Optional Shifts in Existential Presupposition in Two Arabic Translations of A Farewell to Arms: A Shift into a More Narratorial Involvement and an Approximated Reader

This paper examines the optional shift in existential presupposition in two Arabic translations of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. In particular, it seeks to identify both how the shift occurs and how it affects the stylistic features of the translated narrative, namely point of view and readers’ interactive relationship with the text. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the research into the stylistic aspects of English-Arabic fiction translation and the alleged norms of translation. The findings reveal a tendency to increase the level of definiteness of the referring expressions and to claim more of the reader’s assumed knowledge of the text, suggesting a more approximated and involved reader compared to that of the original. There is also a tendency to bring the narrator and characters closer to each other in the psychological space and to increase the narrator’s subjectivity in the translated text. This tendency reflects the translator’s attempts to reconstruct the realities depicted in the original narrative during the translation process. Existential presupposition may be better seen in the translated fiction as a tool translators use to enhance the passage of information to a reader who is often linguistically and psychologically remote from the original work.

Towards a Serbian urban dialectology: Linguistic notes to a Dorcol idiolect

On the basis of a limited corpus, the author concludes that the idiolect of a woman from Belgrade, born in Dorcol in 1916, generally corresponds with descriptions of the Belgrade idiom from the first half of the twentieth century. The paper asserts: (a) that it has a four-accent system, but with optional preservation of falling accents after the first syllable (zap?mti, zami?sli), (b) that in the two-syllable words metataxis is present (ze?na, co?vek), (c) that there is no transmission of accents to the prepositions (na groblje, kod vas; na grob), whereas there is the optional shift to the verb negation (ne volite, ali i: ne la?zem, ne vi?dite, ne p?tam), (d) that a postaccentual length can generally appear after a short rising accent in the position s?sir, d?v?jka, although optional shortening (raz?mes, p?kazem) can also occur in this position, (e) that there is an optional shortening of long accented syllables (bo?lovi, na?meru), but no lenghtening of the short ones, except in emphasis (d?go, d?go), (f) that the non-discrimination of two pairs of affricates is preserved, i.e. that the pronunciation of [djdz] gospodjdza appears somewhat harder and there is also a slightly softened articulation of [c?] ve?c?e, c?e?kaj; (e) that the accusative suppresses the locative with the prepositions na and u (on ne moze da dubi na glavu), in addition to the proper use of the locative (jos uvek sam bila sva u groznici). Our corpus has not confirmed: (a) the Balkan model of the future tense I (ce kaze), but analytically one (ja cu da kleknem; a ona ce da kaze), as well as the simple and the complex one (dacu pa cu napisati treci), (b) the use of the preposition with with the instrumental of agency (strugala nozem). Although the earlier works have not referred to the use of the infinitive, we can conclude that it, along with various semantic groups of verbs, is completely suppressed by the da + present construction (ona nema obicaj da prica; ja treba da odnesem; svi hoce da mi pomognu; nemojte da dolazite; obicno volim da idem za Zadusnice, etc.). In addition, there are examples of postpositive use of the congruent future tense. (Ja nikad nisam rekla: tata, u zivotu mom, ni ja ni braca moja).

Effects of Preference and Dominance on Young Children's Optional Shift Performance

The relative influence of preference and dominance (cue similarity) on mediated learning and transfer in kindergarten children was investigated in an optional intradimensional-extradimensional shift paradigm. Children were initially trained with a relevant dimension which was preferred-dominant, preferred-nondominant, nonpreferred-dominant, or nonpreferred-nondominant. In stationarity analyses, all groups appeared to learn the initial problem in a mediational fashion; preference and dominance did not differentially influence type of learning. Relevance of a preferred and/or dominant dimension resulted in mediated transfer, as reflected by the preponderance of intradimensional shifts. No mediated transfer in the nonpreferred-nondominant group despite mediated learning was explained in terms of differential response strengths of the observing responses specific to relevant and irrelevant dimensions.