LINGUIST List 18.2905

Fri Oct 05 2007

Diss: Lang Acq/Lexicography/Pragmatics/Translation: Sacia: 'The Tra...'

Editor for this issue: Luiza Newlin Lukowicz <luizalinguistlist.org>

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Directory         1.    Laura Sacia, The Translation of 'You': an examination of German, Portuguese, and Vietnamese address systems and their treatment in dictionaries and L2 learning materials

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Message 1: The Translation of 'You': an examination of German, Portuguese, and Vietnamese address systems and their treatment in dictionaries and L2 learning materials
Date: 04-Oct-2007
From: Laura Sacia <laurasaciagmail.com>
Subject: The Translation of 'You': an examination of German, Portuguese, and Vietnamese address systems and their treatment in dictionaries and L2 learning materials
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Institution: University of Hawaii at Manoa Program: Department of Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2006

Author: Laura Sacia

Dissertation Title: The Translation of 'You': an examination of German, Portuguese, and Vietnamese address systems and their treatment in dictionaries and L2 learning materials

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition                             Lexicography                             Pragmatics                             Translation
Subject Language(s): English (eng)                             German, Standard (deu)                             Portuguese (por)                             Vietnamese (vie)
Dissertation Director:
Paul M Chandler Michael L. Forman Kenneth L. Rehg Albert J Schutz
Dissertation Abstract:

Terms of address can reflect a society's norms and values, and oftenprovide information about a speaker, such as age, gender, occupation, andsocial status, as well as information about the relationship between theinterlocutors, such as degree of intimacy, deference, social superiority,or level of solidarity. While standard modern English uses only onepronoun of address for the second person singular (you), the addresssystems of other languages are often much richer and more complex in theirdegree of differentiation. Since such incongruity may pose a challenge tothe L2 learner, it is important that foreign language materials provide anadequate treatment of address forms. This dissertation examinesVietnamese, Portuguese, and German systems of address, focusing on thestrategies employed in the translations and descriptions of address termsfound in dictionaries and second language learning materials. Thisinformation was compared to native speakers' descriptions of their addresssystems, and the L2 materials were evaluated according to their accuracy,thoroughness, and consistency. The present study suggests that a number offoreign language learning materials do not provide a consistent amount ofinformation for all of the address forms, often providing more informationon male forms than on female forms, which in some cases were even omitted.Furthermore, the labels used to describe the register of the address formwere not always representative of the context in which the term was used.