their employment of forensic linguists as experts. Correspondingly, the linguistic institutions of Armenia should act in response to the increasing demands of this emergent need. Law is mediated through spoken language (e.g., in court) and written language (e.g., written statutes, ordinances). The overarching premise is to reiterate that language and law intertwine. This interplay correspondingly manifests in linguistics and legal studies. At the outset, the convoluted nature of emergent trends has amplified a demand for cross-lingual and cross-disciplinary analysis of the domain of interplay between linguistics and legal studies. The discipline of Forensic Linguistics has emerged with this end in view. The objective of this concept paper is to give a brief overview and reveal the usefulness of developing Forensic Linguistics in Armenia, based on the established American school and practice. Forensic Linguistics is the application of applied linguistics to legal issues. In a broader sense, Forensic Linguistics responds to legal questions that involve language (Leonard, 2005). For example, the broader sense entails that courts may decide to admit expert linguistic opinion and linguistic principles of interpretation in justifying legal opinions and decisions. In order to explicate this, Tiersma and Solan (2002) exemplify several areas of the American judicial system that are receptive to the use of expert knowledge from language sciences, such as Dialectology, second language interpretation, and phonetics. In a much narrower sense, Forensic Linguistics employs linguistic knowledge and scientifically applies analytical methods to legal evidence, in the context of criminal and civil investigations and adjudication. Forensic Linguistics is a multi- and cross-disciplinary field of study (Coulthard and Johnson, 2007: 6). It is heterogeneous in its methodology and originates in a wide range of disciplines: linguistics, law, psychology, and sociology. Key areas of Forensic Linguistics are legal language (Solan and Tiersma, 2004; Tiersma, 1999),

36

R. Khachatryan

courtroom interaction (Archer, 2005; Heffer, 2005, Matoesian, 2001), forensic text (Baranov, 2009), and forensic linguistic expertise in court (Coulthard, 2002; Shuy, 2006; Berk Seligson, 2002). Solan (1998) points out that, in court, linguists provide expert opinions as to the nature of meaning and linguistic encoding at both lexicogrammatical and textual levels. More specifically, a forensic linguist primarily employs linguistic knowledge from distinct branches of language studies: Corpus Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, etc. A forensic linguist also employs the analytical toolkit of Linguistics and synthesizes knowledge from different language aspects, namely: Phonetics and Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, Stylistics, and Dialectology. A few examples may illustrate the discipline of Forensic Linguistics: phonological (whether Cache sounds too much like Cachet for both to exist in the cosmetics market) (Chambers, 1990), morphological (whether or not fibread is a distinct word from the descriptive fibre bread, McSleep versus McDonald, Avita versus Aveda, Citizen versus Citizem) (Gibbons, 2003), or semantic (whether sheer elegance describes all hosiery or can be a unique name for one brand) (Chambers, 1990). In order to conceptualize Forensic Linguistics, it is paramount to explicate its wide-ranging framework of current trends. The most important characteristic of a forensic linguist is to be morally and professionally bound to describe the language situation the way it actually is, rather than to slant conclusions to one side or another (Leonard, 2005). Applications of Forensic Linguistics encompass a wide range of aspects, such as linguistic analysis of the legal language, linguistic evidence, and expert testimonies in a variety of criminal and civil cases, on a variety of topics, such as: authorship attribution and plagiarism, non-textual infringement of copyright, comprehension patterns of insurance contracts and insurance conditions by different individuals, interpretation of intended meaning in oral and written statements (e.g., confessions), analysis of anonymous texts (e.g., insults and slander, threatening letters, blackmail, libel, and suicide notes) aimed at determining linguistic features, trademark and patent disputes to court procedure, analysis of the language of police interrogation and questioning, and analysis of courtroom language used by trial participants (e.g., judges, lawyers, witnesses), and models of the courtroom interaction. The framework of Forensic Linguistics also extends to cover the work of a forensic phonetician, in such cases as speaker identification, speaker profiling, and voice comparison. Coulthard and Johnson (2007) define the work of a forensic phonetician as meant to analyze the voice, in order to identify the suspect implicated in a particular investigation, to identify the accent of the speaker, and to pinpoint the regional origin of a speaker. For example, a forensic phonetician may be tasked to discern the regional or social accent of the speaker and whether the

Developing Forensic Linguistics

37

accent is authentic or assumed. Thus, forensic phonetics entails the auditory and acoustic analysis of voice recordings (Rose, 2002). From a range of theories that contemplate foundational pillars in the interplay between the practices of language and law, the present paper contemplates linguistic evidence to be the emergent aspect, in analyzing any given text with some evidentiary value. Gibbons (2003: 309) posits the idea that linguistic evidence is of social importance, because it may reveal problematic miscommunication, or contribute to the conviction of the guilty and the freeing of the innocent. Linguistic evidence is broadly categorized as evidence on communication and evidence on authorship. In the confines of this concept paper, the methods of analyzing linguistic evidence are clustered into the following categories: author analysis and authorship attribution, forensic discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis (CDA), conversation analysis, analyses of linguistic competence and communicative competence, an analysis of ideational and interpersonal schemata, an analysis of co-textual relations, and text analysis. The overarching quandary of all the categories of linguistic evidence is to utilize objective criteria and analyze any given unit in aspects otherwise not easily reached to the assessors of the facts. Yet another objective is to contribute to the development of comprehensive theory and explicit methodology for advancing reliable and scientifically reasonable hypotheses on Forensic Linguistics. These categories are multifaceted concepts and are to be defined in the first place. Author analysis and authorship attribution intend to determine the creator of a particular text by comparing and evaluating the text to known writing samples of a suspect, in order to attribute authorship. Forensic discourse analysis refers to discourse analysis in forensic settings (Coulthard and Johnson, 2007), or the application of text analysis to linguistic evidence (Coulthard, 1992). Discourse analysis relates to units of discourse in speech and writing, as communicative events, to their cultural and social contests of use. It enquires into the record (spoken or written) of the process by which language is used in some context, to express intention, with reference to the social and psychological factors that influence communication (Yule, 1996: 83-84). Widdowson conceptualizes discourses, in the context of the CDA, as
institutionalized modes of thinking and social practice and those who compose texts are taken to be not so much individuals, as socially constructed spokespersons or representatives of discourse communities.(Widdowson, 2007: 70-71)

In other words, CDA enquires into the role played by schematic knowledge, generally discovering traces of socio-political values, beliefs, and bias in texts and assigning ideological significance to texts on the basis of their linguistic features.

38

R. Khachatryan

Conversation analysis examines oral communication as the product of interaction between people in conversation (Shuy, 1990: 85). A speakers linguistic competence is defined as sufficient knowledge of what is encoded in the language as a formal system, an account of what people know of the encoding conventions of their language, and on how meaning is formally encoded in lexis and grammar (Widdowson, 2007). The communicative competence of a speaker constitutes the communicative use of language, which enables users to make judgments about how far a particular use is possible, feasible, appropriate and performed (Widdowson, 2007: 128). According to this view, the essence of communicative competence is expressed in incorporating the knowledge of how language encodings are used in a context based on four factors: what is possible in the language, how feasible it is in the language, how appropriate it is to the context, and how far it is actually performed or produced. An analysis of ideational schemata covers shared conceptions of the thirdperson world and reality, i.e., what a group considers being customary, normal, and natural ways of thinking about events. On the contrary, an analysis of interpersonal schemata covers customary ways in which speakers engage with second persons and the conventions of how people normally interact with each other (Widdowson, 2007). An analysis of co-textual relations covers internal relations that linguistic elements (theme, rheme, pro-forms, anaphora, cohesive and cataphoric devices, and coherence) contracts with each other within a text. Text analysis is concerned with whether and to what extent a particular text is attested as actually occurring usage, i.e., concerned with conventions of usage, and the motivation for selection of one possibility of the encoded resources of lexis and grammar rather than another (Widdowson, 2007). In juxtaposition with the use of linguistic expertise to solve an array of legal issues, the criteria of these current trends delineate the foremost functions of Forensic Linguistics: referential (to convey information), textual (to create wellformed and appropriate text), and metalinguistic (to discuss language itself). The functions of Forensic Linguistics are further convoluted with the dimensions of legal language and its multifaceted nature. Both speaking and writing are intentional actions, i.e., language users choose from a range of linguistic elements, according to the particular situation and communicative requirements. Furthermore, legal language is used in a range of legal contexts, in both written and spoken forms. It is also essential to highlight that legal language is not just a product of the society of jurisdiction in which it is used, but also of the legal profession that speaks and writes it (Gibbons and Turell, 2008: 8). As such, Coulthard and Johnson contend that the
aspects of interaction, e.g., between the institutional members of legal conversations police officers in interviews or barristers in court contribute to the

Developing Forensic Linguistics asymmetrical relationships that exist in institutional discourse settings, with the institutional member having the upper hand and the lay member often occupying the less powerful position. (Coulthard and Johnson, 2007: 16)

39

They go on to state:
Text and talk in forensic settings are done differently from social talk. A legal conversation takes place in a physical and an interactive context, one which constraints social evaluation (Coulthard and Johnson, 2007: 16).

Accordingly, institutional members in legal settings employ legal language to communicate with each other. In the light of the above, it is worth sketching some typical features of the English legal language. It is grammatically complex, over-lexicalized, marked by peculiar pronunciation, limited punctuation, and technical lexis. Some distinctive features embrace complex syntactical structures (the use of extremely long sentences and conjoined phrases), grammatical structures (declarative mood, passive voice), archaic expressions (like hereinafter and collocations like it shall be deemed), binominal expressions (by and with the advice and consent), formal and impersonal style (passive and nominal constructions), and formulaic language (grant of probe). Regardless of the fact that the English legal language is highly formal and precise, Gibbons and Turell (2008: 24) assert that it is casual and purposely vague and is highly dependent on the communicative goals of its users. Taking into consideration the communicative goals and intentions of its users, it should be externalized to avoid ambiguity and to give clarity to the forensic expert. Furthermore, the problem of revealing the significance of developing the concept and models of Forensic Linguistics in Armenia entails special attention to highlighting the academic education of a forensic linguist/expert. This is particularly significant as the court will usually qualify the linguist as an expert in the field if the combination of education and experience demonstrates that the linguist can, in fact, provide evidence that will help a jury make an enlightened decision (McMenamin, 2002: 175). Thus, on the basis of conventional and established practice a forensic linguist should possess: (i) undergraduate and graduate degrees in the relevant field of expertise; (ii) advanced multidisciplinary education and specialized training in the subject area as it relates to Forensic Linguistics; (iii) postgraduate and/or post-doctoral training, (iv) affiliation to pertinent professional and scientific societies, and (v) work experience as an expert witness. To sum up, some suggestive points emerge from the systemic analysis of Forensic Linguistics to assert that there is a growing interplay between language science and the law. This interplay confronts complex and exigent challenges, because courts become contingent upon scientific relationships as admissible

40

R. Khachatryan

evidence and may escalate to engage forensic linguists as expert witnesses. Correspondingly, the Armenian judicial and linguistic institutions are to cope with the escalating demand of this emergent need. Higgins and Selavka (1988) allude to a general need for members of the academic linguistic community to become involved in forensic work. Hence, the overarching premise is to employ linguistic knowledge in law and generate conditions for employing expert evidence and expert opinions in legal settings, such as litigation and trials. Alongside with the general trend toward enhancing the use of experts in legal settings, there should be an impetus to the development of methodologically varied Forensic Linguistics and legal practices in the Armenian judicial system.

REFERENCES
Archer, D. (2005). Questions and Answers in the English Courtroom (1640-1740): A Sociopragmatic Analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Baranov, A. N. (2009). Lingvisticheskaja ekspertiza teksta [Linguistic expertise texts] (in Russian). Moskva: Izdateljstvo Flinta. Berk-Seligson, S. (2002). The Bilingual Courtroom: Court Interpreters in the Judicial Process. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Chambers, J. K. (1990). Forensic dialectology and the Bear Island land claim. The Language Scientist as an Expert Witness: Issues in Forensic Linguistics. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 606, 19-32. New York: The New York Academy of Sciences. Coulthard, M. and Johnson, A. (2007). An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence. London: Routledge. Coulthard, M. (1992). Forensic Discourse Analysis. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis, 242-254. London: Routledge. Coulthard, M. (2002). Whose voice is it? Invented and concealed dialogue in written records of verbal evidence produced by the police. In Cotterill, J. (Ed.) Language in the Legal Process, 3-18. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gibbons, J. and Turell, M. T. (Eds.) (2008). Dimensions of Forensic Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Gibbons, J. (2003). Forensic Linguistics: An Introduction to Language in the Justice System. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers. Heffer, C. (2005). The Language of Jury Trial: A Corpus-Aided Analysis of Legal-Lay Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Higgins, K. M. and Selavka, C. M. (1988). Do forensic science graduate programmes fulfil the needs of forensic science community? Journal of Forensic Science 33(4): 1015-1021. doi: 10.1520/JFS12524J Leonard, R. A. (2005). Forensic Linguistics. The International Journal of the Humanities, 3. Melbourne: Common Ground Publishing Pty Ltd. (www.CommonGroundPublishing.com). Matoesian, G. (2001). Law and the Language of Identity: Discourse in the William Kennedy Smith Rape Trial. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McMenamin, G. R. (2002). Forensic Linguistics: Advances in Forensic Stylistics. New York: CRC Press. Rose, P. (2002). Forensic Speaker Identification. London: Taylor and Francis.

Developing Forensic Linguistics

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Shuy, R. W. (1990). Evidence of Cooperation in Conversation: Topic-Type in a Solicitation to Murder Case. In Rieber, R. W. and Stewart, W. A. (Eds.) The Language Scientist as an Expert Witness: Issues in Forensic Linguistics. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 606, 85-105. New York: The New York Academy of Sciences. Shuy, R. W. (2006). Linguistics in the Courtroom: A Practical Guide. New York: Oxford University Press. Solan, L.M. (1998). Linguistic experts as semantic tour guides: Forensic Linguistics. The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 5 (2), 87-106. Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press Solan, L. M. and Tiersma, P. M. (2004). Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tiersma, P. M. and Solan, L. M. (2002). The linguist on the witness stand: Forensic Linguistics in American courts. Language, 78 (2): 221-239. Tiersma, P. M. (1999). Legal Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Widdowson, H. G. (2007). Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Part II

Cultural Competences through Linguistics

Literary Translation and Preservation of Presuppositional Idiom Content

Hranush TOVMASYAN

ABSTRACT
The present paper examines the connection between language and culture, related in the sense that language expresses and transmits culture, while culture influences language. It is claimed that translation of culturally bound language units idioms can be more appropriately perceived at the level of culture than that of language. The article presents the concept of cultural schema of presuppositional content of idioms and the problem of their faithful and appropriate translatability. The central importance is given to the cultural perspective as it is actualised in translation of fiction. It examines the different general procedures of treating the cultural implications of idioms for translation, based on the linguistic and cultural competences of the translator.
Translation is a kind of activity which, inevitably, involves at least two languages and two cultural traditions (Toury, 1978: 200).

Gideon Toury points to the basic obstacle a translator faces in his work: how to successfully unpack and impart the implicit cultural implications coded in the source text (ST) via target language (TL) means. These problems may vary in scope, depending on the cultural and linguistic gap between the two (or more) languages concerned (Nida, 1964: 130). Admittedly, mainstream translation studies borrow much from contingent fields of study that support translation. These include cultural studies, comparative literature, linguistics, philology, philosophy, semiotics, etc. Among the disciplines related to it, this author gives first priority to cultural studies and cultural competence deriving from it, as he considers it to be the basic precondition for faithful and appropriate translation, especially if the case in question is literary translation and literary text with its underlying implications (in the given case: presuppositions of idioms). According to Martin and Vaughn (2007), cultural competence refers to an ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures. Cultural competence has four components: awareness of ones own cultural worldview;

46

H. Tovmasyan

attitude towards cultural differences; knowledge of different cultural practices and worldviews; cross-cultural skills. Developing cultural competence results in an ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across cultures (Martin and Vaughn, 2007). To understand cultural competence, it is important to grasp the full meaning of the word, culture, first. Here, the author would like to refer to Chamberlain, who claims that culture represents the values, norms, and traditions that affect how individuals of a particular group perceive, think, interact, behave, and make judgments about their world. (Chamberlain, 2005: 197) While a few individuals seem to be born with cultural competence, the rest of us have had to put considerable effort into developing it. This means examining biases and prejudices, developing cross-cultural skills, searching for role models, and amply communicating with people who share a passion for cultural competence. The term multicultural competence appeared in a mental health publication, by psychologist Paul Pedersen, at least a decade before the term cultural competence became popular (Pedersen, 1988). Hence, the above-mentioned comes to prove the undeniable ties between translation and cultural competence. The case gains solid background when viewed from a literary-text-translation point of view. Johnson describes literature as
an apparently nebulous body of knowledge in oral or written form, an imitation of life, which reflects civilization and culture, and which covers every angle of human activities culture, tradition, entertainment, information among others. (Quoted in Kolawole and Salawu, 2008)

Literature has proved to be the best universal means of transmitting the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual concerns of mankind. Even the perfect command of the two languages (SL and TL) can not guarantee the fidelity and appropriateness of literary translation, and, moreover, the transference of ST implications into TT, unless cultural implications are considered. In this respect, Newmark (1988) defines culture as the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression. The latter actually comes to prove that each language group has its own culturally specific aspects, yet Newmark does not regard language as a component or feature of culture. (Newmark, 1988) The proficiency of the literary translator is her/his cultural competence, which is best revealed in her/his ability to ensure effective trans-cultural communication.

Translating Idioms

47

The latter implies juxtaposition of the two cultures in question and finding the best possible variants of translation of cultural data in languages representing them. It is common knowledge, the language stratum that best contains, preserves, and transmits the cultural data of a given nation through time is the idiom. Besides, idioms compose the stratum of word stock which best reflects the difference between linguistic pictures of the world. Their underlying meaning, i.e., presupposition, is not always clear for a language learner or non-native reader, as they may know all the dictionary meanings of words making up the idiom, but fail to grasp the meaning, as the stable combination of the same words together (i.e., idiom) acquires new meaning. The ultimate root of the term, idiom, is the Greek lexeme idios meaning own, private, peculiar. The same underlying form can be found in the prefix idio-, as well as in idiot and its derivatives. While idiot underwent considerable semantic specification and pejoration, idiom became a vessel for any type of peculiarity, which can be still filled with new concepts. In this respect, Chafe is just claiming that
... idioms are semantic units like other semantic units, but... they require conversion into arrangements of other semantic units before they are further encoded into sound. (Chafe, 1968)

Another issue of interest for literary translation and textual background presuppositional data is the language-culture identity. There is a lot of controversy as regards the interrelation of language and culture, ranging from the view that language is part of a culture (Vermeer, 1989), up to the opposite. Nida poses equal importance between languages and cultures employed in translation and claims that differences between cultures may cause more severe complications for the translator than do differences in language structure (Nida, 1964: 130). The link between language and culture is so intrinsic that one appears to be incomplete without the other. Actually, the culture of any country is the pool from which any language draws its semantics. The latter further implies that the two cultures involved in translation may have much in common, yet this can not be said about their techniques of imparting that meaning, which, in fact, results in considerable formal changes in translation. Remarkably, the translation of cultural words and idioms in a literary text poses considerable problems unless there is a cultural overlap between the source language and the target language. It is not enough for a translator to know what the words that compose the idiom mean in the target language. The key task of the translator is to make the reader understand the sense as it is understood by the reader of the original. For instance, a text, which abounds in culturally-historically focused idioms, may pose translation problems due to the cultural gap between the source and the target languages. The translator is expected to creatively exploit the

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altered cultural, linguistic, and literary context, in order to realize the different potentials of the target language in an act of literary creation, since translation is an intercultural activity. Since words or images may vary considerably from one language to another, the translator needs to pay attention to the style, language, and vocabulary peculiar to the two languages, so as to produce an exact translation of the source language text. Selescovitch and Ledere (1984) claim that:
the invariant part of translation, which is the sense, has a contextual and dynamic value. It is the synthesis of style, connotation, the message, and all which play significant roles in communication process to produce the sense. (Selescovitch and Ledere, 1984)

The above-said logically entails that any reading done is part of the comprehension process of a text. The reader mobilizes all the cognitive operations to develop an interpretative process, which results in full comprehension of the communicated implicative content of the text, its background presuppositional attitude. The sense of the interpretative process comprehension, deverbalization, and re-expression lies in finding the same meaning in the target language. This is labelled sense equivalence by Hurtado-Albir (qtd. in Kolawole and Salawu, 2008), who further claims that the proficiency of the translator in the interpretative conception of translation is revealed in his/her being faithful to the sense, and not necessarily to the words and expressions, in the source text. Hence, the main route the translator should follow, in translating idioms and implicative content, in general, is passing of the message from one language into another, by producing the same effect in the other language (in sense and in form), in a way that the reader of the translation would react exactly as the reader of the original text. The latter can best be realised if the translators language proficiency goes parallel to his/her cultural competence. To understand the sense of the text, the translator must grasp the communicative intent of the author on four planes: stylistic, semantic, metalinguistic, and pragmatic. Not diminishing the value of the first three planes, therefore, this author stresses the greater importance on the fourth, proceeding from the task in question in this article, as it is the pragmatic plane that ensures the sound interconnection between the first three planes and acts as a kind of regulator for the translator. Quite rational is Kellys statement on this issue, who avers:
a good literary translator has three major tasks ahead of him. 1) He must understand the theme and the style of the original text (2) He must be able to reconcile the different linguistic structures of the texts, and (3) He must be able to reconstruct the original linguistic structures in the target language. (Quoted In Kolawole and Salawu, 2008)

Translating Idioms

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Thus, the preservation of cultural implications in translation and language-culture identity/non-identity considerations make up the core of the adequate translation. In this respect, this author shares the views of Lotman and Uspensky and that of Bassnett, who state that
no language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have, at its centre, the structure of natural language. (Lotman and Uspensky, 1978)

and that language is the heart within the body of culture (Bassnett, 1980: 13-14). So, both aspects are equally important and interdependent. When speaking about idioms in literary translation and their respective presuppositional content, we should keep in mind the cultural-historic ingredients making up that content, hence, linguistic aspect of transferring meaning fails to impart the whole range of meanings under consideration, it presupposes a whole set of extra-linguistic criteria must also be considered. In this respect, Bassnett further points out,
the translator must tackle the SL text in such a way that the TL version will correspond to the SL version... To attempt to impose the value system of the SL culture onto the TL culture is dangerous ground. (Bassnett, 1980: 23)

Thus, when translating, there are two crucial things the translator should think over, i.e., to achieve adequacy and produce the desired response on the TL reader, by choosing appropriate lexical means, the manner in which cultural aspects may be perceived, which actually proceed from the first. The latter is actually more decisive than the first. As the above-said implies, literary translation has to do with translating texts written in a literary language, which abounds in ambiguities, homonyms, and arbitrariness. Literary language is highly connotative and subjective, because each literary author is lexically and stylistically idiosyncratic and through her/his power of imagination, she/he uses certain literary techniques, such as figures of speech, proverbs, and homonyms, through which he weaves literary forms. According to Newmark, a literary translator generally respects good writing by taking into account the language, structures, and content, whatever the nature of the text (Newmark, 1988). The literary translator actually acts as a co-author, but one who creates in another language reality and, with the aspects of that language, strives to create structures that best represent the original image depicted by the author, his perception and picture of the world, i.e., his presuppositional attitude. Furthermore, the basic task of the translator is to successfully interweave two things preservation of the literary quality of the text and its adaptation and acceptability for the target reader. The latter is possible only if the translator has a

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good command of the cultural and literary history of both SL and TL. Thus, it is her/his cultural competence that acts as the basic guarantor of faithful and appropriate translation. As for methodology applied to the literary translation for idioms, the opinions of scholars unite in two basic directions, namely, that of preserving local colour (Newmark, 1988: 96), or gloss translation (Nida, 1964:129) and that of adapting the original text message to the translated one as much as competence allows. The first method is known as transference (Newmark, 1988:96) or formal equivalence (Nida, 1964:129), and componential analysis (Newmark 1988:96) or dynamic equivalence (Nida, 1964:129). Newmark further clarifies, transference gives local colour, keeping cultural names and concepts. Nevertheless, giving much significance to culture, which is best perceived by SL readers, he claims the inefficiency of this method for the general readership as it may limit the TL reader to comprehend certain aspects. Placing greater significance on adequate translation, Newmark eventually comes to the idea of componential analysis, which, he claims, is the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and highlights the message (Newmark, 1988). Newmarks componential analysis method may comprise a range of translation techniques, namely, exoticism, cultural borrowing, calque, communicative translation, and cultural transplantation, which is proposed by Hervey and Higgins (1992: 28). It must be mentioned that Nidas definitions of formal and dynamic equivalence are also applicable, when considering cultural implications of idioms in translation. In Nidas conception, a gloss translation is mostly applicable to cases of formal equivalence, where form and content are recreated in the TL as faithfully as possible and the TL reader is able to understand as much as he/[she] can of the customs, manner of thought, and means of expression of the SL context (Nida, 1964: 129). Conversely, dynamic equivalence tries to relate the receptor to modes of behaviour relevant within the context of [her]/his own culture without insisting that she/ he understand the cultural patterns of the source-language context (Nida, 1964: 129). Here, it would be relevant to quote Sapir, who justly claims that no two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality (Sapir, 1956: 69). ST cultural implications, presuppositions underlying idioms require a great deal of effort from the translator, as his/her task is not to transfer the SL reference, but to understand it and find a best possible mode of expressing a similar concept in the TL. Consequently, literary translation is not a simple representation of the source text, but the recreation of the image of the world with its background presuppositional attitude depicted by the author. Hence, as stated above, the

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translator acts as a co-author, which presupposes a perfect command of two competences, linguistic and cultural. The problem of presuppositions of idioms has aroused the interest of many linguists. Among them, Jrg Strssler, the distinguished German linguist, offers a pragmatic account of presuppositions of idioms. He argues that
idioms and their literal counterparts in isolation are made up of the same logical presuppositions and of common assertion. But, in addition, idioms have a further assertion, their literal interpretation. This property of idioms is often made use of to achieve humorous effects, and it is left up to the hearer to decode the complex meaning. This dichotomy, however, also contributes to the fact that such expressions do not entail any propositions, nor do they semantically presuppose any sentences. However, the use of idioms in conversation pragmatically presupposes propositions which their literal counterparts cannot. Thus, we see that idioms in isolation convey less precise information than their literal counterparts, but that they develop their potential when used as functional elements of communication. (Strssler, 1982: 110)

Strsslers last statement comes to decode most idioms and their underlying pragmatic presuppositions, if viewed in the scope of a given communicative situation and with consideration of the latters background information presupposition attitude. If viewed from the literary-translation point of view, it must be mentioned that idioms may be transferred in the TL in different ways, depending on the cultural adaptability of the given idiom in the context of the given culture and the translators cultural competence, as the choice of a certain translation in the TL depends not only on the existence/non-existence of an adequate counterpart of a certain idiom in the TL, but on the translators linguocultural competence to spot it among the range of available variants, or, in case the idiom fails to exist in the TL, to find ways of reproducing its content as adequately and faithfully as intelligibility allows. This may be illustrated by some examples from Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby and its translation in Armenian by the foremost Armenian translator, Sona Seferyan. (1) By God, I may be old fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish. (Fitzgerald, 1987: 90) crazy fish , , , (, 1981:85).

(2) (3)

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(4)

Transcription of the Armenian text: [ stv ts vk , g tse m g gh p rner m n k k ts en, ba ts mer rer m k na k t en des den nkn m, t en sr -nr het k r g l s] (f ts er ld, 1981: 85).

The idiom (2) in sentence (1), which by virtue of its meaning is in fact applicable to people who are strange, in the given context is used with the meaning of any person. The rationale for such a translation is, in fact, the context, since the same idiom in isolation would be interpreted as having a different presupposition. As (1) displays it, the given idiom has an altogether different meaning, which is adequately reflected in (3). Idiom (2) in utterance (3) has been translated by the phrase - [sr -nr ], which fully transfers the pragmatic presupposition of the idiom of the source text. Hence, in the given case, the translator skillfully adopts the idiom of the SL through reformulation, as a result of which the SL idiom acquires a dynamic value in the TL, nevertheless the faithfulness is preserved. This kind of reformulation is also known as the term, modulation. From the above, in isolation, idioms do not contain any propositions and, semantically, they do not presuppose anything. Yet, in communication/context, idioms acquire certain pragmatic presuppositions. Remarkably, word-for-word translations have their significance for translation. Yet, it should be kept in mind that word-for-word translations calques should not contradict the readers perception, his rooted system of associations. Otherwise, it will be impossible to reach a faithful and appropriate translation, i.e., an adequate translation. Consider (5), which displays a vivid sample of calques. (5) (6) (7) Gatsby believed in the green light, the organistic future that year by year recedes before us. (Fitzgerald, 1987: 156). , , (, 1981: 144): Transcription of the Armenian text: [getsb n h v t m er k n l s n, jer nel p g n, v r t retst r her n m e mez n ts] [f ts er ld, 1981: 144].

It is evident that, upon reading (6), the Armenian reader will not have the same response as the SL reader. The Armenian translation is actually a word-for-word translation. The equivalent of the SL idiom is [k n t n p rh] idiom. The English idiom, green light, has the semantic scope of realization of future plans, goals, and freedom of activity. From the translation

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53

quoted above, it can be affirmed that the Armenian, [k n l s] I impart the effect of the original, its background presuppositional attitude. The presupposition of the SL idiom, namely Gatsbys hope and belief for the future, has remained in the ST and has found no reflection in the TT. On the other hand, the phrase, organistic future [jer nel p g ], that follows the idiom somehow soothes the lost-meaning effect, justifies the use of the [k n l s] in TT and contributes to a partial revival of the presupposition of the SL idiom and faithful translation. Clearly, on the metalinguistic level, language is, at the same time, the mirror of a culture and its instrument of analysis. Vinay and Darbeluct define metalinguistics as the totality of links which unite social, cultural and psychological facts with linguistic structures (qtd. In Kolawole and Salawu, 2008). The divergences between the SL and the TT can be enormous on the metalinguistic plane. Very often the translator strives to find the given image in the TL, he/she wants to transfer the presupposed meaning by way of analogue models. As Theo Hermans states, Analogue models are used to represent those characteristics of a prototype considered to be relevant in a given context (Hermans, 2008). Consider (8) and its translation (9), where the translator reached faithful translation through an analogue model. (8) About five oclock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gate first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then Mr. Gatz and the minister and I in the limousine, and a little later four or five servants and the postman from West Egg, in Gatsbys station wagon, all wet to the skin. (Fitzgerald, 1987: 150) , . ` , , , , ` ` , (, 1981: 81).

(9)

(10) Transcription of the Armenian text: [ m h ng n jerek mekena ts b ghk ts ts mer t p r h s v gerezm n t n ev k ng r v ndzrev t k, d rp s m t. r n d k rk s rs pel oren sev t ts, p l m zin, v r me e nk m getsb b ts k h n n, p r n gets ev jes, sk ver meken n me rs k m h ng ts r jev vest eg

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p st t r, b l rn (f ts er ld, 1981: 81).

el

m n ev

v sk rner

tr v ts]

Sentences (8) and (9) show that the English idiom, wet to the skin, has been translated into Armenian by the analogue model [m n ev v sk rner tr v ts]. Despite the fact that, in Armenian, the background of the idiom is different, the implicit meaning, the presupposition is totally the same, namely, to become totally wet. From a cognitive point of view, the translation is interesting, as the word, skin, in the English idiom, has been translated by bones, in Armenian. Hence, the translators linguistic and cultural competences worked together to produce a faithful and appropriate translation and preserve fidelity. The above translation is actually realized by the compensation technique, which, according to Hervey and Higgins, is,
the technique of making up for the translation of important Source Text features by approximating their effects in the Target Text through means other than those used in the Source Text. (Hervey and Higgins, 1992: 248)

On the other hand, many SL idioms may be translated by phrases that are not considered idioms in the TL. Yet, the dynamic translation turns to be so faithful that other translation techniques fail to transfer the presupposition of the idiom in question. Consider (11) and its respective translation into Armenian (12). (11) Things went from bad to worse, suggested Miss Baker. Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position (Fitzgerald, 1987: 16). (12) - ,- : - , , (, 1981: 17) (13) Transcription of the Armenian text: [jev gn l v g rts b rd tsel e, me berets r rd be ker. y , gn l v g rts b rd tsel e, jev n st pv ts t ghel e kh t nk] (Fitzgerald, 1981: 17). As seen in the above example, of all the translation techniques available, the translator has given preference to descriptive translation, where form and content are reproduced as faithfully as possible and the TL reader is able to understand as much as he [she] can of the customs, manner of thought, and means of expression of the SL context (Nida, 1964: 129). Besides, this translation is also appropriate as it fully preserves the presuppositional content of the idiom, namely, that things chanced for the worse. There is one nuance in this translation that calls my

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attention: the thing is that in Armenian there are synonymic idioms which are recorded in Sukiasyan and Galstyans dictionary of idioms (1975). They are / (colloquial) [g rts/ b n b rd l nel], / , (dialect) [b n b rd/ b mb k d rn l, g rts blmb ts k l nel]. Yet, the translator resorted to descriptive translation for reasons of stylistic fidelity and appropriateness. As a result, the overall translation is, as a whole, very close to the original, both in style and message. The equivalent translation would inevitably distort the stylistic wholeness of the original as the two images of the world ST and TT are different in almost every aspect. Correspondingly, the translators choice is justified for reasons of stylistic fidelity. The study comes to prove there are different methods of transferring the cultural implications/presuppositions underlying idioms in literary translation. In applying these translation techniques, it is necessary to bear in mind the inevitability of translation loss of the presupposition component of idioms, when the language unit is, as here, culture bound. It has been duly acknowledged that, in order to preserve and achieve specific cultural-bound presuppositions of idioms/ idiomatic expressions, the linguistic competence of the translator must be interweaved with his/her cultural competence. This implies that, proceeding from the ideal-TT-reader, the translator should seek the best possible variant of translation to ensure both the preservation of the original aim of the ST and TT wholeness, that is, a faithful and appropriate translation. Thus, the core role of the literary translator is to attempt to ensure that content and language present in the SL context are fully acceptable and comprehensible to the TL readership.

REFERENCES
Bassnett, S. (1980). Translation Studies. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd. Chafe, W. (1968). Idiomaticity as an anomaly in the Chomskyan paradigm. Foundations of Language, 4, 100-127. Chamberlain, S. (2005). Recognizing and responding to cultural differences in the education of culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Intervention in School and Clinic 40 (4), 195-211. Fitzgerald, F. (1987). The Great Gatsby. England: Heinemann. New Windmill Series. Hermans, Th. (2008). Models of translation. In Baker, M. and Saldanha, G. (Eds.) Routledge nd Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 2 Edition, 178-182. London and New York: Routledge. Hervey, S. and Higgins, I. (1992). Thinking Translation. London: Routledge. Kolawole, S., and Salawu, A. (2008). The literary translator and the concept of fidelity: Kirkups translation of Camara Layes LEnfant noir as a case study. Literary Translations, 12, 4. Retrieved 02/20/2011, from http://translationjournal.net/journal/46lit.htm Lotman, J. and Uspensky, B. (1978). On the semiotic mechanism of culture. New Literary History, 21132. UVA: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Martin, M. and Vaughn, B. E. (2007). Cultural competence: The nuts and bolts of diversity and inclusion. Strategic Diversity and Inclusion Management magazine, 1, Spring, 31-38. DTUI.com Publishing Division: San Francisco. Newmark, P. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall. Nida, E. (1964). Principles of correspondence. In Venuti, L. (Ed.), The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge. Pedersen, P. (1988). A Handbook for Developing Multicultural Awareness. Alexandria, Va.: American Association for Counselling and Development. Sapir, E. (1956). Culture, Language and Personality. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Selescovitch, D. and Lederer, M. (1984). Interpreter pour traduire. Paris: Didier Erudition. Strssler, J. (1982). Idioms in English: A pragmatic analysis. Tbingen: Gunter Narr Verlag Tbingen. Sukiasyan, A. and Galstyan, A. (1975). Armenian Idiomatic Dictionary (In Armenian). Yerevan, YSU Publishing. Toury, G. (1995). The nature and role of norms in translation. In Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1995, 53-69. Vermeer, H. (1989). Skopos and commission in translational activity. In Venuti, L. (Ed.), The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge.

Proverbs and Sayings from the Perspective of Cultural Identity

Gayane V. YEGHIAZARYAN

The genius, wit and spirit of a nation are discovered in its proverbs. Francis Bacon

ABSTRACT
The question of how we know ourselves and others is of fundamental interest in understanding the degree to which personal knowledge is acquired in the social context and its implications for successful intercultural communication. The present article advances the idea that the identity theory may assist in this respect and, while analysing cultural identity, focuses attention on a particular aspect - one that emerges in the context of proverbs and sayings, emphasising their role in creating a sense of self and self-worth. The contrastive analysis of proverbs and sayings demonstrates the subtle but crucial ways in which socio-cultural relations shape cultural identities.

INTRODUCTION
The question of the methodological foundations of linguocultural analysis has become a central spot of debate during the last decades. Linguocultural identity, as applied to phraseological description, is a comparatively new and fascinating topic. It is established as the methodological basis for the description of the common cultural knowledge of a speech community, which serves as the basis for the formation of stereotypical perceptions, including linguocultural stereotypes. The cultural stereotypes of the English, the Americans, and the Armenians are analyzed based on their proverbs and sayings, as the historical process of the construction of a national stereotype could be conditioned by them and they encode collective cultural experience and common attitudes.

IDENTITY THEORY
What is identity? Is it instinctive or a constructed concept? And if it is a construct, is it an imaginary one, a cultural one, or an ideological one? Or is it a state of mind? Is there such a thing as a national temperament, a character, or an identity, which can be claimed to be, say, specifically British, American, or Armenian? The question

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has already been explored by a wealth of studies, but it continues to fascinate and to provoke thought. Identity is an umbrella term (a word that provides a super-set or grouping of related concepts), used throughout the social sciences to describe an individuals comprehension of himself/herself as a discrete, separate entity. Sociology contains multiple views of identity (Stryker and Burke, 2000). The use of different theories and methodologies by different scholars has affected the ways in which researchers conceptualize identity, and it has also resulted in the simultaneous emergence and use of different terms that describe identity as a sociocultural construct. Some researchers take a cultural or collective view of identity in which the concept represents the ideas, beliefs and practices of a group or collective, seen in work on ethnic identity (e.g., Nagel, 1995). This view does not examine individual variability in behaviour, motivation, and interaction. Another view, growing out of the work of Tajfel (1981) and others (Byram, 1998; Norton Pierce, 2000), sees identity as embedded in a social group or category. This view misses the importance of withingroup behaviour, such as role relationships among group members. Knowledge of common roots as well as cultural and historical heritage of L2 learners is believed to be a major and essential step in the social unification of European societies. As a result, the concept, identity, is currently being applied in various European L2 programmes (Fleming and Byram, 1998). In the field of applied linguistics, identity has been receiving increased attention since the recognition of its importance in L2 learning, demonstrated by Norton Pierce who used the phrase, social identity, to refer to
how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how that person understands possibilities for the future. (Norton Pierce, 2000: 5)

Nortons social identity research was the first theory that attempted to connect L2 teaching, language learners, and their understanding of themselves within a spectrum of cultures. In her comprehensive review, Norton Pierce (2000) demonstrates that there exists a distinction among the psychological sense of continuity, known as the ego identity (sometimes identified simply, as the self); the personal idiosyncrasies that separate one person from the next, known as the personal identity; and the collection of social roles that a person might play, known as either the social identity or the cultural identity.

CULTURAL STUDIES AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

In this study, we chose to use the term, cultural identity, which, after a comprehensive review of philosophical and psychological literature, was defined as

Proverbs and Sayings and Cultural Identity an individuals realization of his or her place in the spectrum of cultures and purposeful behaviour directed on his or her enrolment and acceptance into a particular group, as well as certain characteristic features of a particular group that automatically assign an individuals group membership. (Sysoyev, 2001: 37-38)

59

Cultural identity is the (feeling of) identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as he/she is influenced by his/her belonging to a group or culture. At the same time, the individuals sense of self is influenced by his/her surroundings. And as the symbolic and social context changes, so does the persons sense of self and his/her desires of how to be understood by others. People can manipulate boundaries to their own individual advantage and refashion their selves in a variety of ways, at different moments in time (Bray, 2004). There are modern questions of culture that are transferred into questions of identity. Various cultural studies and social theory investigate the question of cultural identity. Cultural identity remarks upon: place, gender, race, history, nationality, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and ethnicity. Some anthropologists of the 1970s concentrated on the social and political role of symbols. Abner Cohen, for example, defined symbols as objects, acts, relationships or linguistic formations that stand ambiguously for a multiplicity of meanings, evoke emotions, and impel men to action (Cohen, 1974: 23). He and others saw culture as made up of symbols interpreted by individuals and used for their expression of the self, and worked on the idea of culture as a particular symbolic system promoted by a social group, assisting the group in its way of thinking and looking at the world. As a set of symbolic statements, culture shapes and gives meaning to human perceptions and behaviour. Identity formations are understood as products of cultures and histories in collision and dialogue. Identity is made evident through the use of markers, such as language, dress, behaviour and choice of space, the effect of which depends on their recognition by other social beings. Markers help to create the boundaries that define similarities or differences between the marker wearers and the marker perceivers, and their effectiveness depends on a shared understanding of their meaning. Thus, culture is the unique character of a social group. It encompasses the values and norms shared by members of that group. Cultural values direct group members attention to what is more and less important. Cultural norms define what is appropriate, and inappropriate behaviour. At the same time, cultural institutions preserve cultural values and norms, give them authority, and provide a context for social interaction. All of these elements of culture can affect social interactions, which, in their turn, are embedded in language. When communicating or expressing themselves, people are perceived as members of certain groups, and the reflection of a particular facet of cultural identity or group membership is facilitated in many cases through discourse, in this particular case, in proverbs and

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sayings. In this paper, we examine one of the possible ways of perceiving cultural diversity proverbs and sayings as a reflection of the speakers cultural identity.

PROVERBS AND SAYINGS AS A REFLECTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

Culture is indeed a very influential factor in behaviour and attitudes, in what one can or cannot do, or even in what one can or cannot imagine doing. In fact, structures and mental frames that determine our patterns of thinking are deeply embedded in social institutions, in language, in proverbs and sayings. Language expresses the patterns and structures of culture, and consequently influences human thinking, manners and judgment. Proverbs and popular sayings are capsules that contain highly condensed bits of a cultures values and beliefs. They have great influence on the assumptions, attitudes, motivations, and behaviours of the members of a culture, precisely because they are absorbed and internalized at a very early age and then are taken for granted. Proverbs and sayings of a particular nation provide a key to understanding the nations frame of mind, what stirs its emotions and provokes its thoughts; they can demonstrate how the national imagination is linked with the national identity and its peculiarities through memories, myths and meanings. The links between the proverbs and cultural identity are reciprocal. Proverbs and sayings make explicit the nations hidden constructs through its attitudes towards the concepts of space and time, through nations relationship with such values as fate and destiny, power and hierarchy, directness and indirectness, modesty, risk taking, age, and other facets. Proverbs and sayings are constructed to demonstrate the interplay between these meanings and the cultural identity of a nation. On the other hand, these proverbs and sayings shape and determine this or that cultural identity and dictate the rules and behaviour codes for this very nation. There are many different cultural values, norms, and beliefs that are reflected in proverbs and sayings and which are the part and parcel of the nations cultural heritage. Cultural values that our research indicates to be relevant to norms and strategies for behaviour include individualism versus collectivism, egalitarianism versus hierarchy, and low-context versus high-context communication styles (Hofstede, 1997). Other values, no doubt, are also relevant. For example, individualism, directness, self-reliance, egalitarianism, and fastpaced work ethic characteristic of the American cultural identity are reflected in the following proverbs: Just do it. If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself. God helps those who help themselves. Toot your own horn. Nothing venture, nothing have. Different attitudes towards time and its importance is one of the most central differences that separate cultures, cultural ways of doing things and determines

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cultural identity. It may sound strange, but the idea of time is not universal. In the West, time tends to be seen as quantitative, measured in units that reflect the march of progress. It is logical, sequential, and present-focused, moving with incremental certainty toward a future the ego cannot touch and a past that is not a part of now. There would be little doubt that the following sayings are distinctly American: Time is money. First come, first served. Get to the point. Lost time is never found again. One today is worth two tomorrow. Here today, gone tomorrow. Most Asian nations, that traditionally place a higher value on interpersonal relations, see time and its significance diametrically opposed. The pace of time is slower and more leisurely and it can be subordinated to factors that are more important for a person from an Oriental background, e.g., relations, understanding, patience, and harmony. Armenians say Shtapoxy tgha chi unena [He who rushes wont have a son]. Hamberutyuny kyanq e [Patience is life]. Nstel taxtin spasel baxtin [To sit on a sofa and wait for the luck to come]. To value time, there exists a somewhat similar proverb in Armenian: Jamanaky voski e [Time is gold], which, however, displays the variation in value, conceptualization in each language; the English refer to money (i.e., the monetary value), while in Armenian, time is likened to gold in superiority (i.e., superiority meaning value). Thus, in the East, time feels like it has unlimited continuity, an unravelling rather than a strict boundary. Eastern cultures do not appreciate haste and fast paced life, either. For instance, the Japanese would advise: When in a hurry, take the roundabout route. The more haste - the less speed. The Chinese long-term perspective is reflected in the proverbs Drips of water wear through stone or, Feather by feather, the goose is plucked.1 Another important variable across cultures is fate and personal responsibility. This refers to the degree to which we feel ourselves the masters of our lives, versus the degree to which we see ourselves as subject to things outside our control. Another way to look at this is to ask how much we see ourselves able to change and manuvre, to choose the course of our lives and relationships. The frontier mentality of conquering the wilderness, and the expansiveness of the land stretching huge distances, may relate to generally high levels of confidence in the ability to shape and choose our destinies. In the expansive landscape of, say, America, many children grow up with an epic sense of life, where ideas are big, and hope springs eternal. When they experience setbacks, they are encouraged to redouble their efforts, to try, try again. Americans and Westerners are opportunistic and willing to take chances. Action,

To make the differences between different identities more explicit, we bring examples of proverbs and sayings from other cultures, too.

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efficacy, persistence and achievement are emphasized and expected: Just do it. If there is a will, there is a way. Armenia occupies a much smaller territory. Her history reflects repeated invasions and harsh struggles: Here there is more emphasis on destiny's role in human life. Armenians are more likely to see struggles as inevitable or unavoidable. Their fatalistic attitude is expressed in their way of responding to failure or accident by saying Chakatagric ches paxchi [One cannot avoid the destiny], meaning that the setback was destined. A similar view is expressed throughout Asia: One does not make the wind blow, but is blown by it, meaning that ones destiny often holds more power than ones efforts and self-determination. Another important cultural variable relates to face and face-saving. In many cultures, maintaining face is of great importance, though ideas of how to do this vary. The starting points of individualism and collectivism are closely related to face. Face is important across cultures, yet the dynamics of face and face saving play out differently. In its broader definition, face includes ideas of status, power, insider and outsider relations, loyalty, respect and age. Cultures with low power distance (Hofstede, 1997), tend to assume equality among people, and focus more on earned status than ascribed status. If the American culture presupposes that everyone has equal rights and possibilities, and their motto is: We hold those truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, in high-context cultures, which are hierarchical and traditional societies, the concepts of shame and honour are much more important. Cultures where there is a comfort with high power distance (Hofstede, 1997), are those where some people are considered superior to others because of their social status, gender, age, family background and other factors. Armenians infer: Te tery es em, baklen xashac em canum [If I am the master, I prefer to plant boiled bean], or, Qarn el e ir zerqin, popoqn el [He has both the stone and the walnut to crack it]. There is another Armenian proverb demonstrating the nations respect towards a high rank and status: Hayi zavaky general klini, sharqayin zinvor chi lini [The Armenians son should become a general, not a soldier]. The Chinese value of hierarchy and power is well expressed in the proverb: When you are an anvil, hold still. When you are a hammer, strike at will. A Romanian proverb warns There is no good accord where every man would be a lord. A German saying goes: Whoever wants to climb a ladder must start on the lowest rung. In many countries, among them Armenia, age is venerated: Armenians say: Jury poqrin, xosqy mecin, Mecin lsoghi votqy qarin chi dipchi. Likewise, a Nigerian proverb counsels: The elders of a community are the voice of God. The Chinese put this idea as follows: To succeed consult three old people. The English language doesnt possess proverbs in which the aged are respected in such a degree.

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As for group identity, loyalty and close family relationships, some differences are observed, too, in the proverbs and saying of different cultures. In general, in individualist societies, like the U.S. and other Western countries, individual rights supersede blind duty to ones family, clan, ethnic group, or nation. People generally try to say what they mean and mean what they say: Blow/tool your own horn. If you want a thing well-done right, do it yourself. Dont beat around the bush. He is not fit to command others, that cannot command himself, etc. In high-context cultures, group harmony is of utmost importance. Being humiliated before the group, or losing face before ones constituents, can be a fate worse than death, in some cases. Ways in which Armenians can lose face include: damage to a valued relationship, as they value family ties and friendship greatly: Aryuny jur chi darna [Blood is thicker than water]. Russian has a similar saying: Svoy durak doroje chujogo umnika [You had better have your silly fellow, than others clever one]. An ancient Chinese saying goes: A family must first overthrow itself before others can overthrow it. There is no striking difference between the English and Armenian languages concerning the concept friendship, and probably the apprehension of friendship is given in proverbs substantially the same form by experience, irrespective of culture. Lav ynkery lav barekamic lav e [A good friend is better than a good relative]. Russians say: Dlya druga ne jal ni xleba, ni dosuga [You want to share both bread and leisure with a friend], Stari drug lucshe novikh dvux [One old friend is better than two new ones]. In English Between friends all is common. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Better lose a jest than a friend. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that some underlying abstractions are different and more justified pragmatically and experientially and they will vary somewhat within these languages, because they are closely linked with the cultural identifications. The English have such sayings: A hedge between keeps friendship green. Familiarity breeds contempt, meaning: one must keep some distance and not become too familiar with a friend, or: You lend your money and lose your friend, or, Even reckoning makes long friends, meaning: friendship is strong if you can keep your financial issues accurate. In the saying Old friends and old wine and old gold are best, the consumer society dictates its language, too (not only old friends and old wine, but also gold is mentioned here). In sum, the comparative study of the proverbs and sayings makes explicit differences and dissimilarities between different nations approach to class, family, community, culture, etc., rooted in the histories, beliefs, norms and values of the nations, which are vastly contrasting. And when understanding cultural identity as a multi-faceted construct, it is important to note that in communication the choice of portraying a specific facet of ones identity will be context specific and negotiated between the participants of the exchange. If a salient facet of the identities of both

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participants is the same, then it becomes invisible and a dialogue of cultures takes place (Bibler, 1991; Savignon and Sysoyev, 2002).

CONCLUDING REMARKS
The present paper has examined one of the possible ways of perceiving cultural diversity: by analyzing proverbs and sayings as a reflection of the speakers cultural identity. We have demonstrated that representatives of different cultures can construct the salient facet of their cultural identity through the discourse of proverbs and sayings, which will enable language learners to see people and societies, aiding them in perceiving diversity as a norm. Proverbs and popular sayings are capsules that contain highly condensed bits of a cultures values and beliefs which, in their turn, shape the cultural identity of a nation. They have great influence on the assumptions, attitudes, motivations and behaviours of the members of a culture precisely because are absorbed and internalized at a very early age and then are taken for granted. Cross-cultural intelligence is the ability to switch ethnic and/or cultural contexts and quickly learn new patterns of social interaction with appropriate behavioural responses. This competence is essential to effectively communicate in multicultural environments. To become culturally competent, the first step is to have a solid understanding of ones own values and how they shape cultural identity. Within this process, it is also important to realize that different cultures often exhibit different values. In the paper, some generalizations about cultural and national approaches to different values, such as time, fate, and personal responsibility, face and face saving, power distance, age, respect and other facets were outlined. These may help the representatives of different cultures prepare for successful intercultural communication by raising the kinds of differences that occur across cultures, and pointing out possible pitfalls of lack of attention to cultural values. They should be taken as a series of starting points rather than definite descriptions, since cultural groups are too diverse and changing contexts too influential to be described reliably. The outcome of the study implies that the although overarching global movements would lead us to believe that assimilation into a common culture is either inevitable or desirable, there are nonetheless radical differences, which are drawn from the relationships determined by cultural identity. But these differences should not hold us back from feeling and understanding other cultures, no matter how different from ours they can be. And twice true is the saying, When in Rome, do as Romans do.

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REFERENCES
Bibler, V. (1991). M. M. Bakhtin, or the Poetics of Culture. Moscow: Politizdat Press. Bray, Z. (2004). Living Boundaries: Identity and Frontiers in the Basque Country. Brussels: PIE Peter Lang. Byram, M. S. (1989). Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cohen, A. (1974). Two-Dimensional Man: An Essay on the Anthropology of Power and Symbolism in Complex Society. London: Routledge. Fleming, M. and Byram, M. S., (Eds.) (1998). Language Learning in Intercultural Perspective: Approaches through Drama and Ethnography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hofstede, G. H. (1997). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. New York: Mc Graw- Hill Companies, Inc. Nagel, Th. (1995). Other Minds: Critical essays, 1969-1994. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Norton Pierce, B. (2000). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9-31. Savignon, S. J. and Sysoyev, P. V. (2002). Sociocultural strategies for dialogue of cultures. The Modern Language Journal, 86(4), 508-524. Stryker, S., and Burke, P. J. (2000). The past, present, and future of an identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63 (4), 284-297. Sysoyev, P. V. (2001). Language and culture: Looking for a new dimension in teaching L2 culture, Foreign Languages at School Journal, 4, 12-18. Tajfel, H. (1981). Human Groups and Social Categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The Game Concept in the Writings of Huizinga and Wittgenstein

Sharmagh Romik ABRAHAMYAN

ABSTRACT
The aim of the present article is to analyze Johan Huizingas and Ludwig Wittgensteins understanding and description of the game concept, with a view to disclosing a common denominator between the two. The concept is explored from a cultural point of view. The author reflects on Huizingas standpoint on the binary relation of culture and play that led to the assertion that play is primary to and a necessary condition of the generation of culture. The article also expounds Wittgensteins concept of language-games, that sheds light on a perspicuous overview of language and communication.

INTRODUCTION
The game theory plays a central role in mainstream linguistics and intercultural communication. The latter involves clusters of language-games and aspects of culture, with varying degrees of similarity and difference. Moreover, games are an appropriate allegory for understanding communicative issues in linguistic interaction. The game metaphor, which offers a viable model of language, helps in understanding what is at issue, in a variety of linguistic contexts. Johan Huizinga and Ludwig Wittgenstein were among the most famous contributors to the development of this concept.

JOHAN HUIZINGAS VIEWPOINT ON PLAY AS A CULTURAL PHENOMENON

Dutch historian, cultural theorist, and professor, Johan Huizinga (1872-1945), locates the origin of culture in play, as an autotelic activity, as far as in the binary relation of culture and play, the primary, objectively perceivable reality is play, whereas culture is an added label. Huizinga considers the role of play in culture, politics, and warfare. The play element of culture and society is discussed in his groundbreaking work, Homo ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, written in 1938. Huizinga regards play as one of the original wellsprings of culture. He suggests that play is primary to and a necessary condition of the generation of culture. Huizingas purpose is to

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ascertain how far culture itself bears the character of play. Culture arises in the form of play. Huizinga doesnt mean that play turns into culture. Rather, he places play and culture side by side, mentions their twin union, but insists that play is primary. Huizinga argues that play is a most fundamental human function, which has permeated all cultures. Social life is endued with supra-biological forms, in the shape of play, which enhances its value. The society expresses its interpretation of life and the world through playing. Huizinga characterizes people not so much as homo sapiens (the wise or knowing man) or homo faber (man - the maker), but as homo ludens a being who is and must be at play. Huizinga asserts that play is an activity which exists outside serious life routines, but which immerses the individual, completely, within its unique boundaries of time and space. Play is regarded as a free and meaningful activity, carried out for its own sake, spatially and temporally segregated from the requirements of practical life, and bound by a self-contained system of rules that holds absolutely. Play is motivated by fun rather than by material profit. Play is the symbolic re-enactment of the world, in which people can forthwith become the subjects and the objects of their activity. We can learn the meaning of existence for a particular society from its play. Play is older than culture, for culture always presupposes the existence of the human society. Yet, animals have not waited for man to teach them how to play. Consequently, play is defined as a voluntary activity or occupation, performed within given, fixed, limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted, but absolutely binding, having an aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy, and the consciousness that it is different from ordinary life. Play is a vital element in our everyday life, a basic necessity for a fulfilled life. Accordingly, Huizinga calls the category, play, one of the most fundamental categories in life. Listed below are the characteristics of play, as identified by Huizinga. Play is the basis of culture. Play is not ordinary or real life. Play is distinct from ordinary life both as to locality and duration. Play is free, is, in fact, freedom. Play is fun. Play demands absolute and supreme order. Play is imbued with rhythm and harmony.

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According to Huizinga, play is universal. It is older than humanity (if we only consider animals play) and a constant part of human nature. It is not an arbitrary cultural convention. It follows that civilization, in its earliest phases, is played (Huizinga, 1997: 173). Civilization arises in play and as play, and never leaves it. It is impossible in the absence of the play-spirit. Remarkably, Huizinga is far more interested in contest than in any other form of play. At the same time, Huizinga recognizes a close connection between play and ritual. Since play involves rule-governed behaviour (even if the rule is simple), all play is arguably somewhat ritualistic. Huizinga notes that the more aristocratic arts have a more obvious element of play about them. Huizinga argues that all civilized warfare has play elements in it, and to the degree that it leaves these elements behind, it becomes less civilized. Thus, Huizinga discusses the element of play in various cultural domains and analyzes the element of play through the ages. In the Middle Ages, chivalry, manifested both in warfare and in the courts of love, illustrates the influence of play on culture. In the modern period, Huizinga distinguishes the following cultural periods: Renaissance, Humanist, Baroque, Rococo, Classical, and Romantic. He seems to be fond of the Renaissance and of the Baroque-Rococo periods, since he considers play to be healthiest in those times. His discussion of the Rococo period wanders into a fascinating little essay on the influence of play in dress, as demonstrated in the evolution of the fashions for wigs. Huizinga was not only concerned with identifying areas of play in culture, but also with demonstrating that culture itself is fundamentally comprised of play. Contemporary (media) culture appears to be increasingly comprised of play elements, a fact that leads us to refer to a ludification of culture. The heart of culture is essentially constituted of elements of theatricality, exhibitionism, virtuosity, joyful improvisation, competition, and challenge. The display of skill, the pleasure in surpassing oneself, or overcoming others, and other ludic attitudes are pervasive.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEINS LANGUAGE-GAMES AS MEANS OF COMMUNICATION

Ludwig Wittgensteins (1889-1951) writings include remarks on literature, poetry, architecture, the visual arts, music, and the philosophy of culture scattered throughout his writings on the philosophies of language, mind, and philosophical method. It is not surprising, given the central position he has ascribed to the aesthetic and culture. The aesthetic and cultural dimension weaves itself through all of Wittgensteins philosophy. Wittgenstein never loses a sense of the relation necessary to the meaning of the aesthetic language we use - between the aesthetically-descriptive expressions we

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employ within particular contexts and what we call the culture of the period. Of those aesthetic words, he says:
To describe their use or to describe what you mean by a cultured taste, you have to describe a culture which is like a big organization which assigns each of its members a place where he can work in the spirit of the whole, and it is right for his power to be measured by the contribution he succeeds in making to the whole enterprise. (Wittgenstein, 1966: 8)

And again, rendering explicit the relation between his work in the philosophy of language and his work in the philosophy of art, Wittgenstein adds, What belongs to a language-game is a whole culture.1 There the link to the irreducible character of rule-following is brought to the fore: To describe a set of aesthetic rules fully means really to describe the culture of a period. (Wittgenstein, 1966: 8) In his magnum opus, Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein repeatedly makes connection between language and culture, with societal conventions, norms, and rules falling under the general rubric of culture. For Wittgenstein, they are customs: To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions). (Wittgenstein, 1976: 48) The fact that culture deeply influences conversational styles in systematic ways is the central tenet of the approach to discourse analysis known as the ethnography of communication, which examines how culturally generated rules determine the underlying structure of conversation. For ethnographers, culture encompasses or embraces a totality of knowledge and practices, including speech acts. As such, the ethnography of communication subsumes the speech act theory. Perhaps, then, a Wittgensteinian approach to communication (that acknowledges the totality of cultural knowledge and practices involved in discourse and emphasizes that language is itself a form of life) becomes superior to both the ethnography of communication and to speech act theory. In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein writes:
We are so much accustomed to communication through language, in conversation, that it looks to us as if the whole point of communication lay in this: someone else grasps the sense of my words which is something mental: he, as it were, takes it into his own mind. (Wittgenstein, 1976: 114)

As Wittgenstein points out, human communication has been conceived as a determinable process of meaning transference, wherein meanings are regarded as definite entities. This conception is adopted in a variety of elaborate theories of intercultural communication. This is called the code model of communication,
1

Authors emphasis. (Ed.)

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according to which communication means conveying information. From the pragmatic point of view, the content of speech can only be understood in terms of the action which the speech performs. Speech and writing are used to effect, produce, achieve, and mean things. As the context of an utterance cannot be described completely, the domain of discourse can never be fixed completely; similarly, there is no context-free criterion for how to separate utterance and context. Consequently, no single word, or combination of words has meaning in its own right, independent of a particular use. There is no absolute meaning relative to which we can measure our understanding. Understanding is tied to a local situation, a particular encounter. Language does not derive its significance from reporting information about an independent reality and conveying it from one person (encoding it) to another (decoding it). Rather, it is a social phenomenon, embedded in wider contexts of actions or life world/s. To shed light on a perspicuous overview of language and communication, Wittgenstein introduces, in his Philosophical Investigations, the concept of language-games (Sprachspiel), in which he deconstructs his own earlier arguments (explained in his Tractatus2) with respect to human language and offers the new way of looking at language. By employing the concept of language-games, Wittgenstein shows that communication is not a matter of a mental act or meaning transference. Instead, we always have to examine it in relation to the actual activity conducted against a particular background (Ma, 2004). Thus, Wittgensteins later views are characteristic of a pragmatic view of language, of a pragmatic approach to meaning and communication. The notion of communication that holds in the most fundamental language-games prompts us that games are extra-linguistic activities that need to relate to socially constrained contexts of language use. Rejecting the essentialist view of language in favour of a pragmatist view of language, Wittgenstein has sought to show that traditional philosophical problems can be avoided by application of an appropriate methodology focusing on the analysis of language. Joining game-theoretic assets with pragmatic elements of language use and unearthing a rich frontier for strategic interaction in the evolution of meaning and language use, Wittgenstein considers games as a theoretical framework for studying the nature and the origins of linguistic meaning. Wittgenstein introduces the idea of language-games to address the countless multiplicity of uses, to designate their being part of an activity and to show that the words of a text, or a complete primitive language, derive their meaning from the role they have in certain non-linguistic activities Wittgenstein calls games.
2

L. Wittgensteins Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1918) is widely considered one of the th most important philosophical works of the 20 Century. (Ed.)

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Wittgensteins fundamental purpose is not something that can be found in language, but is external to it. Games are the activities and practices from which language derives its meaning. Meaning and language-games are interrelated concepts and language-games are a way of getting at the meanings of words in any given language. The meaning of a word is its use in language.3 (Wittgenstein, 1976: 20) This means there is no need to suppose that there is something called beauty which exists independent of any particular beautiful object. (Scott, 2002) Words are tools for communication and these symbols have purpose only in the context in which they are employed. The way to understand the meaning of a word is to consider it within the language-game to which it belongs. A word means solely what it implies to those who use it, and what it means to them is encapsulated in how it is used. By understanding words as the pieces of a language-game, we escape all manner of confusing problems, which have haunted us since antiquity, and move forward into a world where our discourses can attain greater clarity. Meaning is a complicated phenomenon woven into the fabric of our lives. Meaning is generated through agreement in culture and forms of life (http://onlyagame, 2006). The concept, language-game, is made to do work for a more fluid, more diversified, and more activity-oriented perspective on language. Wittgensteins discussion is concerned to mark distinctions among a wide range of activities in which language users engage. The metaphoric expression, language-games, provides a view of language as a set of actions, each with its own applications. Wittgenstein describes language as a family of a series of interrelated language-games in which words are used in a multiplicity of ways. Language has many purposes, each purpose served by a different language-game, e.g., giving orders, forming and testing a hypothesis, reporting, describing, informing, asking, thanking, praying, play-acting, singing catches, guessing riddles, making a joke, greeting and performing other acts of communication (Wittgenstein, 1976: 11-12). Thus, Wittgenstein has characterized the astonishing variety of language use as a variability of the application of various language-games. Words are instruments of language which may have varying uses, according to the purposes for which language may be used. Thus, activity and language are, in turn, closely connected to life. However, Wittgenstein does not reduce language to action or vice versa, but tries to make us grasp the two as interwoven. So, to agree in the language we use is not just to share natural propensities; it is to agree in this interweaving of language and action.

Authors emphasis. (Ed.)

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The use of the concept, language-game, is coordinated with the notion of simpler, more basic and elementary forms of language with which a child begins to make use of words. As Wittgenstein has stated in The Blue and Brown Books, the study of the language-game is the study of primitive forms of language, or primitive languages (Wittgenstein, 1960: 17). However, language-games are not conceived as more or less simple versions of real, everyday language. On the contrary, language-games are considered as complete systems of language, as languages complete in themselves, as complete systems of human communication. To keep this point of view in mind, Wittgenstein finds it useful to imagine such a simple language to be the entire system of communication of a tribe in a primitive society. As a classic, prototypic example of a primitive language-game meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B, Wittgenstein presents the picture of a builder and his assistant. This primitive language-game is scrutinized for the insights it affords on this or that characteristic of language. Wittgensteins example of the builders is meant to be a microscopic example of language use, which shows that language is an activity of giving names to objects, or of attaching labels to things. For instance, a builder may instruct an assistant as to what type of stone is needed for the construction of a building, by saying slab, or block, or pillar, or beam, according to the order in which the building-stones are needed, so that the assistant can bring the right type of stone for the construction of the building. However, the naming of an object is only a preparation for an anticipated move in the language-game. Linguistic movement occurs when a sentence is constructed, such as, Bring me a slab, or Bring me a beam. To Wittgenstein, what connects the word bloc' to the object bloc is a function of the communication system, i.e., the language-game within which it occurs. This language-game resembles the simple forms of language that help us to understand how language begins, the roots of language. Let us now consider an expansion of language. Besides the four words block, pillar, etc., further this and there are used in connection with a pointing gesture; later a, b, c, d are added, as numerals, and, finally, a number of colour samples. Builder A gives an order like: d---slab---there. At the same time, he shows the assistant a colour sample, and, when he says there, he points to a place on the building site. From the stock of slabs, builder B takes one slab for each letter of the alphabet up to d, of the same colour as the sample and brings them to the place indicated by A. On other occasions, builder A gives the order thisthere. At this, he points to a building stone. And so on (Wittgenstein, 1976: 3-5). The above-mentioned language-game of the builders may be considered as a kind of thought experiment of how people, either from the same culture or from different cultures, communicate with each other. Thus, if language is to be a means

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of communication, there must be agreement not only in definitions, but also in judgements. It is remarkable to mention that Wittgenstein has attached vital importance to the usefulness of games, since language is like a game that has imprecise rules that work well enough for us to communicate with one another. Thus, in order to describe language, Wittgenstein has used the games metaphor, because games exhibit several features shared by aspects of language: Games do not have a single essence (Olympic games, card games, board games, ball games), but exhibit family resemblance. Likewise, language has no single essence, but is a vast collection of different practices, each with its own logic (language-games). The rules of language are analogous to the rules of games. Meaning something in a language is analogous to making a move in a game. The analogy between a language and a game brings out the fact that only in the various and multiform activities of human life do words have meaning. Wittgenstein suggests that a helpful guideline for the analysis of language is the meaning determined by the rules of the various, overlapping, language-games or regions. Each language can be represented as a vast, interrelated network of words and sentences. Each region develops independently and has its own grammar or rules, that can change based on the changing culture. There exist many similarities or family resemblances among their individual grammars. These similarities do not operate in the same way. At the same time, these grammars have things in common. These grammars, rules, or forms of life are the final justification for our particular conceptualizations and communications. The ultimate justification given for any standard of meaning and truth within a language structure is a pragmatic one. One language goal is the communication of information. However, there are other functions of language as well, which necessitate various standards. Commands, questions, rituals, and poetry are all important and depend on other standards for achieving their purpose. It would seem that, according to Wittgensteins approach, truth, as well as meaning, is determined by use. Agreement in the use of a statement within a region of language, or according to forms of life, becomes the standard of truth. Thus, truth will vary in concurrence with the different purposes and functions of language (Wittgenstein, 1976: 86). Human beings agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions, but in the form of life. The concepts of language-game and forms of life, which are inexorably connected to one another, are the most important concepts in Wittgensteins later

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philosophy. Wittgenstein sees language as a primarily social activity: to imagine a language is to imagine a life-form (Wittgenstein, 1976: 8). So, the term, languagegame, is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life4 (Wittgenstein, 1976: 11). That is, Wittgensteins tendency is to see language as a tool bound up with the form of life we engage in. Language is not something complete and autonomous that can be investigated independently of other considerations, because language is woven into all human activities: a language is part of the fabric of an inclusive form of life. Language is inextricably tied up with peoples lives, with their way of life. Language touches all aspects of ones life; hence, to understand language means to understand people and to be able to relate to them. Language is enmeshed with the world and our forms of life, which are the culture and society from which they emerged. Forms of life combine the most diverse elements according to rules which are flexible and varied. The language-game is representative of a form of life (Kramer, 2003). A language-game itself is not a form of life, but a part of it. The linguistic symbols we use and exchange are dependant upon a particular form of life, in which it operates. It is the form of life which constitutes the pattern of judgements through its shared practices and procedures, which are enclosed in the language of the particular group. Customs, practice, activities make up a form of life which depends on culture, context, and history. Human beings give value to things and it is the human agreement that makes things true. All our moral, ethical values, and measures are conventional; they are all dependent on customs, uses of language, and forms of life. A form of life can be anything to a society, culture, group, institution, discipline, or a religion. It is the lived inter-subjectivity of a form of life that creates the verification conditions that allow words and sentences - even those about invisible objects to have definite uses and meanings, in spite of the wide variety of language-games that we play (University Essays, 2003). We think it reasonable to introduce some properties of language-games which are noticed in Wittgensteins comments. Language-games consist of language and the actions into which it is woven. Language-games are fictional examples of language use that are simpler than the entirety of our own everyday language. Language-games are phenomena bearing a family resemblance to each other.
4

Authors emphasis. (Ed.)

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Language-games are simple uses of language with which children are first taught language. Language-games are a part of a broader context termed as a form of life. Language-games are a concept pointing at the rule-governed character of language. This does not entail strict and definite systems of rules for each and every language-game, but points to the conventional nature of this sort of human activity. Language-games are processes, such as those of naming different stones blocks, slabs, and so on, or repeating words after someone else. So, Wittgensteins central point is that language is a game and playing the particular language-game is engaging in a certain form of life. Language is dynamic, the meaning is not located in the word, but is determined by its usage, which a society or a group has come to agree upon. This makes language a social phenomenon and that is what Wittgenstein means by form of life. The theory of language is a kind of human natural history, which describes one form of human behaviour. The rules of the language-game are not determined by the nature of the world, but by the training provided by the corrections and the example of other speakers. One cannot simply determine the truth for oneself, because it is not external reality, but the interaction with others that determines the correct statements. The role of this interaction rules out either a private language, or an absolute truth, independent of the standards of a linguistic community. Meaning, indeed, is just usage, and there are no independent senses that are to be matched up with reality to determine truth or falsehood (Hayek, 1992: 20-22). To sum up the analysis of Wittgensteins tenets concerning language-games, we should note that Wittgenstein has used the term, language-game, to designate forms of language simpler than the entirety of a language itself, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, and connected by family resemblance.

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CONCLUSION
Johan Huizingas ideas concerning the concepts, game and culture, played a decisive role in the 20th Century philosophy and culturology. Hence, it is no wonder that Wittgensteins ideas concerning games bear a certain similarity with the interpretations of the concept, game, provided by Huizinga. Huizinga and Wittgenstein manifest a common denominator by saying that human activity (including any kind of linguistic action performed within the language) is a (language) game. Both Huizinga and Wittgenstein attach importance to the rules of games, depicting game as an activity, which is governed by rules and which develops according to its rules. Furthermore, Huizinga and Wittgenstein consider game to be a methodological means of (understanding) getting at the meanings of words in any given language. Despite some various starting points, the interpretations of the concept, game, provided by Huizinga and Wittgenstein, are related by a direct or indirect reference to communication as the deep basis of culture. To throw light on the difference of Huizingas and Wittgensteins interpretations of the concept, game, this author would like to point out that Huizinga is interested in the general essence of games, whereas, to Wittgenstein, the concept, game, is nothing but a metaphor, since, using the concept, game, Wittgenstein simply means any kind of action performed by means of language: be it a question, a command, a request, etc. It is of prime importance to note that if Huizinga emphasizes the aesthetic and entertaining functions of the concept, game, Wittgenstein concentrates on its cognitive and communicative functions. To sum up the analysis of Huizingas and Wittgensteins understanding and description of the concept, game, this author should state that Huizinga regards game as culture, while Wittgenstein views it not only as a unity of language and behaviour, but also as a unity of language and culture.

REFERENCES
Hayek, F. A. (1992). Remembering My Cousin Ludwig Wittgenstein. In The Fortunes of Liberalism: Essays on Austrian Economics and the Ideal of Freedom, pp. 20 22. Caldwell, B., Ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Huizinga, J. (1997). Homo ludens. Moskva: Kultura Progress. Ma, L. (2004). Is there an essential difference between intercultural and intracultural communication? Retrieved from http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr6/lin.htm Only a Game, (2006). Retrieved 04/language_games.html from http://onlyagame.typepad.com/only_a_game/2006/

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Scott, A. (2002). Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations. Retrieved from http://www.angelfire.com/ md2/timewarp/investigations.html University Essays. (2003). What does Wittgensteins idea of a Form of Life tell us about our moral beliefs? Retrieved from http://www.universityessays.com/example-essays/philosophy/wittgensteinform-of-life.php Wittgenstein, L. (1960). The Blue and Brown Books. New York. Harper and Brothers Publishers. M. Anscombe, G. E. M. and Wright, G. H. von, Eds. XIV. Wittgenstein, L. (1966). Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief. Cyril Barrett, C. Ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, L. (1976). Philosophical Investigations, VIII. Translated by Anscombe, G. E. M. Second edition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Semiotics and Translation of Literary Works

Diana HAMBARDZUMYAN

ABSTRACT
The analysis of an artistic work and its translation from various points of view has remained alive through the 20th Century and into the 21st Century and has gained new impetus from semiology and translation studies. In due course, this process has led to various interpretations and evaluations of an artistic work and its translation, according to the contemplations of F. de Saussures, L. Hjelmslevs, and B. Malinowskis, in this case viewed by F. Dinneen, the outstanding modern scholar. The purpose of the present article is apparent: with the help of the scholars mentioned above, to answer the question: How can codes be broken so as to help the reader/the translator to conceive the text and interpret it in the translation? Hence, how several problems of semiology and translation studies are involved in the translation of a literary work? In the world of globalization, it is undeniable that the usage of this or that language becomes more or less preferable. Nowadays, the use of English is growing worldwide; therefore, translation work is greatly needed in the sphere of official documents, to say nothing of literary works, in order to break national and cultural barriers and frontiers (Eynaud, 2004). The translation of an artistic work is commonly considered to be a semiotic interpretation of the original. If it is true, the translator should have a distinct idea of the sign and its properties. Analyzing the essence of the sign from the point of view of its existence and function, and trying to differentiate between the signs co-occurring in an utterance and the signs occurring and not occurring in an utterance, according to Ferdinand de Saussures linguistic views, F. Dinneen states quite comprehensively that, on the one hand,
every sign, simple or syntagm, exists and functions by contrast with other signs which do not occur in an utterance, on the other hand, every sign, simple or syntagm, also exists and functions by contrast with other signs that actually do cooccur with it. (Dinneen, 1995: 252)

So as to make the above-mentioned quotation generally understandable and explicit, we consider the following definitions proper and quite helpful:

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D. Hambardzumyan Signs have two dimensions, the paradigmatic and the syntagmatic By definition, paradigmatic tells us that it is a set of signs, those of which that have a common function For example: a set of verbs, nouns, etc. On the other hand, the syntagmatic is known to be the chain of signifiers, refers to the combination of signifiers taken from a paradigm to form a meaningful order. It is commonly found in drawing, painting and photography, drama, cinema, television and the world wide web. A few examples of which are sentences (which make up paragraphs), paragraphs (which make up chapters), chapters, and print advertisement. (Paradigm and Syntagm, 2008)

In this case, it should be noted, that the paradigmatic signs are equivalent to those of simple signs. If an artistic text is known to be a super sign (linguistic sign), then its constituent linguistic sub-signs (sentences, word combinations, and words) also exist and function by contrast with other signs which do not occur in an utterance and cooccur with it (Dinneen, 1995). Hence, the translation of an artistic text becomes a semiotic interpretation of linguistic and extra-linguistic signs, which compose the original. More than that, the translation of an artistic text involves the solution of several problems of semiology and translation studies. A logical question arises then: how can any text, in a definite language, be equivalent to the same text in quite another language? This is a far from being rhetorical question, when dealing with the translation process. In this case, de Saussure1 again comes to our help. When analyzing the linguistic value, the scholar distinguishes between linguistic identities and linguistic realities, explaining that the difference between them arises from the central role of the linguistic value. His further interpretation of value enables us to draw parallels between value within a system and value between systems. It becomes quite apparent that Value within a system depends on the number of similar elements involved; value between systems depends on dissimilar pairs of sets of comparable elements. (Dinneen, 1995: 253) So, an artistic work can be analyzed as a value within a system, whereas the translation of an artistic work is to be analyzed as a value between systems. Trying to follow the logical path of text analyses, one should go beyond the horizontal text and come up to the global vertical context of the original, which is also to be adequately presented in its translated version. In point, F. Dinneen interprets de Saussures contemplations and confirms:
Items of considerably different composition can have the same function, the same value, appear in identical environments. Gold or paper (money) is comparable in that fashion; words, morphological constructions, phrases or clauses within a language, or
1

Saussure, F. de. (1959). Course in General Linguistics, quoted in Dinneen (1995) (Ed.).

Semiotics and Translation between languages, can be reckoned equivalent (as having the same or comparable value) in the same way. (Dinneen, 1995: 253)

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The conclusion is that the two texts, in different languages, can be equivalent as much as linguistic and extra - linguistic signs between languages can be reckoned equivalent. Various scholars have so far claimed to explain the interrelation between the real linguistic fact and problems in translation. Among them, B. Malinowski has a unique approach to language, explicit in the following passage:
It might seem that the simplest task in any linguistic enquiry would be the translation of individual terms. In reality, the problem of defining the meaning of a single word and of proceeding correctly in the translation of terms is as difficult as any which will face us. Isolated words are, in fact, only linguistic figments, the products of an advanced linguistic analysis. The sentence is, at times, a self-contained linguistic unit, but not even a sentence can be regarded as a full linguistic datum. To us, the real linguistic fact is the full utterance within its context of situation.(Malinowski, 1965: 11)

Thus, its inevitable to conclude that linguistic elements can be defined only in cultural contexts; therefore, it is true that language use is one form of cultural functioning. To interpret any artistic text means to make explicit the nuances and properties of the real world built up by the author through his/her unique language, speech, style, estimations, characterizations, images, and the knowledge of the reality. Only after having analyzed the above-mentioned layers of an artistic work, will the translator be able to transfer them adequately from one language into another as if doing nothing but a mere interpretation of the source text. Every artistic work is made up of various symbolic elements through which concrete artistic images are created. Symbolic artistic images are generally apt to introduce real phenomena, events and activities, people and their psychology as complete, true and final signs. Its a widely known view that reading and understanding an artistic work is not an easy task to fulfil, as serious reading demands a lot of logical, analytical and synthetic activities for defining implicit and explicit codes as proper keys to the authors intention and the artistic, philosophical, and aesthetic value of the work. As any linguistic sign is known to be a language and speech phenomenon, any literary text, which comprises various linguistic and extra-linguistic signs, should be interpreted as a super-sign with its sub-signs. Thus, another question arises: How can codes be broken so as to help the reader/the translator to conceive the text and interpret it in the translation? Following Hjelmslevs contemplations on form and language, Dinneen states,

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D. Hambardzumyan The analysis of text in general, then can be understood as a form of catalysis, through which the form is encatalyzed to the substance, and the language 2 encatalyzed to the text. (PTL, 96) This is how codes are broken: a consistent principle of deformation conceals normally formed messages. We guess what that principle is and apply it to the text. If correct, we have encatalyzed form to substance. (Dinneen, 1995: 350)

We should like to finish the interpretation of the present issue bringing forward L. Hjelmslevs summary, quoted in the Dinneens work, which is very suited to the research of an artistic work and its translation from linguistic and semiotic points:
if the form is a language, we call it the linguistic schema. The variable in a manifestation (the manifesting) can, in agreement with de Saussure, be called the substance; a substance which manifests a linguistic schema we call a linguistic usage. From these premises, we are led to the formal definition of a semiotic as a hierarchy, any of whose components admits of a further analysis into classes defined by mutual relation, so that any of these classes admits of an analysis into derivates defined by mutual mutation (PTL, 106). (Dinneen, 1995: 351)

The conclusion is more than obvious: between any artistic work and its translation can and should be made parallel analytical interpretations, from linguistic and semiotic angles, in order to estimate the adequacy level of the translation.

REFERENCES
Dinneen, F. (1995). General Linguistics. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Eynaud J. (2004). Wanted: Translators and interpreters. The Linguist, 43, 3, 80-81. London: The Institute of Linguists. Hjelmslev, L. (1961). Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. (Transl. by Francis Whitfield). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Malinowski, B. (1965). Coral Gardens and Their Magic. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Paradigm and Syntagm, (2008). Retrieved from http://admuisawthesign.blogspot.com/2008/10/ paradigm-and-syntagm.html Saussure, F. de. (1959). Course in General Linguistics. (Transl. by W. Baskin). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hjelmslev, L. (1961). Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, as cited in Denneen (1995). (Ed.)

The Cognitive Aspect of Lexicalization in English and Armenian

Lilit BADALYAN

ABSTRACT
The aim of the present article is to study the peculiarities of cognitive processes that underlie the lexicalization patterns in the English and Armenian languages. It is the first attempt to compare the preferences displayed by the two languages for lexicalization patterns based on Talmys cross-linguistic typology, which distinguishes two types of languages: the so-called satellite-framed languages and verb-framed languages. Talmy (1985; 1991) and Slobin (1997) point out that English is a satelliteframed language, where motion verbs tend to incorporate manner to their core meaning and path is expressed by a variety of other devices (satellites) such as particles, prepositions, verb affixes, etc. Based on Talmys investigations, a classification was set up according to which all the Indo-European languages, except the Romance languages, are described as satellite-framed (Saeed, 2003: 265). It is common knowledge that word meaning can be analyzed in terms of a set of more general meaning components, some or all of which are common to groups of words in a language or cross-linguistically. It is assumed that there can be identified meaning components which may or may not be lexicalized in particular languages and the possible combinations of such components within word roots lead to the identification of lexicalization patterns varying across languages. As argued, words can only be adequately described by making reference to a structured background of experience, beliefs or practices, constituting a kind of conceptual pre-requisite for understanding the meaning (Fillmore and Atkins, 1992: 76). Thus, the study of the characteristic ways in which a language packages semantic material into words and the revelation of universal versus language-specific lexicalization patterns may contribute to a better understanding of the national peculiarities of cognitive processes. The researches on lexicalization of meaning components attempt to identify preferences displayed by (groups of) languages for lexicalization patterns. One of the most widely discussed proposals concerning verb typologies is Talmys idea (1985) that languages fall into two types, according to how they encode primary events in verbs (particularly, motion verbs) and satellites. In the socalled satellite-framed languages, like English, German, and Russian, motion verbs tend to incorporate manner to their core meaning (e.g., shuffle, tip-toe, crawl, etc.) and path is expressed by a variety of other devices (satellites) such as particles (out), prepositions (into the room), verb affixes, etc, whereas in verb-

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framed languages like Modern Greek (Papafragou and Selimis, 2007), Romance, Turkish and Japanese (Matsumoto, 2003), verbs tend to incorporate path, expressing manner with an additional complement. Languages of this type have a whole series of verbs that express motion along various paths. The distinction is not meant to imply that the relevant languages lack certain kinds of verb altogether. For instance, English has path verbs, such as enter, exit, ascend and descend, and verb-framed languages have manner verbs. But the most characteristic (i.e., colloquial and frequent) way of describing motion in the two types of languages involves manner and path verbs, respectively. The present study attempts to examine Talmys cross-linguistic typology of lexicalization patterns in the domains of English and Armenian motion verbs. We have based our analysis on sixty-five English and twenty-five Armenian motion verbs that encode manner of motion and the data extracted (2,500 sentences) from the British National Corpus [BNC] (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/) and (500 sentences) from Eastern Armenian National Corpus [EANC] (http:// www.eanc.net). The study of the contexts the verbs are used in gives a better insight to the correlation between combination of meaning components and syntactic properties of those verbs. The examination of the data reveals that Armenian verbs encoding manner of motion greatly yield to the corresponding English verbs in number. If we divide the selected verbs into subgroups, based on their common semes, namely the semantic component of the type of manner, we see that in one of the groups the number of English and Armenian verbs nearly coincide: these are the verbs that denote the action of moving slowly across or around an area without purpose or for pleasure, such as to wander, to roam, to ramble, to rove, to saunter, to stroll, to amble, in English and taparel, degerel, shrjel, pttel, zbosnel, chemel, in Armenian, while in many groups English verbs outnumber the Armenian ones. For example, in Armenian, we have netvel, slanal, sural, whereas the corresponding English group consists of seven verbs, such as, to rush, to dart, to dash, to bolt, to swoop, to zoom. The English verbs, to climb, to clamber, to scramble, have one counterpart in Armenian, namely, maglcel; to limp and to hobble are translated as kaghal; to creep and to crawl, as soghal. In addition, there is a wide range of English motion verbs denoting various kinds of walking, e.g., to scamper, to sprint, to trot, to gallop, to scurry, to stride, to bob, to plod, to tiptoe, etc., that have no Armenian equivalents at all. Armenian has to resort to descriptive method of translation, such as: qaratrop gnal [to go galloping]; lain qailerov gnal [to walk with wide steps]; matneri tsaireri vra qailel [to walk on tip toes]; tsanroren qailel [to walk with difficulty]. The componential analysis of English verbs shows that they comprise synonymic sets, the members of which have differentiating semes, such as path of the action, the cause or the aim of the action. For example:

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to dart to move suddenly and quickly in a particular direction; to bolt to suddenly start to run very fast because you are frightened; to swoop to move suddenly and steeply through the air (of a bird or aircraft), especially to attack something; to lurch to move suddenly forwards or sideways, usually because you cant control your movement; to falter to move unsteadily because you suddenly feel weak or afraid. Languages are thought to be comparable in conveying information, but they generally differ in the amount and type of information that can be expressed. It is known that the more significant an object or concept is to a community, the greater the tendency to lexicalize the label used to denote it. Judging by the linguistic material under study, we can assume that the concept of motion with its various manifestations is more significant for the English, as there is a whole series of verbs in common use that express motion occurring in various manners or having various causes. As we have already mentioned, the combination of semantic components may determine the syntactic peculiarities of verbs. The analysis of the selected sentences reveals that English and Armenian verbs of motion display different syntactic properties. English manner verbs seem to freely combine with different kinds of path modifiers, the so-called satellites (particles, adverbs, prepositional phrases) that express a component of the motion event scenario not contained within the meaning of the verb to denote culminated motion in different directions. For example: We wandered round the streets until dawn. Margaret shrugged and sauntered through the door. He strolled over to the little Park Police Station among the trees. Arthur ambled slowly across the lawn. She waddled to and fro. Rohmer staggered away from the wall, eyes blazing with fury, hand massaging his wrist. Then clutching his suitcase, he tottered down on to the platform. So I tiptoed downstairs when she knocked at the door. I hobbled out onto the hillside. He just trotted northwards, thinking to fire some more rifle shots from the farm by the ford. He zipped himself up and strode onwards. As seen from the examples, the majority of satellites expressed by particles often combine with a prepositional phrase, which can be deleted. Thus, the use of

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some satellites enables to omit the component of ground from the sentence. For example: He clicked his teeth and trotted past. Conversation drifted over you as families sauntered by. Cranston glared back at him and waddled over. I tiptoed away, and joined the men. He shuffled off. After he had clambered across he searched again, feeling desperate. Of course the horse named Bess, which I was given, had a mind of its own, since it would always be eating and, when it was not, it only plodded along The study of Armenian sentences shows that, in some cases, the Armenian verbs that incorporate both path and manner in their meanings may denote culminated action without any satellite or with the satellites depi (to), ners (into), erkainqov (along). For example: Erku or votqov taparec Tbilisii poghocnerum, eghav shukanerum [wandered the streets ] Voghj gisher degerec antarum [roamed the woods] Khumby maglcec mi blurov ev durs ekav gyughi vra [climbed a hill] na mi qani angam chemec senyaki erkarutyamb [sauntered along the room] Mot erku kilometr avton dandagh araj soghac [the car crawled forward] na tsanr ver kacav, anhuis kshtambanqov nayec Bagratin u chochvec depi dury [staggered to the door] araheti voloranic duilery dzerqin durs ekav varichi Margon ev dandagh shororac depi aghbyury [ambled to the spring.] However, Armenian lacks the equivalents of such satellites as: off, across, by, away, etc.; it needs to switch to a path verb and optionally encode manner in a modifier expressed by a manner verb. As for Armenian verbs encoding only manner in their meanings, they fail to denote culminated motion in some direction and they usually function as adverbial modifiers of manner. For example: Kaisry zbosnelov hasnum e partezi patsggambin [reaches the balcony sauntering ] miain loghazgesti mej chemelov mtav jur. [... entered/went-into the water sauntering.] mi or Ashot Moiseevichy mi geghecik knoj het hangist chemelov ijnum er Abovyan poghocov. [ went-down the street strolling.] Margaritan, chochvelov, motecav seghanin u henvec dran. [ approached/ went-up-to the table staggering/ tottering.]

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Heto catkec mi koghm u ereralov qailec depi urinery, vor sharishar kangnayts ein getapin. [ walked to the willows staggering.] Nkarichy maglcelov bardzracel er ashtarakadzev qarakarkari gagaty. [... wentup/ ascended to the top climbing.] U shoraralov heracav. [And went-away/left ambling.] Aveli lav e soghalov khckvel vrani tak u qnel hangist, qan te soghalov ktrel amboghj bacaty. [ go-across/ cross the lawn crawling.] Out of the 2,500 sentences, extracted from BNC, we found only 25 examples in which English manner verbs function as adverbial modifiers of manner, for the predicate expressed by a path verb. For example: Two figures, which had been walking ahead of them, suddenly turned and came sauntering back. Blazer had come ambling up again. She came waddling up to me. Two horses came plodding into view Gazzer came hobbling after he had cramp in one of his legs. But the great grave ocean comes climbing up the beach. While his hungry young brothers went scampering past. Just then, Donna, who worked on the front desk, came trotting across the lawn towards them. It is worth mentioning that in English, unlike in Armenian, the path verb is mainly to come and, judging by the examples, the pattern come + participle I of manner verbs is an emphatic one. So, the compact way of expressing motion in English is often unavailable in Armenian, which can be partly accounted for by the existence of a highly developed system of satellites in English (e.g., across, by, off, etc.) that the Armenian language lacks. Thus, our analysis leads us to assume that Armenian may be ranged among verb-framed languages.

REFERENCES
Fillmore, C., and Atkins, B. T. (1992). Towards a frame-based lexicon: The semantics of RISK and its neighbours. In Leher, A., et al., (Eds.), Frames, Fields, and Contrasts: New Essays in Semantics and Lexical Organization. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Matsumoto, Y. (2003). Typologies of lexicalization patterns and event integration: Clarifications and reformulations. In Shuji Chiba et al. (Eds.), Empirical and Theoretical Investigations into Language: A Festschrift for Masaru Kajita. Tokyo: Kaitakusha. Retrieved from http://www.lit.kobe-u.ac.jp/ ~yomatsum/typologies2.pdf Papafragou, A. and Selimis, S. (2007). Lexical and Structural Cues for Acquiring Motion Verbs CrossLinguistically. Retrieved from http://papafragou.psych.udel.edu/papers/Papafragou%20SelimisBUCLD.pdf Saeed, J. I. (2003). Semantics. Second Edition. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Slobin, D. (1997). Mind, code, and text. In Bybee J. et al., (Eds.), Essays on Language Function and Language Type: Dedicated to Talmy Givn, 437-467. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns. In Shopen, Th. (Ed.), Language Typology and Synchronic Description 3, 57-49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Also available at http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~hharley/courses/PDF/TalmyLexicalizationPatterns.pdf Talmy, L. (1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 480-519. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

Contrastive Analysis of Excessiveness in English and Armenian

Hasmik S. KAJBERUNY

ABSTRACT
The different verbal organization of the concept, excessiveness, in English and Armenian, may be observed in the difference of the semantic structure of correlated words that are both of intralinguistic and extralinguistic nature. Contrastive analysis has revealed not only common, but also some specific features, which are determined by national (English and Armenian) language creativity mechanisms. Two-level analysis (definitional and contextual) has made it possible to reveal differential semes, which serve as the basis for semantic stretching, as well as to illustrate the actualization of different meanings of polysemantic/polysemous words underlying the concept, excessiveness, in the text. This paper seeks to probe into the contrastive analysis of the concept, excessiveness, with a view to disclosing the ways to express the concept under study. It is common knowledge that concepts are the phenomena of reality which are the bearers of the nations cultural inheritance and, therefore, have a great number of language units for their expression. The concept, excessiveness, is one of the most significant concepts regarding the fact that language units constituting it have a complicated intersection with both qualitative-evaluative and quantitative scales: they express the quantitative correlation of the greatest/highest degree of something, abundance, redundancy, as well as exaggeration. Of special interest are lexical units that, apart from their meaning, convey some additional information and, thus, comprise some element of evaluation in them. The evaluative component may find its way into the definition of a vocabulary unit in the form of different indicators, which are suggestive enough by themselves: inordinately, exorbitantly, exceedingly, excessively, and the like. Definitional analysis of the data extracted from different monolingual dictionaries (Aghayan, 1976; Collins, 1995; LDOCE, 1995; Morehead, 1978; Websters, 1991) has yielded the following emotive-evaluative groups of lexical units: Adjectives, describing mans appearance and those suggestive of mans intellectual and psychological characteristics and inclinations;

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Verbs, expressing a kind of attitude towards (i.) peoples behaviour and (ii.) different phenomena of reality. In regard to adjectives describing mans appearance, in both languages, we have singled out synonymic sets, bearing endearing colouring, as well as the ones which bear negative evaluation:
English Positive evaluation plump, fleshy, chubby corpulent, obese, squab Negative evaluation

Armenian chaghlik, klorik, tmblik hastamarmin, msegh, marmnegh, csmpor

The same phenomenon can be observed in the case of the verbs denoting excessiveness with regard to peoples behaviour and attitude to different phenomena of reality.
English Positive evaluation idolize, glorify, worship idealize, immortalize Negative evaluation overcharge, inflate, overstress, over praise out-Herod Herod, overvalue, overplay, outplay

Armenian parabanel, govergel, dzonel astvacsacsnel, anmahacsnel, haverzhacsnel geragnahatel, urtchacsnel ptchnazardel

It is now universally recognized that, although objective reality exists outside human beings and irrespective of the language they speak, every language classifies reality in its own way, by means of vocabulary units. Of great importance is the investigation of lexical restrictions on collocability that are of purely intralinguistic nature and cannot be accounted for by extralinguistic, logical considerations. This can be best illustrated by comparing the collocability of different wordgroups in the languages under study. For example, the English, monumental, in:

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Monumental blunder emphasizes the size, or extent of something; Monumental book emphasizes the importance of something, or its being impressive; Monumental building emphasizes its being artistically and historically impressive. The same phenomenon can be noticed in Armenian: artakarg mijocsner extraordinary measures artakarg depq emergency case artakarg hetakrkir extremely interesting Alongside common features, we singled out some specific features, determined by the national English and Armenian language creativity mechanisms. The analysis of the semantic structure of lexical units under study, in English, has revealed some regularity, which is not typical of the Armenian vocabulary system. In English, a great number of the lexical units and their derivatives under study undergo the process of semantic extension. Moreover, there is a strong tendency for the vocabulary of the English language to undergo the process of further semantic extension, thus reflecting different aspects of reality by means of the same lexical units. These cases are indicative of the qualitative semantic growth, which is one of the peculiarities of the English language. Thus, the English monster can denote: (1) (2) (3) a cruel person: Only a monster could kill those women; extremely large: The film will be a monster hit; a dangerous or threatening problem: The monster of apartheid is looming up.

To go deeper into the problem, we find it necessary to analyse different collocations with the words in question. mammoth corporation is extremely large draconian laws or measures are extremely harsh and severe gargantuan corruption scandal emphasizes its propositions and is indicative of a dangerous problem or a threatening situation. It stands to reason that certain lexical items rarely, if ever, co-occur, because of restrictions inherent in the vocabulary of the language as well, as due to the extralinguistic factors. In Armenian, the words under study and their derivatives (satana, hreshain, chark, vishap, mamont, etc.) cannot convey the meaning of a threatening situation.

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The semantic analysis of words conveying the meaning an imaginary evil creature or evil spirit, which denote excessiveness, due to the transfer of meaning, has disclosed the following peculiarities: In English, the words under study have developed polar meanings in their semantic structure, which is not typical of the Armenian language. demon (1) If you approve of someone because they are very skilled or energetic, you can say they do it like a demon: He is a demon organizer (2) If you refer to a powerful person, say, a politician, as a demon, you mean that you believe they might be dangerous demonic (1) Being demon-like (2) People with demonic energy, drive or abilities are more energetic, determined or clever. devil (1) An evil spirit (2) Very energetic. He is a devil for work (3) you can use, devil, to emphasize the way you feel about someone. If you call a person poor devil, you are saying that you feel sorry for him. You can call someone you are fond of, an old devil or a little devil In the Armenian language, the words under study and their derivatives have developed only negative meanings. Hresh (1) a very ugly person; (2) a very cruel person Dev (1) a very ugly person; (2) a very cruel person The thorough analysis of polysemantic words covering different aspects of the concept, excessiveness, has yielded some more cases of coexistence of polar meanings, which is more typical of the English language. exceptional (1) gifted, talented, superior, outstanding, prodigious; (2) handicapped, below average, deficient awesome (1) wonderful, breathtaking, marvellous; (2) aweinspiring, dreadful, fearsome, horrifying, terrible unqualified (1) without qualifications; (2) without reservations: praise (inexhaustible); unqualified refusal (uncompromised) It is common knowledge that contrastive analysis may be successfully carried out if analysis is not limited to linguistic elements solely, since certain extralinguistic factors contribute to the interpretation of their causes and results. Therefore, the process of semantic stretching should be studied in social and cultural contexts. It is worth mentioning that investigation of figurative meanings yields fruitful results in disclosing the national element and bringing about some national peculiarities in interpreting the reality. The study of figurative meanings of the verb, to crow, reveals the negative evaluative component in the semantic structure of the verb:

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In English, people crow with laughter or triumph. To crow about means to talk proudly about what you have done The Armenian verb, krkral, bears only negative meaning: to draw disaster. The latter can be accounted for by extralinguistic factors: the English crow is associated with positive emotions, while for the Armenians, crow evokes only negative associations. Actually, the acquisition by the word evaluative connotation is mostly conditioned by the national tradition, i.e., by the tendency to ascribe negative or positive features to different objects of reality, in accordance with the national aesthetic perception and value system. To sum up our observations, we have applied a two-level analysis, i.e., the definitional analysis and the contextual analysis as well. The former makes it possible to reveal the inner mechanisms which function within the language system, namely, to reveal combinability rules of the lexical units under study and to disclose differential semes which serve as the basis for semantic stretching. The latter is to illustrate the actualization of different meanings of polysemantic words underlying the concept, excessiveness, in the text. Of considerable significance in this respect is the fact that figurative meanings of words conveying the meaning, excessiveness, can serve as key words for depicting characters in the text. The study of The Monster, an essay by Deems Taylor, reveals the portrait of the famous composer Richard Wagner in a little-known perspective. Richard Wagner was a monster of conceit, which had extremely high opinion of his own merits. Richard Wagner was a monster as a composer, which emphasizes his greatness and gives him a perfect right to tower over the others. The analysis of the word, demon, in the same context, made it possible to single out two differential semes: the boundless creative energy, on the one hand, and, on the other one, its destructive force which, like a demon, tormented him.
It is a matter of being dumb with wonder that his poor brain and body didn't burst 1 under the torment of the demon of creative energy that lived inside him, struggling, clawing, scratching to be released; tearing, shrieking at him to write the music that was in him. The miracle is that what he did in the little space of seventy years could have been done at all, even by a great genius. Is it any wonder that he had no time to be a man? (http://www.archive.org/stream/musicloversencyc006023mbp/music loversencyc006023mbp_djvu.txt).

Authors emphasis (Ed.).

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As can be inferred from the above, all the meanings of the word, monster, are actualized in the text and serve as basis for employing the stylistic device of pun in the title of the essay, The Monster. Contrastive analysis of derivational patterns and derivational affixes, in particular, revealed some peculiarities in the derivational system in the languages under study, namely: the pattern, ever + Gerund meaning increasing, happening or occurring more intensively is characteristic of the English language. The meaning of excessiveness is conveyed by a greater number of prefixes in English than in Armenian. In English, the meaning, excessiveness, can be expressed by prefixes: over-; super-; ultra-; multi-; hyper-. In Armenian, by: amena; ger/gera. In Armenian, the meaning of excessiveness can be expressed by the following suffixes: aguin; aki; avet; avor; ot; eghen; ut. The English language lacks suffixes denoting excessiveness. The ever-increasing number of new word-formations comprising the meaning of excessiveness testifies to the significance and topicality of the concept under consideration.

REFERENCES
Aghayan E. (1976). Ardi hayereni batsatrakan bararan (in Armenian). Yerevan: Hayastan. Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (1995). London: Harper Collins Publishers. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE), Third Edition, (1995). Kaleme Publisher. Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (2002). London: Macmillan. Morehead, Ph. D. (1978). Roget's College Thesaurus. New American Library. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1991). Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Part III

New Approaches to Higher Language Teaching

Implementing the Bologna Process Objectives in Translator and Interpreter Training at SSLMIT-Trieste
Maurizio VIEZZI

ABSTRACT
The paper gives an overview of translation and interpreter training at the University of Trieste as it has been developing since the implementation of the Bologna process. While in terms of curricula and course structure, the training environment has to some extent improved, facing the never-ending process of reform accompanied by constant reduction in funding has become an increasingly daunting task.

THE REFORM OF THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

In Italy, the reform of the higher education system came into force in 2000. The reform fully reflected the Sorbonne Declaration of 25 May 19981 and the Bologna Declaration of 19 June 19992 and was to be interpreted and understood in the framework of what is known as the Bologna process, i.e., the process of harmonizing higher education in Europe, aiming at the creation of the European area of higher education. The reform introduced a three-cycle higher education architecture based on a complex structure of undergraduate and graduate courses and qualifications. The most significant innovation was the transformation of the old single-level undergraduate programmes into two-level programmes: first-level degree programmes, lasting three years, at the end of which students are awarded a laurea (corresponding to the Bachelors degree of the Bologna Declaration), and second-level degree programme, lasting two years, at the end of which students are awarded a laurea specialistica, now called laurea magistrale (corresponding to the Masters degree of the Bologna Declaration). In terms of learning outcomes, first-level programmes aim at providing undergraduate students with adequate knowledge of general scientific principles,
1 2

http://www.bologna-berlin2003.de/pdf/Sorbonne_declaration.pdf (Ed.). http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/Docs/00-Main_doc/990719BOLOGNA_DECLARATION.PDF (Ed.).

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mastery of methods, as well as specific professional skills, whereas the goal of second-level degree programmes is to provide graduate students with advanced education and training for highly qualified professions in specific sectors. (http://www.miur.it/guida/guide.htm) A credit system was also introduced by the reform. Credits are units of measurement of the workload required to complete the course and the relevant learning activities (such as attendance, individual study, preparation for exams successfully, etc.). Officially, one credit corresponds to 25 hours, of which no more than 50% may be accounted for by lectures. In order to get their first-level degree, students must acquire 180 credits (60 credits per year). A further 120 credits (60 credits per year), for a total of 300, must be obtained for the second-level degree. The reform also established a number of subject areas in which university faculties may set up degree programmes. Some 40 subject areas were identified for the first cycle, and some 100 subject areas were identified for the second cycle. For each subject area, the structure of both first-level and second-level degree programmes covers six categories of subjects and educational activities: (a) basic education courses in one or more fields of study; (b) specific courses related to the degree programme; (c) courses in one or more similar or supplementary subject fields; (d) elective courses; (e) preparatory courses for the final examination (including the assessment of foreign language skills); (f) further courses aimed at improving language skills, as well as skills relating to computer studies, telematics, interpersonal skills, and any other skills considered relevant to the labour market, in particular, work experience and training. For each category, courses may be set up, choosing from the lists of subjects and activities drawn up by the Ministry of Education. In terms of credits allocated to each category, minimum requirements have also been established by the Ministry of Education and faculties are free to allocate roughly one-third of the credits. Since its implementation, the reform has undergone a process of constant adjustment and several changes have been made. While the architecture of the system has remained basically the same, greater flexibility has been introduced, in particular with reference to the allocation of credits, and the number of exams has been reduced, although the number of credits to be earned has remained the same. A new, radical, reform was then passed by the Parliament, in December 2010. Information given in this paper is accurate at the time of writing, but may become obsolete any time, in the near future.

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TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETING TRAINING IN ITALY

In Italy, there are three faculties exclusively devoted to translation and interpreting training. In principle, translation and interpreting training may be offered by any faculty, even traditional philology faculties (and some of them do, although they often lack the expertise and the human resources needed to provide high-quality training), but the faculties exclusively specialised in the training of translators and interpreters are just three: the faculty of translation and interpreting of LUSPIO University in Rome, the school for translators and interpreters (SSLiMIT) of the University of Bologna, at Forl, and the school for translators and interpreters (SSLMIT) of the University of Trieste. LUSPIO is a private university, whereas Bologna and Trieste are state universities. The faculty at LUSPIO-Rome is the youngest of the three, having been established in the late 1990s. The school in Forl was set up in 1989. SSLMIT-Trieste became a fully-fledged university faculty in 1978, but interpreter and translator training at the University of Trieste, characterized by varying levels of institutional autonomy and close links with the Faculty of Economics, dates back to 1953. All three institutions are members of the Confrence internationale permanente dInstituts Universitaires de Traducteurs et Interprtes [The international association of university institutions for translators and interpreters] (CIUTI)3; all three are members of European Masters in Translation (EMT)4 the EU-promoted network of university institutions offering translation training). SSLMIT-Trieste is also a member of the European Masters in Conference Interpreting (EMCI)5 the EUpromoted consortium of university institutions offering interpreter training. The programmes offered by the three faculties are rather similar. What follows refers specifically to Trieste, but what is done in Rome and Forl is not much different.

TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETING TRAINING AT SSLMIT-TRIESTE6

Before the reform came into force, degree programmes would take four years and their structure could be described as (2 + 2). Upon completion of the second year, students were required to choose between a 2-year translator course and a 2-year interpreter course, at the end of which they had to pass final exams, then write and
3 4 5 6

http://www.ciuti.org/ (Ed.). http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/programmes/emt/network/index_en.htm (Ed.). http://www.emcinterpreting.org/ (Ed.). http://www.ssit.unibo.it/SSLMiT/default.htm (Ed.).

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defend a thesis, before finally being awarded a translation degree or a conference interpreting degree. At present, there is a first-level degree in Interlinguistic communication and a second-level degree in Translation and Conference Interpreting or in Translation and Dialogue Interpreting. Interlinguistic Communication: first-level degree, with a length of three years; 60 credits per year for a total of 180. To be admitted, candidates should take and pass an entrance examination (http://www.miur.it/guida/guide.htm). The programme aims at producing professionals specialized in interlinguistic communication, written and oral text production, and language assistance to companies or institutions. The curriculum includes:
Subject/Activity Linguistics Italian Language and translation - Language 1 [2] [3] Language and translation - Language 2 [2] [3] Language and translation Language 3 [2] [3] Translation theory and history Computer-assisted translation Foreign Literature (Language 1) Foreign Literature (Language 2) Law and Economics Dialogue Interpreting between Italian and Language 1 [4] Dialogue Interpreting between Italian and Language 2 [4] Elective subjects [5] Internship [6] Final paper [7] Credits 6 12 36 36 24 6 6 4 4 6 6 6 12 7 9 180

[1] Admission. The entrance exam is basically a foreign language knowledge test. Students may pass the exam in English, French or German and a total of 180 students may be admitted. [2] Languages. Language 1 is the language chosen by the student for her/his entrance exam: English, French, or German. Language 2 may be chosen from among the following: Croatian, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. Language 3 may be chosen from among the following: Arabic, Croatian, Dutch, English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Slovene, and Spanish. In principle, no distinction is made between Language 1 and Language 2 and the same level of proficiency is expected for both, whereas Language 3 is taught at a lower level.

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[3] Translation. In all courses, translation is done from and into Italian and is to be understood as non-specialized. [4] Dialogue interpreting. Dialogue interpreting courses are attached considerable importance at SSLMIT-Trieste, since they have a significant predictive value as to the students potential or inclination toward an interpreting career. [5] Elective subjects. Students may freely choose from among all subjects taught at the University of Trieste. Significantly, LIS (Italian Sign Language) is among the elective subjects taught at SSLMIT-Trieste. [6] Internship. Internships are an innovation introduced by the university reform. Students are required to spend some time in a company doing work somehow related to their field of study. SSLMIT-Trieste students typically end up doing translations or multilingual secretarial work in hotels, translation agencies, travel agencies, organizing committees of international events, import-export companies, etc. [7] Final paper. After successfully passing all their exams, students are required to write and defend a thesis paper. The paper is generally 40-50 pages long and may be about any topic related to the subjects studied during the three-year degree programme. Translation and Conference Interpreting Conference interpreting stream: second-level degree with a duration of two years; 60 credits per year for a total of 120; only students successfully passing an entrance exam are admitted. [1] The degree programme aims at producing conference interpreters working in both the simultaneous and the consecutive modes. Students may choose between two curricula: Curriculum A-B-C (three languages: Italian A, one B language, and one C language) and Curriculum A-C-C-C (four languages: Italian A, and three C languages). [2] [3] Curriculum A-B-C is as follows:
Subject/Activity Italian Simultaneous and Consecutive Interpreting from B into A Simultaneous and Consecutive Interpreting from C into A Simultaneous and Consecutive Interpreting from A into B Technology for translation and interpreting Translation and Interpreting Theory [4] Tools and resources for translation and interpreting Elective subjects [5] Final exams [6] Thesis [7] Credits 6 24 24 24 6 6 4 8 18 120

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Please, find below the A-C-C-C curriculum.

Subject/Activity Italian Simultaneous and Consecutive Interpreting from C-1 into A Simultaneous and Consecutive Interpreting from C-2 into A Simultaneous and Consecutive Interpreting from C-3 into B Technology for translation and interpreting Translation and Interpreting Theory [4] Tools and resources for translation and interpreting Elective subjects [5] Final exams [6] Thesis [7] Credits 6 24 24 24 6 6 4 8 18 120

[1] Admission. Second-level degree courses last two years and award 120 credits. They are not fully autonomous, though, but closely related to and dependent on first-level degree courses. In other words, any second-degree course should actually be seen as the second part of a 5-year course, awarding a total of 300 credits. Students wishing to enrol in a second-level degree course are required to have not just any 180 credits, but 180 credits earned in specific subjects, as established by the Ministry of Education (it should be noted, though, that rules in this respect are less strict than they were when the reform was being implemented). Students who do not comply with these requirements, i.e., students who earned their credits in subjects not included in the lists drawn up by the Ministry of Education for the Conference Interpreting degree, are allowed to enrol provided they successfully pass the entrance exam. But they have to earn the right first-level credits, in addition to the 120 second-level credits. Only students who need to earn less than 80 additional credits may be admitted. The entrance exam consists of three consecutives without notes of short speeches (2-3 minutes) into/from Italian, according to each students language combination. [2] Choice of curriculum. Curriculum A-B-C addresses the needs of students planning to start an interpreting career, on the Italian freelance market, where aller/retour, i.e., interpreting from B into A and from A into B, is almost always required, whereas Curriculum A-C-C-C tends to be chosen by students aspiring to work for the European Union, where interpreters generally work into their mother tongue from as many languages as possible. [3] Languages. The following languages are offered: A Italian; B English, French, and German; C Croatian, Dutch, English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. While all languages are offered in principle, each of them is only offered if there are at least three students wishing to attend the courses.

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[4] Translation and Interpreting Theory. The importance of this course lies not only in its providing a theoretical foundation to the otherwise eminently practical interpreting courses, but also in its paving the way for the students thesis. [5] Elective subjects. Students may freely choose among all subjects taught at the University of Trieste. [6] Final exams. After successfully passing all their exams, students have to pass their final exams which consist of consecutive and simultaneous tests covering the students language combinations. [7] Thesis. After successfully passing their final exams, students are required to write and defend an original thesis on any topic related to the subjects studied during the two-year course. There are no norms concerning the dissertations length, but it is expected to be no less than 150 pages long. Translation and Conference Interpreting Translation Stream: second-level degree with a duration of two years; 60 credits per year for a total of 120; only students successfully passing an entrance exam are admitted (http://www.miur.it/guida/guide.htm). The degree programme aims at producing professional figures with high expertise in dialogue interpreting and/or translation, editing, text-production, terminology. Students may choose between two curricula: Translation/Interpreting and Translation. The translation/interpreting curriculum is as follows:
Subject/Activity Italian Specialized Translation between Language 1 and Italian [2] Specialized Translation between Language 2 and Italian [2] Dialogue Interpreting between Language 1 and Italian [3] Dialogue Interpreting between Language 2 and Italian [3] Technology for translation and interpreting Translation and Interpreting Theory [4] Tools and resources for translation and interpreting Elective subjects [5] Thesis [6] Credits 6 24 24 12 12 6 6 4 8 18 120

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The Translation curriculum is presented below.

Subject/Activity Italian Specialized Translation between Language 1 and Italian [2] Specialized Translation between Language 2 and Italian[2] Literary Translation Language 1 Literary Translation Language 2 Technology for translation and interpreting Translation and Interpreting Theory [4] Tools and resources for translation and interpreting Elective subjects [5] Thesis [6] Credits 6 24 24 12 12 6 6 4 8 18 120

[1] Admission. As regards credit requirements, what has been said with regard to the degree programme in Conference Interpreting also applies to the degree programme in Translation. The entrance exam consists of translation tests in the students language combination, with the students language being the target. [2] Languages. Just as is the case for the degree programme in Conference Interpreting, languages actually on offer depend on the number of students. In principle, the following may be offered: Croatian, Dutch, English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. [3] Dialogue Interpreting. The decision to include both specialized translation and dialogue interpreting in the same curriculum responds to market requirements as there is an expanding demand for professional figures equally at ease in oral and written translation. [4] Translation and Interpreting Theory. See above. [5] Elective subjects. See above. [6] Dissertation. See above. SSLMIT-Trieste also offers a PhD programme in Interpreting and Translation Studies. Four students are currently enrolled in what is a fairly fresh programme, inaugurated just two years ago.

MOBILITY
Before moving to some concluding comments, mention should be made of mobility. Whether through bilateral agreements with other institutions (as is the case with universities in the Russian Federation and Hungary), or in the framework of the Erasmus programme (SSLMIT-Trieste has cooperation agreements with some

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50 universities), or within the EMCI consortium, or within CIUTI, mobility is an important aspect of the activity carried out in Trieste and everybody staff and students, outgoing and incoming finds it highly useful.

FINAL COMMENTS
Has the implementation of the Bologna process been beneficial to translation and interpreting training? The answer is YES. There are at least three reasons why things are better now. The first: graduates reach the market after five years of university education and training, and five years are better than four in terms of knowledge, experience, and maturity. The second: translation and interpreting training is only open to graduates and this is a clear advantage for both teaching and learning. The third: selection procedures are targeted and therefore more effective. On the negative side, the introduction of credits has often led to shorter courses and to an approach to teaching/learning based on quantity, rather than quality. The real problem over the past ten years, though, has been the constant process of changes, adjustments, amendments making academic life rather difficult for both administration and teaching staff. Not to mention the steady decrease in funding for some perverse reason money spent on education is often seen as a cost, not as an investment. Derek Bok,7 former president of Harvard University, famously said if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. Unfortunately, many governments appear to be inclined to give it a try.

Derek Bok (b. 1930) president of Harvard University (1971-1991), and interim president of the same (20062007). Details at http://president.harvard.edu/history/25_bok.php (Ed.).

Internalized Language Learning through LQuests

Lusine FLJYAN

ABSTRACT
The article discusses the use of content-based methods applied in studying foreign languages. Learning through LQuests provides a powerful digital learning environment for language learners, develops problem-solving skills, and promotes learning analysis of complex concepts. Thus, LQuests are the most useful, among the internalized activities. The LQuests can help modern teachers of English to relate learning to the world, to enhance and replace textbook-based learning approaches, and to support transdisciplinary curriculum activities. During the last few decades, the content of education has greatly changed due to the adjustments taking place in modern social life, related to world globalization and the brisk pace of the development of computer technologies. These two essential factors have considerably influenced all the spheres of human life and make us retrace and reinterpret all traditional methods and approaches, and adapt them to the new lifestyle requirements. Education, as the most significant, essential, sphere of human life, has become one of the basic ways of integrating a man into the global world society. As we have already entered the new millennium, there are two realities that people should accept from the very beginning: the first is that English is an essential world language; the second is that the Internet is the largest and richest source of information. Contemporary education should explore the possibilities of combining the two, aiming at developing a new learning strategy, focussed on integrating the Internet into the academic curriculum. Modern education calls for content-based methods applied in studying any discipline. In the acquisition of a second or foreign language, content-based methods are especially important, given the students linguistic needs and learning styles. Todays students need not only to understand the information, but also to interpret and evaluate it, which requires the ability to synthesize facts and ideas from multiple sources of information. There are at least two benefits of content-based studying. First, according to Brinton et al. (1989), if the students are given multiple opportunities to interact with authentic, meaningful, and challenging material, the result is better learning. Second, students motivation is enhanced with the use of authentic materials relevant to their goals. Content-based pedagogy promotes synthesizing and

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evaluating, and helps students improve their academic skills by raising their awareness of the concepts of audience and purpose. The Web is one of the best learning tools that fit well in a content-based Englishas-a-second-language syllabus. Among the benefits of the Internet use in the second and foreign language classroom, the most important are: Wonderful stimulus for second language learning, as computer-assisted language programmes provide a lot of communicative activities, allow for repeated lessons, as often as necessary, and reduce the learning stress. Increased student motivation and participation. More opportunities to interact with the target language and content area, as students spend more time on accomplishing their tasks. Greater integration of reading and writing skills and opportunities to practice them in meaningful contexts. The possibility to implement pedagogy based on problem-solving and critical thinking. More self-paced autonomous learning that is learner- rather than teachercontrolled. The Internet provides the resources necessary to carry out authentic analysis and develop the students communicative competence. Activities that can exploit Internet resources for English, as a second and foreign language, take many forms. March differentiates the following types of activities: topic hotlists, multimedia scrapbooks, knowledge hunts, subject samplers, and Web Quests (March, 1999). The first two are activities for learners new to the World Wide Web and are limited to simply exploring and downloading Internet resources. A topic hotlist is a webpage containing sites categorized by topic. A multimedia scrapbook is a collection of Internet sites organized into categories such as photos, maps, video clips, etc. A knowledge hunt develops students comprehension of a topic by providing links to websites with the information on that topic and by posing key questions concerning the sites. A subject sampler is an activity designed to set students to develop an effective connection to a topic, by responding to web sites with a personal perspective. According to B. Dodge, WebQuests are inquiry-based activities, in which learners interact with information coming primarily from resources on the Internet (Dodge, 2001). WebQuests are successfully used not only for studying languages, but other subjects as well, e.g., Maths WebQuest, History Webquest, etc. WebQuests applied to language studying have accepted the name of

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LanguageQuests, shorter, LQuests. They provide a powerful digital learning environment for language learners, develop problem-solving skills, and promote learning analysis of complex concepts, which makes them the most useful among the internalized activities. The essence of a WebQuest is the development of the main research question that should be solved by the students on the Internet. The students are supposed to identify the quest, to work on it, and to create a final product. Designing an efficient LQuest requires taking into account a series of important aspect: Students age, grade, language command; The availability, appropriateness, and usability of Internet resources; The curricular contents, that is, the didactic unit in which the WebQuest will be integrated; Linguistic objectives in relation to vocabulary, form, use of language; Non-linguistic objectives, that is, collaboration skills, time organization, social values. Any WebQuest should necessarily observe steps or parts described in the paragraphs below. An introduction is needed to explain the activity and provide background information. The goal of the introduction is to make the activity desirable and fun for students. Not all the topics are good to be explored with the WebQuest format, especially in a second or foreign language. There should be some reasons to choose the format of a WebQuest, instead of a different one, among which: There are good resources on the selected topic. The topic can be examined in a way that requires a degree of understanding that goes beyond mere comprehension. When selecting a better topic for an LQuest, it is necessary to list the topics that are available in the students interest for at least a few years. The next step of designing an LQuest resides in defining the task that should be feasible and interesting. The task is a formal description of what students will have accomplished by the end of an LQuest. It is necessary to define the transformation of the information that will take place in accomplishing the task. The teacher should consider if the task represents the result of higher level thinking and define what type of cognitive activity the students will go through,

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by doing the task: acquiring knowledge, comprehending or understanding information, applying, or analyzing or synthesizing information. The third stage is searching for the best resources to attain linguistic and nonlinguistic goals. The resources should be authentic, attractive, and varied. Obviously, non-Web resources can also be used. These can include books, maps, posters, video and audiocassettes, etc. The next stage is the description of the process the learners should follow to complete the task. The teacher must describe, step by step, what the students will do in the initial, second, and production phases. He/she should prepare the scaffolding (Dodge, 2001) to support the students in the three phases of the process, including linguistic scaffolding focused on meaning and form aspects: Reception scaffolding: brainstorming activities, discussions, any background material, dictionary links, glossaries; Transformation scaffolding: quizzes, tables, treasure hunts; Production scaffolding: outlines, examples, formats, templates. The evaluation of a WebQuest is a very important step, as each quest needs a specific rubric for evaluating students work. The standards should be fair, clear, consistent with, and specific of the tasks set. The teacher should choose the most relevant dimensions, according to the task and the final product. The final step is the conclusion that ends the Quest. This step allows for reflection by the students and summation by the teacher. Setting aside time to discuss possible extensions and applications of the lessons honours the constructivist principle, We learn by doing, but we learn even better by talking about what we did. The teachers, who will decide to use LQuests, while teaching English, should know from the very beginning that LQuests do not automatically imply online learning. On the contrary, the main learning processes take place in the interaction among the learners, about what they have found on the Internet. The Internet search is rather a prerequisite for this mostly face-to-face learning activity. However, online working makes it possible to organize cooperation between educational institutions in different language areas. The teachers should construct their own WebQuests, or use the ones available on the Internet, if relevant to their topic. The LQuests constructed by other teachers and learners and used in the learning process will give an additional value to the work, as the language and information background of others will boost students interest in joining the larger Internet community and meeting them through reading their web contributions.

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The WebQuests, according to Dodge, may be short-term and long-term. Shortterm quests are those in which the main goal is that students make sense of new information; long-term quests involve students in deeper analysis and content transformation. The teacher should be flexible when choosing the type of a WebQuest, to avoid making the task uninteresting, long, and boring. As it is obvious from the content of the Quest and the stages of its processing, a mere piece of information is converted into knowledge and becomes the essential value that the teachers can add to students language education. What is the teachers sphere of influence in the classroom? Before implementing the innovative technologies, the teacher used to be the only source of information to his/her students, and the learning path tended to be teacher-tolearner, sometimes skipping the critical process of learning along the way. But now, the source of information may be one other than the teacher. In this case, the teachers role evolves, as he/she would be: Creating a learning environment Shaping Web-based activities Assisting the students in their learning process. The pedagogical principles of a WebQuest are to assign small groups of students with a challenging inquiry, provide access to an abundance of online resources, and scaffold the learning process to promote higher order thinking. The rationale of an LQuest has three components: LQuests promote motivation and authenticity. Students perform an authentic task as they have to understand a real world issue. Motivation is increased by giving students real resources and assigning them a role within a group, which implies that success depends on all members doing their tasks. LQuests develop thinking skills. An LQuest might require the following thinking skills: comparing, classifying, generalizing principles from observation and analysis, deducing, analyzing errors in ones own or others thinking, constructing support for an assertion, abstracting and analyzing different perspectives about issues. LQuests foster cooperative learning. Since LQuests are concerned with complex topics, students have to cooperate and take on specific roles to complete the task. WebQuests also meet the following four criteria for content-based activities:

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Learning activities should provide more than one perspective on the content area. This is met by quests which offer a large number of pages with information on different aspects of a topic. Activities should present authentic content without oversimplifying it. Activities should encourage the SQ3R formula: surveying, questioning, reading, recalling, and reviewing materials under study. Activities should incorporate visuals and other aids for making associations since that facilitates deeper thinking. The web pages used in WebQuests contain not only text, but also sound, pictures, and even animation. Teachers design tasks to pose problems of relevance to the students, who, then, have to solve them, not simply by collecting information, but by engaging in sub-tasks of increasing complexity. The Internet is a useful tool in teaching, but the teachers should always remember that it has its limitations and can pose problems to some learners. Elementary and intermediate level students can feel overwhelmed by the wealth of information and may lack the necessary proficiency in English to understand many texts. Of course, not all the information accessible on the web is relevant for students. Additionally, the lack of direction may become an insuperable hindrance. Therefore, at every stage of an activity, learners need to know the purpose of the task they are performing and what to do next. These difficulties can be overcome with the appropriately planned WebQuests. A WebQuest must be integrated into the ESL curriculum, taking into account the overall design of the course. The teacher should explain the activity, its purpose, the benefits the students can obtain by doing it, and the expected outcomes. Before starting a WebQuest, students should be given some background information on the topic of the task and some practice with the vocabulary they will encounter in the WebQuest. The task must be challenging and relevant to the students in order to maintain their interest and enhance their motivation. The type of a WebQuest and the tasks that the students have to perform must be suitable to their level of knowledge of English. The topic should be familiar to them and the material should be related to their field of knowledge of English (grammar, phonetics, writing, and reading) in order to enhance their confidence. The number, length, and linguistic difficulty of the texts will depend on the level of the students for whom the activity is intended. When using the authentic materials in the study of English, as a second or a foreign language, especially considering the abundance of material available online, it is preferable to simplify tasks rather the simplify authentic texts.

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The tasks that the students have to complete should be divided into sub-tasks of increasing complexity and should be clearly described, thus guiding the students through the activity. As the students work in groups, it is desirable to match less proficient with more proficient students. This way, the more proficient students can take on the most complex roles and collaborate with the others to complete the task. The problem of the lack of the Internet knowledge may be solved by matching computer novices with more experienced students. The guidelines for teachers, given by Warshauer and Wittaker (1997), are useful in designing WebQuests and for ways to use them in class. Teachers should consider the task, not underestimate its complexity, provide necessary support, and involve students in decision-making. The present article advances the authors suggestion that the WebQuest can be used in a content-based syllabus, on all the levels of studying a second or a foreign language. This activity involves the use of authentic material from different Internet sources and engages students in reading extensively on a topic related to their discipline, performing tasks of increasing complexity, and creating oral or written texts to present the results of their online work. WebQuests fit well in a learner-centred curriculum that seeks to help students develop autonomous learning. The role of the teacher is not to transmit the knowledge, but to provide resources, help students develop learning strategies, guide the learning process, and offer support throughout the process. The use of WebQuests to learn languages integrates the pedagogical benefits of the project work, content-based instruction, and language learning via the Internet. The WebQuest is an activity that can be fruitfully exploited in studying the English language. It helps students to develop their academic skills, such as scanning, skimming, paraphrasing, summarizing, organizing, analyzing, and problem-solving. Through extensive reading, the students acquire the vocabulary related to the topic. By using authentic texts to perform real world tasks, students become aware of such concepts as purpose and audience, and see the utility of studying a second or a foreign language. The WebQuest concept is seen to have the potential to help modern English language teachers to relate learning to the world, enhance and replace textbookbased learning approaches and support transdisciplinary curriculum activities.

REFERENCES
Brinton, D. M., Snow, M. A., and Wesche, M. B. (1989). Content-Based Second Language Instruction. New York: Newbury House. Dodge, B. (2001). FOCUS: Five rules for writing a great WebQuest. Learning and Leading with Technology, 28 (8), 6-9.

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March, T. (1999). The 10 stages of working the web for education. Multimedia Schools Magazine May/June 1999, 6, 3. Available at http://tommarch.com/writings/10stages.php Warshauer, M. and Whittaker, P. F. (1997). The Internet for English teaching: Guidelines for teachers. The Internet TESL Journal, III, 10, October 1997. Available at http://iteslj.org/Articles/WarschauerInternet.html

Teaching Languages at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University

Darejan TVALTVADZE and Ramaz KURDADZE

ABSTRACT
The paper deals with levels of teaching languages at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University according to the reforms in education started in 2005. That same year, Georgia joined the Bologna process, the reason why the three levels (BA, MA, and PhD) of teaching have been introduced at the universities in Georgia. The present paper deals with teaching languages throughout all the levels of the current educational system in Georgia. Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU), the oldest university in the Caucasus region, has a long tradition in foreign language teaching. Since its foundation, in 1918, the university has been offering its students programmes on European and Classical languages, alongside its programmes on the Georgian language. In 2005, when Georgia joined the Bologna process in the higher educational system, our university also started to undergo reforms. Georgia needs to set up education and science centres, and meet the modern worlds standards as the result of reforms. The centres are designed to integrate leading scientific and research programmes. This inevitably requires constant update of technologies and quick assimilation of innovations, to adapt to our dynamically developing world and time requirements. Prior to the reform, Georgian universities used to offer five-year education programmes. There followed a postgraduate study period, called aspirantura1 (three years), after the completion of which graduate students would prepare a thesis for the Candidates degree. The next step was the defence of the doctoral dissertation. Researchers would be granted a Doctor of Sciences degree. In 2005, TSU launched its three-level education. The first level is the undergraduate/Bachelors Degree level, offering a four-year programme. The second level is a two-year programme concluding with the award of a graduate/Masters Degree. The third level is a three-year programme offering, for a doctoral/PhD degree, following the defence of the doctoral dissertation.
1

Equivalent to Western Doctoral Degree course (Ed.).

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The above mentioned levels are based on a credit system (BA240 ECTS, MA 120 ECTS, Doctoral180 ECTS). It ensures more freedom and mobility opportunities to students. It is worth mentioning that BA level students can combine major and minor programmes, to get an additional specialty. Considering the above, students interests have particularly grown in linguistic subjects, in particular, in foreign languages. Our students: they can study both a foreign language and specialise in linguistics. Further on, the authors would present information on teaching languages at TSU according to three levels of education

TEACHING LANGUAGES AT TBILISI STATE UNIVERSITY

At TSU, languages are taught at all three levels of education: undergraduate, Masters, and PhD levels.

Undergraduate Level/Bachelors Degree

Every student of undergraduate level selects and studies one European language, as a mandatory discipline (10 20 ECTS) (English, German, French, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Modern Greek). Some of the undergraduate programmes require the study of a second foreign language (10 15 ECTS); Apart from one western language, TSUs Faculty of Humanities students should select and study one of the Classical (old Greek, Latin) or Eastern (Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Chinese, and Japanese) languages (10 ECTS). The Faculty of Humanities offers special philology programmes at the BA level: Georgian philology, English Philology, German Philology, French Philology, Spanish Philology, Italian Philology, Classical Philology, Byzantine Philology, Modern Greek Philology, Russian Philology, and Scandinavian Philology. Together with the relevant language (30 35 ECTS), the above-mentioned programmes include the study of the foreign language literature, as well as all necessary subjects to build philological competences (theoretical linguistics, theory of literature, history of language, comparative literature studies, etc.). The undergraduate regional study programmes also offer language studies (30 35 ECTS): Arabic studies, Iranian studies, Turkish Studies, Jewish Studies, Assyrian Studies, Armenian Studies, Caucasian Studies, American studies, Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies.

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The study of the Armenian language has a particular history with Tbilisi State University. Old Armenian and modern Armenian language have been taught here, over the years. The tradition is carried on by the department of Armenian Studies at the Faculty of Humanities. Mention should be made that, with the support of the Georgian government, several universities, including TSU, have started to implement the educational programme (60 ECST) on Georgian, which aims to teach Georgian as a foreign language to Armenian and Azeri youth residing in Georgia. Currently, there are about 180 students enrolled in the programme. Following the completion of the one-year programme, the students are given the opportunity to further their studies in any specialty at the University.

MA and PhD Levels

The Georgian language, European, and Eastern languages are taught at these levels of education. We shall discuss issues related to the Georgian language later. Masters and Doctoral levels of linguistic education at TSU Faculty of Humanities present a wide variety of languages, namely: West European languages: English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish Slavic languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech Eastern languages: Arabic, Persian, and Turkish Ancient Languages: Sumerian, Egyptian, Aramaic, Old Greek, and Latin The languages of the Caucasus mountain; Northeast Caucasian languages: Nakh, Avar-Andic, Tsezic (Didoic), Lak, Dargin, Khinalug, and Lezgic; Northwest Caucasian languages: Ankhaz (Ablhaz-Abazin, Abkhaz-Tapant), Circassian, and Ubykh. Ossetian (or Ossete) language. Its worth mentioning that MA programmes on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics as well as General Phonetics and Phonology are offered by the Faculty of Humanities. Both programmes have doctoral levels as well. Obviously, the teaching the Kartvelian languages is a priority to our university. Therefore, the third part of our presentation will focus on teaching Georgian and the Kartvelian languages. Let us mention here that the methodology of teaching other languages fully complies with the one of teaching the Georgian language. The difference is that Georgian is our native language and the state language of Georgia.

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TSU students an/or staff members, irrespective of faculty, may study a foreign language at the Language Centre,2 opened at TSU Faculty of Humanities.

TEACHING METHODS
Various methods of teaching languages are applied at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. Let us focus on the two methods made use of in the teaching of foreign languages and Georgian as a foreign language: contrastive analysis and error analysis, methods endorsed by educational institutions in the US and Europe. Contrastive analysis is a way of comparing languages, in order to determine potential errors, for the ultimate purpose of isolating what needs to be learned and what is not needed to be learned, in a second language learning situation. Error analysis is a type of linguistic analysis that focuses on the errors learners make. Unlike contrastive analysis, the comparison made is between the errors a learner makes in producing the target language and the target language form itself. In contrastive analysis, the comparison is made with the native language, whereas in error analysis it is made with the target language (Gass and Selinker, 2001). As it has previously been mentioned, we apply various methods while teaching languages. It is noteworthy that all these methods can be united under the label, Problem-Based Learning, that implies implementing problem-based tasks while learning a language.

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE GEORGIAN LANGUAGE AND KARTVELIAN LANGUAGES

The Department of the Georgian Language was established at Tbilisi State University in 1918, as soon as the university was founded. In 1945, the department was divided into two parts: Department of Old Georgian Language and the Department of Modern Georgian Language. The Republic Centre for Toponymy Research, a laboratory of toponymy, was established in 1969, at the department of Modern Georgian Language. The current name of the laboratory is Professor P. Ertelishvili Scientific-Research Laboratory. Professor Akaki Shanidze initiated the creation of the Orioni Scientific-Research Laboratory, in 1982. The purpose of the laboratory is the research into and publication of Georgian manuscripts.

Details at http://www.tsu.edu.ge/en/faculties/faculty_of_humanities/language_center/ about_us (Ed.).

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The Departments of Modern and Old Georgian languages of TSU are major centres that carry out research works on the Georgian language. Several other local research and educational institutions (e.g., Arnold Chikobava Institute of Linguistics) examine Georgian and the Kartvelian languages. Still, the major departments at TSU are the leaders in this field. The history of the Georgian language study at TSU Departments of Old and Modern Georgian languages is an extensive issue. The authors aim to present the study of Georgian at TSU in terms of tradition and perspectives. The Department of Modern Georgian Language covers the following fields of activities: the phonetic and grammar structure of the Georgian language, vocabulary, dialects of the Georgian language, issues of literary language, stylistics of the Georgian language, development tendencies of the Georgian language, and history of the Georgian language. The Scientific Laboratory of Onomastics of the Department has covered the following issues: full description of the Georgian toponymy, preparation of the collected data for publishing, providing scientific research of toponymy (later, other fields of onomastics); it has also prepared recommendations supported with relevant arguments on naming and/or changing names of settlements in Georgia. The Department of Old Georgian Language covers the following fields of activities: Old Georgian grammar, Georgian Palaeography, History of the Georgian literary language, the Kartvelian Languages3 (Georgian, Svan, Megrelian, and Laz), relation of the Georgian language to other languages, editing old Georgian manuscripts and their linguistic analysis. A great number of scientific works have been published in all the above mentioned fields of study. The material is used by local as well as foreign specialists of Georgian studies. As a matter of fact, the above-mentioned departments of Georgian language have been recently united to found the internationally-acknowledged Institute of Georgian Language. The Institute runs its activity within the framework of the Faculty of Humanities of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.

MA AND PHD PROGRAMMES IN KARTVELIAN LINGUISTICS

The first part of our presentation listed MA and PhD programmes in Linguistics at TSU faculty of Humanities. The university web page4 provides full information on each programme.
3

More on Kartvelian languages at http://www.opentext.org.ge/art/kartvel.htm and http://kartvelian.org/en/index.html (Ed.). Tbilisi State University (TSU) official site at http://www.tsu.edu.ge

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We shall give brief information (programme goals and learning outcomes) on MA and PhD programmes in Kartvelian linguistics. Again, TSU website will provide detailed information on these programmes.

MA Programme on Kartvelian Linguistics

Modules Georgian Literary Language and Dialects The Kartvelian Languages (Svan, Megrelian, and Laz) Pragmatics of the Georgian Language Theory of teaching the Georgian Language Old Georgian Language Programme Goals The Masters programme aims to: Provide students with in-depth knowledge on the phonetic, morphological, and syntactic structures of the Kartvelian languages (Georgian, Svan, Megrelian, and Laz), as well as dialects, theories of teaching Georgian as a native and as a second language, pragmatics of the Georgian language. Introduce contemporary scientific theories and principles to students; develop linguistic working skills on texts, developing analytical thinking, critical approach towards an issue and scientific research abilities. In addition to preparing philologists of Kartvelian languages, the programme aims to integrate specialists in the international linguistic area. Learning Outcomes Programme graduates will acquire in-depth knowledge on the linguistic characteristics of Georgian and the Kartvelian languages and their dialects. They will also be able to: produce linguistic analysis of the above mentioned languages and dialects; arrange a text; write a linguistic research on the specific language or dialect. Programme graduates will have the opportunity to learn Kartvelian languages. They will get acquainted with the theoretical issues of Georgian as a native and/or foreign language.

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Programme graduates will learn, analyze, and prepare editions of Georgian, Svan, and Megrelian-Laz) texts and dictionaries.

The Doctoral Programme, Kartvelian Linguistics

Programme Goals The doctoral programme aims at training highly qualified specialists/researchers in modern Georgian literary language, old Georgian language, the Kartvelian languages and dialects, Georgian as a foreign language teaching theories and practice. The graduates will acquire knowledge in the phonetic, morphological, and syntactic structures of Georgian and Kartvelian languages and dialects, contemporary scientific theories of linguistic research, and in the contemporary theories on teaching these languages as native and/or foreign languages; The doctoral programme means to prepare Kartvelian language researchers/philologists and qualified lecturers of higher education institutions. It also sets a goal of integrating the specialists in this field within the international linguistic space. Programme Outcomes The graduates will obtain comprehensive knowledge of the linguistic characteristics of Georgian and Kartvelian languages and dialects. They will be able to conduct linguistic analysis of the above mentioned languages and dialects. They will also be able to write a PhD thesis on a specific language or dialect. Following the completion of the doctoral programme, the graduates will become competent in preparing an academic course in the selected specialty.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

The future plans of teaching languages at Tbilisi State University involve the implementation of several new courses in linguistic education. These courses are the sub-courses of the project entitled Contrastive Grammar of Kartvelian and IndoEuropean Languages. The sub-courses are: Contrastive Grammar of Georgian and English Languages;

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Contrastive Grammar of Georgian and German Languages; Contrastive Grammar of Georgian and Armenian Languages; Contrastive Grammar of Georgian and Azerbaijani Languages; Contrastive Grammar of Georgian and Russian Languages. The same future plans also involve the implementation of a new a course of error analysis in second language acquisition (to be used in teaching Georgian as a second language and/or a foreign language) and a course on translation studies, by different fields of study.

REFERENCE
Gass, S. M. and Selinker, L. (2001). Second Language Acquisition. An Introductory Course. Second Edition, 72-72; 79. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Globally-Oriented Foreign Language Teaching through Close-Reading

Elena L. MARYANOVSKAYA

ABSTRACT
The author of the paper suggests that close-reading may be used as one of the methods to make language teaching and language learning an integrated holistic and holographic process. An in-depth analysis of explicit and implicit information contained in a literary piece shows how the right word fits the right slot, envisaged for it by the writer. The extract from James Joyces Ulysses chosen as material for analysis helps to effectively explore the possibilities of close-reading from the perspective of cognitive-communicative globally-oriented foreign language instruction. This paper is about close-reading as a globally-oriented device that the teacher uses to ensure the development of cognitive, communicative, and socio-semiotic skills in a student of foreign languages. Global education, which treats the world as a complex, ever-changing entity, with its intensified problems and crises, can be defined as education, which is systemic by nature, holistic in approach and structure, using integration, as a strategic basis, and modern pedagogical technology, as a tool for imparting knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Kolker et al., 2005: 14). The process of skill-development also depends upon the content of the piece a teacher chooses for close-reading, because some qualities, such as challenging chauvinism in all its manifestations, getting a sense of responsible citizenship, extending from his/her immediate community to the whole world, making decisions, and taking actions, after considering long-term consequences, may be given prominence to while reading E. Hemingway, W. Saroyan, and others. And some may be chosen as the main didactic aim in the process of reading other writers. But, in fact, all the qualities of a global student can be acquired when teaching close-reading and, in all probability, every piece taken for reading will give the teacher an opportunity to develop: a multi-perspective and multidimensional vision of the world, as a unity composed of interdependent factors, phenomena and processes;

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critical and creative thinking in everyday life; the necessary skills for lifelong self-propelled learning; a capacity for self-knowledge and self-adjustment; a capacity for empathy and altruism, and tolerance and an appreciation for diversity in human viewpoints, beliefs, and customs; a capacity to challenge chauvinism in all its forms; a sense of responsible citizenship, extending from his/her immediate community to the whole world; and a capacity to make decisions and take actions after considering long-term consequences (Kolker and Ustinova, 2009: 41-50). We have chosen to speak about the end of Chapter 1, from J. Joyces Ulysses, as material for close-reading, because it shows that word-painting, as it is used by James Joyce, integrates several stylistic techniques: realistic monologue, impressionistic dialogue, and stream of consciousness:
In long lassoes from the Cock lake, the water flowed full, covering green goldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float away. I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing chafing against the low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a four-worded wave speech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of waters amid sea snakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops: flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It flows purling, widely flowing, floating foam pool, flower unfurling. (Joyce, 2000: 62)

Most teachers consider James Joyce writings as the least likely sample for teaching languages to would-be linguists, as explained below. I. General principles Student awareness of the teaching strategies as a vehicle for self-propelled learning. Meta concepts as instruments of cognition and of systematizing experience. Integration of educational and professional goals and objectives. Fighting stereotypes and rigid patterns of world perception. Focus on developing globally-oriented skills related to critical and creative thinking.

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II. Subject-focused principles Conscious acquisition of both language skills and rhetorical skills, contributing to successful communication. Analysis of discourse samples (in terms of the communicative situation) as a pre-requisite to effective speech production. The beginning stage of tertiary language education as the world in a grain of sand. Aspect-centred integration as a principle of lesson planning. Fighting all kinds of chauvinism, including the so-called language chauvinism. A holographic approach to shaping a foreign-language worldview (Kolker and Ustinova, 2009: 41-50). Teachers are usually biased against using James Joyce, because J. Joyce seems to possess an exceptional manner of writing, making him stand apart even from other modernist writers. But close-reading being treated as a holistic and holographic process can also be explained in linguistic, communicative, and socio-semiotic terms. In linguistic terms, it is a process that moves from sound to text, in which every linguistic sign, being embedded in other signs at structurally more complex levels, preserves its own meaning, but serves as part of scaffolding ensuring the effectuation of the meanings of other signs. Communicatively close-reading is a movement from text to discourse, because it is a blend of analysis and synthesis. It is a dialogue between the reader and the writer, seen as a process of setting forward and consequently verifying hypotheses. In terms of socio-semiotics, it is a process in which the communicative situation is seen as a set of pragmatic signs, each being related to the data provided by the linguistic and communicative research. The procedure of close-reading that we are going to speak about begins with sentence by sentence analysis and synthesis, and is guided by an assumption that writing is a set of answers to the questions of any potential reader. The competence of the reader, his purpose and interests are determined by the writers knowledge of the addressee as an interlocutor. In the first sentence (v. p. 2), James Joyce relies upon facts and his description is akin to report and depends, for its effect, on the arrangement of facts and their most objective characteristics. It is a sure case of word-painting, detail follows detail, whereas syntax structuring the details serves as an asset supplying the hues. Not a single trope, but the epithet and not a single figure of speech, but repetition,

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i.e., alliteration. One would say that in long lassoes is a metaphor, and one would be right, but it sounds so true-to-fact that it almost becomes an objective detail. J. Joyce begins his description as everyone would if she/he were going to paint a picture, words instead of pictorial means. First, he gives us contour, a flat representation of flowing waters, seen from above, a pencil-drawn shape of a noose (In long lassoes from the Cock lake). Alliteration helps Joyce to introduce volume (flowed full) into the same part of the sentence. The next part of it brings the colour from underneath to the surface (green goldenly), stressing space and then volume again (rising, flowing). But our analysis wouldnt be sufficient if we didnt speak of the linguistic aspect of the image. We have a long sentence, with precise and vivid wording, divided by comas into pauses, whereas (-ing) forms add to the movement, showing its direction, forward and upward. This structure helps Joyce imitate the rhythm of the water flowing. The writer uses alliteration, which makes the narration more vivid because, by the assistance of sound, he stresses movement and volume. He begins with [l], and then comes [w]. Thus, the quality of sounds that he selected ensures the effect produced by the image: he uses sonorants, to create spreading in space, and fricatives, to create volume. J. Joyce employs sound as a kind of connective to achieve a holistic impression. The image begins with a sound and in a sound, and growing, it reaches the level of the sentence. Then it is raised to the level of the paragraph, etc. But J. Joyce would not be J. Joyce if he did not treat communication as a multiperspective phenomenon. The sentence we have just been analyzing is an utterance produced by the author himself, and we approach it from the perspective of a text. The direction of modification, when he characterizes water as the main object, is mainly backward (Christensen, 1965: 144-156). Adding up information is the main law of its development. It is a text, though we sum it up as discourse. And J. Joyce is with us, making a blend of text and discourse, showing that they are indivisible. The cooperative skills of the reader and the writer are at work, because Joyce is very much a democratic, involving the reader and saying: Look! This is what you could have seen. Nothing is invented. Those are facts, and the direction of description is quite common. That is all we can see. There is nothing exceptional about it. And he goes on giving the character a chance to show that he is one of us, he is part of the scene, he reacts to it, and that his reaction is human and common to all people. After a long pause, there are two short sentences, representing the process of communication manifested as inner dramatic monologue (My ashplant will float away. I shall wait). The character talks to himself and the answers are being implied. There is not a single indication that the first sentence and the following two sentences are connected. But the change of text to discourse, the product to

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process changes the level of communication. The description itself shows that the position of the narrator is above the waters. Flowing water has a hypnotizing effect and many people who stand above the water tend to throw something down. As the water moves constantly it is easy to anticipate that the object will float away. Thats why the next sentence is a natural response: My ashplant will float away. Here Joyce changes the perspective: now we perceive everything from the inside (the characters psyche), not from the outside (v. first sentence of the excerpt). Now it is also a natural step from the first short sentence to the next one, because of the same hypnotizing effect that makes the characters associations sound something like: If I jumped into the water and got drowned, the waves wouldnt carry me like my ashplant. But they would pass. And being afraid of the implication he moves back (I shall wait). We have analyzed only three sentences from Chapter 1 of J. Joyces Ulysses, and we have come to the conclusion that close-reading may serve as a backbone of integration, because it comprises all levels, linguistic and extralinguistic, relies on the commonalities in our individual experiences. This integrative analysis shows how the proper word is placed in the proper place. In its turn, it allows us to reconstruct the writers process of text-creation. The principles that we summed up at the beginning of the paper helped us to organize the process of education in such a way that it could enable the student to view language teaching and language learning from multiple perspectives (globally) and implement all sorts of relationships making them real: author-reader relationships, character-author, character-reader, nature-human-being, languagecommunication relationships and so on.

REFERENCES
Christensen, F. (1965). A generative rhetoric of the paragraph. College Composition and Communication, 25: 144-156. Joyce, J. (2000). Ulysses. London: Penguin Classics. Kolker, J. and Ustinova, E. (2009). - [The Basic Assumptions of Cognitive-Communicative Globally-Oriented Foreign Language Instruction]. Education for the Future, 5: 41-50. Moscow: Shkola Buduschego [Education for the Future] Federative Committee. Kolker, J., Kriuchkov, V., Liferov, A., Ustinova, E., and Sheina, I. (2005). A Global Perspective as a Vehicle for Education. Moscow: Azbukovnick.

A Conceptual Approach to the Development of Multilingual Competence

Melanya ASTVATSATRYAN

ABSTRACT
The article focuses on the phenomenon of integrating the national-regional component in the process of developing multilingual competence on the basis of the subordinative bilingualism (Weinreich, 1963) and its manifestation in the national institutional environment. The research intends to present the problem of multilingual competence and didactic platform, in the context of national and regional specific dimensions across the globe. The importance of the phenomenon, institutional subordinative bilingualism, must be emphasized through enhancing its relevant features as a foundation for the development of multilingual competence through specific cognitive-communicative instruction. The transition to the multilingual society, globalization, intercultural integration at national and international levels, linguistic and cultural diversity cause new challenges in the educational field, especially in trying to find a new sense for the cardinal didactic categories on the basis of multilingualism. A significant issue is the involvement of the intercultural peculiarities and differences of the multilingual social environment. The Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR) claims that
... the aim of language education is profoundly modified. It is no longer seen as simply to achieve mastery of one or two, or even three languages, each taken in isolation, with the ideal native speaker as the ultimate model. Instead, the aim is to develop a linguistic repertory, in which all linguistic abilities have a place. [Council of Europe (CE), 2001:5]

To promote multilingual dimensions, the methodological, comprehensive, integrated, theoretical model will be elaborated and implemented at national institutions (schools and universities). It deals with the methodological foundations of language teaching and learning and thus provides the basis for the differentiated approach to learners. Thus, the aim of the multilingual education and the development of multilingual competence must be rationally derived from the global institutional goals (Hufeisen and Neuner, 2003; Imgrund, 2007).

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The phenomenon, national institutional subordinative bilingualism, requires a more precise analysis accentuating the correlation of the contact languages and establishing common and specific methodological principles. From the methodological point of view, the thesis concerning the benefit of two or three language experience, while learning each new language, is axiomatically accepted. There is a certain hierarchy in the interconnected language learning process which determines the strategies of language teaching and learning as a result of psycholinguistic subordination. Any new language is efficiently learnt based on previously acquired languages: either Armenian, Russian, or with the support of both. In national institutional environment, the situation gets complicated due to the concrete type of bilingualism: conditioned by the level of language proficiency and their interrelation being not static and gradually undergoing qualitative and quantitative changes, in accordance with the progressive character of the learners performance as well as her or his linguistic and intercultural experience. In such a setting, the learners can go through various stages of language acquisition and demonstrate various levels of general language proficiency (Astvatsatryan, 1988; 1992; CE, 2001). It should be remarked that the specific conditions have their impact on students mastering skills and predetermine the planned outcomes. The peculiarities of teaching/learning foreign languages and the influence of the previously acquired languages distinctly come out (and are mostly felt) in the national institutional environment (at school or at university level), precisely in the process of acquiring the language material and using it in speech activities by developing linguistic operations and competences. The analysis of the above-mentioned phenomenon which is the basis of speech activities, shows that the students should master the core knowledge, as an obligatory prerequisite for developing language activities, in the given case speaking, as a productive language activity. It is important to clarify the role of the second language as an intermediate link in the triad that is built between verbal thinking and accordingly natural development of the linguistic competence. To find out the extent to which the reserves of the students bilingual/ multilingual competence could be used in learning foreign languages, it was necessary to define the proficiency level of Armenian students in a second language (L2). The need to define the level of mastering a second language is determined by the fact that students possess varying language proficiency levels in Russian, as a second language, which immediately comes off in comparing the urban and the rural contingent.

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The experimental monitoring of student groups on the horizontal axis revealed the heterogeneous uneven character of the students language proficiency in Russian as a second language. The monitoring on the vertical axis revealed the mobile, dynamic character of the students language proficiency, i.e., the changing ascending level of proficiency in the mother tongue and in Russian (varying from grade to grade) (Astvatsatryan, 1988; 1992). Potentially, the same student group can go up, passing through all the levels of bilingualism, from the lowest up to the highest. Therefore we arrived at the conclusion of utmost methodological importance as to the mobile dynamic character of the students subordinative bilingualism. The establishment of this fact is crucial for building the performance-based specific methodology and analyzing the teaching/learning process on a conceptual level and in practice. The recognition of the mobile, dynamic nature of the institutional subordinative bilingualism is a key point, as it concretely defines such basic categories as aims, content, principles, methods, strategies and organizational forms of teaching and learning. The author of this paper has experimentally proved the manifestation of the double variation of inter-language influence which undergoes permanent changes, depending on both the initial knowledge of the second foreign language and the nature of the target language (Astvatsatryan, 1992; 2006). The problem stated above is of utmost importance in the methodology of foreign language teaching/learning, especially in discovering which of the languages (L1 or L2) should serve as a positive support in learning a new foreign language and the influence of which of them should be neutralized to avoid interference. In other words, how to efficiently make use of the language experience the learner has already acquired. The determination of the nature of the influence of the mother tongue (L1) and the first foreign language (L2) on the second one (L3), as well as the transfer and interference in the process of learning the second/third foreign language (L3/L4) makes finding a solution to the problems connected with the acquisition of the language material and its use in oral productive communication possible. As a result of establishing foreign language teaching regularities in conformity with the national institutional language learning process, based on existing didactic approaches, new specific methodological principles of multilingual education should be elaborated: The principle of considering the mobile dynamic interrelation between the systems of the first and the second language in learning the third and any new one.

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The principle of the differentiated approach to learners, function of the level of their bilingual capacities. In accordance with the principle of referring to the dynamic correlation between the first and second language systems, while acquiring the third language, at the next intermediate and advanced stages, one comes across the possibility of representing and explaining the material taught - the so called additional reexplanation of the previously acquired language units and their training at a new cognitive level of language awareness. The post-explanation activity is considered an additional and effective supplementary national-regional strategy for the elimination of the strong interference by the mother tongue. It might be possible if the foreign language material demands support from other foreign languages: +/- +/- +/L1 L2 L3 -++ L1 L2 L3 (Lapidus, 1980: 11-12).1 In the national context, bilingualism, as well as multilingualism, are considered to be factors contributing to the enrichment and enlargement of the word stock; the revelation of the interaction between languages and cultures in contact, including the whole spectrum of sociocultural, pragmatic, and ethnic factors. Thus, the possibility of using the native language, or the first foreign language or of both of them in teaching a foreign language, implemented in one or the other rational combination, is an objective reality and is preconditioned by the mobile, dynamic, character of subordinative bilingualism. The overcoming of inter- and intra-language transfer, the elaboration of adequate automatisms of operating the language units in the process of developing

In our interpretation, the classification of language units, represented by Lapidus (1980), underwent a very thorough change: +/- +/- +/ L1 L2 L3 - language units, existing in all the three languages, but differing in form and/or meaning and/or use; _++ L1 L2 L3 language units, existing in Russian, yet missing in Armenian.

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multilingual competences and gaining intercultural experience are achieved by means of the didactic instruction. In accordance with the general requirements, the following factors should be taken into consideration: the teaching aims and concrete tasks connected with the type of speech activity: the peculiarities of cognitive and mnemonic processes; the level of the language proficiency of school learners and the progression of acquiring skills, presupposing the organization of training and communicative activities, as well as the synthesis of the stages of familiarization and training, as a base for communicative competence; a complex approach to the mastering of the language material, taking into account the functioning peculiarities of all the aspects in a complex, at the same time permitting the usage of subject-oriented exercises within the outlined system; the conditions for the performance of tasks and exercises, in concrete situations, in order to solve concrete communicative intentions. In accordance with specific requirements, the following should be taken into consideration: the specific difficulties in teaching the first or second foreign language to a national audience (the Armenian learners, in the present case); the mobile, dynamic, character of language correlations (a different degree of interference and transfer, and in some rare cases, intercalation in different stages of teaching and within the frames of one class/group); a differentiated approach to various groups of learners, in case of using data about various possibilities and the range of supporting possibilities on previously acquired languages. The specificity of the suggested approach is: the elaboration of specially arranged hierarchy, confirming the significance of the main variants of the constellation of languages and predetermining the diverse character of the activity in the acquisition of the foreign language material and its operation in verbal communication; the construction of a didactic system, taking into account the difficulties arising from the peculiarities of Armenian in contact with the foreign language (e.g., English or German);

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the considerable predomination of the exercises of comparative character, based on the contrastive analysis of the languages in contact, which is not necessarily represented explicitly, it is initially laid in the exercises by means of rational preparation of foreign language material; the extrapolation of a special stratum of language material (strongly liable to L1 or L2 interference) to be intensively trained for a long period of time. The basis of the elaborated system of exercises is the development of speech activities, as well as the acquisition of the language material. That is why, it is important to consolidate operations in various exercises, in particular characteristic to the speech activity, i.e., speaking, the choice, the instantaneous extraction of language units from long-term memory, integration, structuring, usage of language units in a loud speech activity. Apart from the above-mentioned operations, we would also suggest: exercises for the consolidation of the operations which do not directly refer to the concrete type of speech activity, e.g., speaking: the choice and grouping of language units, according to the character of the acquisition of differential features of language units, the formation of their acoustic-visual-motor image and their accumulation in the long-term memory; imitation and substitution of language units for the automation of reproduction and memorization of language units; reproduction of speech patterns for the development of core memory; distribution of the development of prognosis mechanisms, imprinting and conservation of language units in the long-term memory. The gradation of tasks according to the increase of their performance difficulty takes place: firstly, according to the degree of intensification of difficulties (from one to two or three teaching tasks are to be done simultaneously); secondly, due to the correlation of exercises with different levels of mastering the material (isolated words, word combinations, sentences, clusters of sentences, a text); thirdly, in connection with the gradual time limitation of task performance. The consideration of all above-mentioned parameters permitted us to arrange diverse productive speech teaching exercises into a holistic system, reflecting: the levels of mastering the foreign language material; the difficulties of mastering the foreign language material;

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the character of the language material; the orientation to the development of actions/operations; the character of the correlation of interconnected languages. The regulation and choice of certain types and kinds of exercises and their volume depends on the character of language material and on the operations to be developed. Thus, when meaning and function coincide, in contact languages, the necessity of doing some exercises (fill in the blanks, multiple choice, matching, slashing) stands no longer. Thus, the process of developing multilingual competences is a complex, multidimensional functional system of influence on an individual, who is taught as a subject of intercultural communication, adding new specific values and becoming aware of multilingualism and multiculturalism.

REFERENCES
Astvatsatryan, M. G. (1988). Obuchenije inostrannomy jaziku v uslovijach podvishnogo subordinirovannogobilingvisma (na primere nemetskogo jazika v armjaskoj shkole. Diss.d-r ped. nauk. M., 1988. - 406 s. [Foreign language teaching under the conditions of mobile subordinative bilingualism (with reference to German in Armenian schools). (In Russian). Doctoral thesis, 406 pp.] Astvatsatryan, M. G. (1992). Character bilingviisma uchashichsja natsionalnoj (armjaskoj) shkoli. Yerevan: Lujs. [The character of bilingualism with reference to pupils of national (Armenian) schools] (In Russian). Astvatsatryan, M. G. (2006). Lingvodidakticheskije osnovi obuchenija inostrannim jazikam v natsionalnoj auditorii (v shkole i vuze // Inostrannije jaziki v visshej shkole) 6, 68-78. [Linguadidactic Foundation of Foreign Language Teaching under National Conditions (in School and Universitiy] (In Russian). Rjazan. Council of Europe (CE). Modern Languages Division (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grasz, S. (2004). Mehrsprachigkeit als Potential im Unterricht einer zweiten oder weiteren Fremdsprache [Pluriligualism as Potential in Teaching Second or Other Foreign Languages], 99-108. In Mkinen, K., Kaikkonen, P. and Kohonen, V. (Eds.), Future Perspectives in Foreign Language Education. Oulu: Oulu University Press. Hufeisen, B. and Neuner, G. (2003). Mehrsprachigkeitskonzept Tertirsprachen Deutsch nach Englisch (In German). Strasbourg : Council of Europe Publishing, 180 pp. Imgrund, B. (2007). Mehrsprachigkeitsdidaktik und ihre Anwendung im sprachlichen Anfangsunterricht. Babylonia, 3: 49-57. Lapidus, B. A. (1980). Obuchenije vtoromu inostrannomy jaziku. Visshaja shkola. ., 173 s. [Second Language Teaching. Language Teaching] (In Russian), p. 173] Weinreich, U. (1963). Languages in Contact. Findings and Problems. The Hague: Mouton, Second Edition.

Notes on Contributors
ABRAHAMYAN, Sharmagh Romik, Lecturer Address: Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov, Chair of English Phonetics and Grammar Toumanyan St. 42, 375002 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 099 721 565 Fax: +374 1058 5554 E-mail: sharmagh@rambler.ru ASTVATSATRYAN, Melanya, Dr. Habil. Professor, Chairholder Address: Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov, Chair of Pedagogy and Language Teaching Methodology Toumanyan St. 42, 375002 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 1027 2238; +374 9355 8156 Fax: +374 1058 5554, E-mail: eltyerevanhub@brusov.am; armecml@brusov.am BADALYAN, Lilit, Candidate of Science in Philology, Lecturer Address: Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov Toumanyan St. 42, 375002 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 1053 0491 Fax: +374 1058 5554 E-mail: englishcom@brusov.am FLJYAN, Lusine, Professor, Vice Rector Address: Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov, Department of Science and International Relations Toumanyan St. 42, Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 1053 0552 E-mail: fljyan@mail.ru HAMBARDZUMYAN, Diana, Professor Address: Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov Toumanyan St. 42, 375002 Yerevan, Armenia

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HAROUTIUNIAN, Samvel G., DSc, Professor, Chairman Address: Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia, State Committee of Science Orbeli St. 22, 0028 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 1026 1461 Fax: +374 1021 0140+104 E-mail: sharout@ysu.am; s.harutyunyan@scs.am KAJBERUNY, Hasmik, S., Candidate of Science in Philology, Associate Professor Address: Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov, Chair of English Communication Toumanyan St. 42, 375002 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 1053 0491 Fax: +374 1058 5554 E-mail: englishcom@brusov.am KHACHATRYAN, Robert, PhD, Holder of UNESCO Chair on Education Management and Planning, Yerevan State Linguistic University after V. Brusov Address: 0002 Yerevan, 24 Moskovyan Str. Apt.1, Armenia. Phone: +374 10 53 55 11 ext. 214; Fax: + 374 10 58 55 54 E-mail: head_unescoedu@brusov.am, robert_khachatryan@yahoo.com KURDADZE, Ramaz, Professor, Director of the Institute of the Georgian Language Address: Tbilisi State University, Faculty of Humanities Chavchavdze Ave. 1, 0218 Tbilisi, Georgia Phone: +995 322 22 0351 E-mail: ramaz_k@yahoo.com LOSEV, Yuri Ivanovich, PhD, Provost for Scientific Research Address: Ryazan State University S. A. Yesenin, Department of Common History and International Relations Svoboda Street, 46, 390000 Ryazan, Russian Federation Phone: +7 49 1228 0418 Fax: +7 4912 28 14 35 E-mail: yu.losev@rsu.edu.ru

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MARYANOVSKAYA, Elena L., D.Edu, Associate Professor, Head Address: Ryazan State University S. A. Yesenin, Department of Linguistic and Intercultural Communication Svoboda St. 46, 390000 Ryazan, Russian Federation Phone/ Fax: +7 4912 215 723 E-mail: maryanovskaya@rsu.edu.ru; melena@inbox.ru PONIMATKO, Alexandr, PhD, Dean Address: Minsk State Linguistic University, School of Translation and Interpreting Zakharov St. 21, 220034 Minsk, Belarus Phone: +375 17 284 8222 Fax: +375 17 29475 04 E-mail: ponimatko.a@mail.ru; info@mslu.by SAHAKIAN, Vardan H., DSc. Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Head Address: Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia, State Committee of Science, Department for Science Policy Orbeli St. 22, 0028 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 1021 0140+117 Fax: +374 1021 0140+104 E-mail: v.sahakian@scs.am SHARAMBEYAN, Mihran S., Group Leader Address: National Academy of Science of the Republic of Armenia, Centre for Scientific Information, Analysis and Monitoring, Institute for Informatics and Automation Problems P. Sevak St. 1, 0014 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 1028 1980 Fax: +374 10 285 812 E-mail: sh_mihran@sci.am SUKHAREV, Yuri A., Professor, PhD, Deputy Rector Address: Moscow State Linguistic University Ostozhenka St. 38, 119034 Moscow, Russian Federation Phone: +7 499 245 3203 Fax: +7 499 246 0496 E-mail: sukharev@linguanet.ru

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TOVMASYAN, Hranush, PhD, Associate Professor, Head Address: Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov, Chair of English Phonetics and Grammar Tumanyan St. 42, 375002 Yerevan, Armenia Home address: N. Tigranyan St. 7, Apt. 49, 0014 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 9148 3398 E-mail: tovmasyan@yahoo.com; hranushtovm@brusov.am TVALTVADZE, Darejan, Associate Professor, Dean Address: Tbilisi State University, Faculty of Humanities Chavchavdze Ave. 1, 0218 Tbilisi, Georgia Phone: +995 32 225 0485 Fax: +995 32 225 0484 E-mail: darejan.tvaltvadze@tsu.ge VIEZZI, Maurizio, Associate Professor Address: SSLMIT, University of Trieste, Dept. of Science of Language, Interpretation and Translation, English Language Via Filzi 14, 34132 Trieste, Italy Phone: +394 0558 2350, +394 0558 2300 Fax: +394 0558 2301 E-mail: mviezzi@units.it WELLS, Peter J., Director a.i. Address: UNESCO-CEPES, Kretzulescu Palace 39, tirbei Vod Street, 010102 Bucharest, Romania Phone: +40 21313 0839 Fax: +40 21312 3567 E-mail: p.wells@unesco.org YEGHIAZARYAN, Gayane V., Candidate of Science in Philology, Assoc. Professor Address: Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov, Chair of English Communication Toumanyan St. 42, 375002 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 1053 0491 Fax: +374 1058 5554 E-mail: englishcom@brusov.am

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ZOLYAN, Suren PhD, Rector Address: Yerevan State Linguistic University Brusov Toumanyan St. 42, 375002 Yerevan, Armenia Phone: +374 1053 0552 Fax: +374 1058 5554 E-mail: zolyan@brusov.am

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