Daniel Hinckel Martins | 2011
Research regarding the production of English final [¬] (male [mey¬]) by Brazilian speakers of English as a second language has not been extensively conducted. The studies conducted with this purpose found out that Brazilians usually produce the final [¬] as [u] (‘goal’ [gou]) or [w] (‘soul’ [sow]) (Baptista, 2001; Avery & Ehrlich, 1992), a fact later confirmed by Moore (2004) and Baratieri (2006). Bearing these limitations in mind, this research aims at analyzing the way Brazilian speakers of English as a foreign language produce the English final [¬]. Moreover, this research also aims at verifying if participants’ non-linguistic variables (such as age, education, attendance to English courses, and level of proficiency) influence the way they produce the target-phoneme. In order to investigate that this study verified Silveira’s (2011, in press) data, which was gathered from 62 Brazilians, 31 living in Brazil and 31 living in the United States. A questionnaire was used to collect participants’ background information, and a sentence reading test was used to collect the oral data. Participants had to read sentences containing the words ‘while’, ‘whale’, ‘file’, ‘male’, and ‘pale’. After transcribing the results, it was possible to verify that Brazilians produce the English word-final /l/ in four different ways: a vocalized form [w], a non-vocalized form [¬], vowel insertion [lI], and deleting the final [¬] phoneme. Regarding the influence of the non-linguistic variables, three of them had direct relations to the way the target-phoneme is produced. Age and EFL courses presented a weak but significant relations to the productions of the phoneme /l/, while the variable level of proficiency showed a strong relationship to the way participants realize the English final [¬].
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Márcia Regina Barreto Moraes | 2011
Poetry and prose enable readers to experiment possibilities. For analyzing fictional travel writing in poetry and imaginative prose, it is required an understanding of travel writing genre’s definition “as the narrative accounts written about an individual or group’s encounter with another place”. The origins date back to Greek and Roman antiquity. Also the genre received influences of the Europeans who traveled since Medieval Period.
In Map of Dreams, a journey inside an imaginary world, its set of poems has historical and literary references, like the allusion to Portugal and Spain, empires in the Age of Discovery. The Tale of the Unknown Island tells a story of man whose obstinacy made part of his dream accomplished: a boat´s acquisition. And the poem Maritime Ode presents a navigational tale with a sadistic touch. Bakhtinian terminology serves to provide elements for correspondences in these three selected texts of travel literature.
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Sérgio de Souza | 2011
Existentialism is a philophical doctrine focused on the human being in face of reality that has been attracting many writers for decades. Many scholars have been discussing the Existentialism in Saul Bellow’s production. This work analysis the American author’s novel Seize the Day through a bibliographical review. Applying presupposes defended by Jean-Paul Sartre to the novel it was possible to find connections with the French thinker’s ideas though the novel lacks some density when compared to other Existentialist works.
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Thaís Suzana Schadech | 2010
When learning English, Brazilian learners tend to replace the consonant sound /θ/ with /s/, /t/, or /f/, and replace /ð/ with /z/, /d/, or /v/ (Reis, 2006). Taking this into consideration, the objective of this study is to analyze if the non-target pronunciations of these consonant sounds by Brazilians hinder English native speakers‟ comprehension, which can be defined as “the ease or difficulty with which a listener understands L2 accented speech”, according to Derwing, Munro and Thomson (2007, p. 360). Therefore, in this study, ten samples of speech containing the pronunciation of the sounds /θ/ and /ð/ by Brazilians were collected from The Speech Accent Archive site and presented to a group of eleven native English speakers who were familiar with the way Brazilians pronounce English words. Then, after answering a questionnaire eliciting personal information, these listeners were asked to tell how difficult it was for them to understand the words that contained those consonant sounds. Being the main research question: Does the non-target pronunciation of /θ/ and /ð/ by Brazilian speakers of Portuguese hinder English native speakers’ comprehension?, it was possible to conclude that the non-standard pronunciation of the interdental fricative sounds by Brazilians does hinder English native speakers‟ comprehensibility, even when they are already familiar with the accent. Therefore, teaching and practicing these sounds are important in order for ESL speakers not to have communication problems.
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Priscila Pires Meirelles | 2010
The Audiovisual Translation (AVT) is one of the twelve research areas of Translation Studies (TS) (Williams, Chesterman, 2002). Dubbing and Subtitling are the most common AVT methods but differ a lot from each other. Thus, the present study aimed to compare and analyze the translation techniques adopted in the dubbing and subtitling of the Verbally Expressed Humor (VEH), a specific kind of humor coined by Chiaro (2009). The data source of this study encompasses four VEH categories (pun, idiom, rhyme and metaphor) found in the dialogs of the character Carrie Bradshaw in the film Sex and the City. The translation techniques adopted in the Brazilian Dubbing (BD) and the Portuguese Subtitles (PS) were categorized according to the models proposed by Molina and Albir (2002) and Barbosa (1990). In the analyzed dialogs, 41 occurrences of VEH categories were identified among which the most common were idioms and metaphors with 24 and 14 occurrences, respectively. Concerning both AVT methods, in most cases, puns were borrowed, idioms were adapted and metaphors and rhymes were literally translated. Consequently, there were three implications: i) the puns created the feeling of foreignness; ii) the idioms are culturally marked and required the transformation of the source text (ST) to convey the intended message; and iii) the rhymes did not keep the humorous load of the ST rhyme. Regardless of the VEH categories, the translation technique most used in both AVT methods was literal translation. However, the combined use of literal translation with other translation techniques (e.g. modulation in the BD and reduction in the PS) explained the diverging translation results. In conclusion, the different combinations of translation techniques reveal the requirements of each AVT method: while the BD adopts modulation to make the dialogs sound as natural as possible, the PS adopts reduction to lessen the number of characters in the subtitles to facilitate the reading for the viewer.
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Regina Cláudia de Souza Silva | 2010
Second language learners diverge considerably in their ultimate level of proficiency in the target language. Bearing this fact in mind, researchers in the area of Second Language Acquisition point out that motivation plays a significant role in this process because motivation is responsible for the primary effort students make to learn a second/foreign language and for their persistence in learning this language. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine which factors influence students‟ motivation and whether it changes or not during an undergraduate English program. The data collection counted on 22 participants of a Brazilian university who were asked to respond a questionnaire during their class time. The results demonstrated that aspects related to the course, the teacher and the group influence motivation making it change after a period of time. Thus, it is important to consider these factors in order to increase students‟ motivation during their academic life.
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Paula Becker de Souza | 2010
Translating a novel can be a very complicated business, particularly when talking about a work that is set in a very unique environment, whose message has to be expressed to people that have no bonds whatsoever with such culture. This study deals with an English translation of Gabriela, Cravo e Canela, novel written by Brazilian writer Jorge Amado. The aim of the study is to select proper nouns from the original, in Portuguese, and analyze them through the lens of the Translation Studies field, more specifically, Javier Franco Aixelá’s concept of CSI (Culture-Specific item). My research resulted in an attempt to classify each proper noun into one (or more, in some cases) of the eleven CSI categories devised by Aixelá.
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Isabel Fontenelle Arantes | 2010
The U.S. television series House, M.D. represents a cultural item from the most dominant culture in the world today. With a main character that suffers from chronic pain and limited mobility, the story focuses on his job diagnosing mysterious cases. The series reflects the views of many North-Americans regarding disabilities of all types, including physical and cognitive. This research examined through the lens of critical disability studies three episodes from House, M.D. in which patients were forced by their guardians and the titular character to undergo great changes in mind and body in order to conform to the majority notion of “normal.” The analysis demonstrates that the series values the medical model of disability over the social model, placing responsibility on disabled individuals to adapt rather than criticize society’s infra-structural problems in providing access.
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João Pedro Garcia Diniz Spinelli | 2010
In this monograph I will study the ways in which Beckett’s work speaks a language of anguish, through his relationship to language, and, among other, the theories of Blanchot, Camus and Sartre, substantiating the importance of Beckett’s work and bringing forth a translation of the play Krapp’s Last Tape into Brazilian Portuguese, making this important play available in Brazil.
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Marisa Coutinho Jinkings Schmitzhaus | 2009
A classificação de livros em categorias como Literatura Infantil, Literatura Infanto-Juvenil, e Literatura Adulta é comumente usada e certamente esperada quando o leitor vai à procura de um livro. Não existe um guia único usado para alcançar essas classificações e não é difícil encontrar livros que são colocados em uma categoria e, depois de lidos, deixam o leitor imaginando se aquela foi a classificação mais apropriada para aquele volume. O presente estudo lida com essa dúvida. O principal objetivo é mostrar que a série de livros Harry Potter seria melhor classificada como Literatura Infanto-Juvenil ou mesmo Literatura Adulta, ao invés de ter como alvo as crianças, como leva a crer a classificação da série como Literatura Infantil. No decorrer deste estudo, características de ambas as categorias serão mostradas e comparadas com excertos e situações encontradas nos livros da série; será traçado um paralelo de momentos do livro com situações da vida real e por fim, será apresentado o resultado das análises realizadas neste estudo, assim como a conclusão a que essas análises levaram.
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