Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2025-09-01"
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- T/V Distinction in Second Language AcquisitionPublication . Zhang, YuxiongThe T/V distinction refers to the use of different second-person pronouns to signal social relationships, such as familiarity, respect, or formality, a phenomenon common in many languages, including Chinese Mandarin and European Portuguese. Modern European Portuguese has lost its traditional V-form, with younger generations often using você to express formality and seniority. In contrast, the younger generations often using você to express formality and seniority. In contrast, the posteriorly developed V-form nin has been well preserved and remains frequently used in Chinese Mandarin. This study investigates whether learning a foreign language influences speakers’ choices of address forms in their first language and examines cross-linguistic associations in pronoun use. Three experiments were conducted to examine the influence of a first language on a second language, the reverse influence of a second language on a first language, and the differences in address form preferences between Chinese and Portuguese speakers. Quantitative and qualitative analyses show that learning a foreign language does not effectively influence speakers’ decisions regarding pronoun usage in their first language. Learners tend to establish a direct association between pronoun usage in the two languages. For instance, Chinese speakers generally favor the V-form in most contexts, except when addressing friends or peers of the same age. In contrast, Portuguese speakers consider factors such as formality of the context, age, social relationships, respectfulness, and social status when choosing address forms.
- Differences of Strategies Applied in English-Portuguese and English-Chinese Translations: From a Cultural Translation PerspectivePublication . Zhang, YuxiongTranslation studies often discuss the challenges posed by the lack of equivalents between cultures. It is widely believed that translation is frequently hindered by culture-specific items (CSIs) that exist between languages of different origins. This study analyzes 105 sets of translations of furniture related terms from IKEA’s websites using a corpus-based approach and a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods. The aim is to identify differences in translation strategies between English to European Portuguese and English to Chinese. CSI translation strategies, including foreignization, neutralization, and domestication, proposed by different authors, are used in the analysis. The data indicates that foreignization is more commonly utilized in translations from English to Chinese, while neutralization strategies are more frequently employed in Portuguese translations. While it may be possible to retain certain words with specific cultural references when translating between languages that share a similar culture background, such as English and Portuguese, this approach cannot be accepted in Chinese translations. Due to the distinctive grammatical structure of the Chinese language, it may be necessary to provide supplementary semantic information or even create new words in order to accurately translate certain CSIs in English into Chinese. This study illustrates how different writing systems can affect translation strategies and procedures for translating cultural references.