"Lost in Translation"

When you are the person who knows the language and your companion does not, you are inevitably the interpreter. Sometimes this is straightforward, such as when you ask someone for directions and then translate them for the person who is driving. Restaurant menus can be a great source of entertainment, particularly if you have the menu in the local language and he has the menu in execrable English, and keeps asking you to explain the translation. But as the days passed, I found myself finding different ways of trying to convey some of the nuances of different conversations, so that G. could experience, albeit vicariously something of what I was experiencing, and I discovered that the way to do this was to find some sort of parallels in the language we both shared.

One afternoon we went to the village of Muxia, where there is a famous sanctuary to Our Lady of the Ship, located right next to the sea. There are some extraordinary stones, boulders to be more precise, along the shoreline just in front of the breaking waves, and two of these huge stones seem to be propping one another up, so that there is just space for someone to crawl under them at low tide. The Muxia shrine was built, according to the local tradition, on the site of an ancient prehistoric holy place, and is seen as one of several places in Galicia where Christian and pre-Christian rituals overlap. We were standing looking down over the great stones, when two middle-aged ladies appeared and deposited their bags ...

QUESTIONS

1. Find and transcribe words with /ə/ in their strong forms.

2. Transcribe the sentence “Restaurant menus … translation”.

3. Transcribe: convey, conversations, language.

4. Find homophones (only one of the homophone pairs needs to be in the text): write the word in the text, the homophone and the transcription.

5. Make a syllable structure analysis of 'next'.

6. Find words which have the high/close front unrounded vowel (/i/)

ANSWERS

When you are the person who knows the language and your companion does not, you are inevitably the interpreter. Sometimes this is straightforward, such as when you ask someone for directions and then translate them for the person who is driving. Restaurant menus can be a great source of entertainment, particularly if you have the menu in the local language and he has the menu in execrable English, and keeps asking you to explain the translation. But as the days passed, I found myself finding different ways of trying to convey some of the nuances of different conversations, so that G. could experience, albeit vicariously something of what I was experiencing, and I discovered that the way to do this was to find some sort of parallels in the language we both shared.

One afternoon we went to the village of Muxia, where there is a famous sanctuary to Our Lady of the Ship, located right next to the sea. There are some extraordinary stones, boulders to be more precise, along the shoreline just in front of the breaking waves, and two of these huge stones seem to be propping one another up, so that there is just space for someone to crawl under them at low tide. The Muxia shrine was built, according to the local tradition, on the site of an ancient prehistoric holy place, and is seen as one of several places in Galicia where Christian and pre-Christian rituals overlap. We were standing looking down over the great stones, when two middle-aged ladies appeared and deposited their bags ...

1. The words with /ə/ in their strong forms have been marked in bold in the text above (the part of the word where /ə/ occurs). You should transcribe the entire word: I didn't have  time or space to do them all, but here are some of the main ones:

interpreter   /ɪnˈtɜ:prətə/  

experience     /ɪkˈspɪərɪəns/ 

discovered       /dɪsˈkʌvəd/

afternoon   /ˌɑ:ftəˈnu:n/    

famous   / ˈfeɪməs/

boulders   /ˈbəʊldəz/ or /ˈbɒldəz/ 

along     /əˈlɒŋ/      

another       /əˈnʌðə/  

under       /ˈʌndə/

according     /əˈkɔ:dɪŋ/

tradition    /trəˈdɪʃṇ/

over       /ˈəʊvə/  

appeared    /əˈpɪəd/

2. /ˈrestrɒnt ˈmenju:z kən bij ə ˈgreɪt ˈsɔ:s əv entəˈteɪnmənt pəˈtɪkjʊləlij ɪf ju: ˈhæv ðə ˈmenju:w ɪn ðə ˈləʊkḷ ˈlæŋgwɪʤ ən i ˈhæz ðə ˈmenju:w ɪn ˈeksəkrəbḷ ˈɪŋglɪʃ ən ˈki:ps ˈɑ:skɪŋ jə tuw ˈɪkspleɪn ðə trænsˈleɪʃṇ/

3. /kənˈvɪeɪ/ /kɒnvəˈseɪʃṇz/ /ˈlæŋgwɪʤ/

4.

5. 'next'                         /nekst/

                                /n/                        /e/                          /k/                 /s/                             /t/

                             onset                     centre                                           coda

                             initial                                                    final              post-final               post-final

/n/ voiced alveolar nasal

/e/ mid front short vowel

/k/ unvoiced velar plosive

/s/ unvoiced alveolar fricative

/t/ unvoiced alveolar plosive

6. The words which have the high/close front unrounded vowel (/i/) have been marked in blue in the text above (the part of the word where /i/ occurs). 

inevitably    /ɪnˈevɪtəbli/ 

particularly    /pəˈtɪkjʊləli/

vicariously     /vɪˈkeərɪəsli/   

sanctuary      /ˈsæŋkʧəri/  or /ˈsæŋktjwəri/ or  /ˈsæŋktjʊəri/

Lady     /ˈleɪdi/    

extraordinary    /ɪkˈstrɔ:dɪnəri/ or /ɪkˈstrɔ:dənəri/ or /ɪkˈstrɔ:dṇri/

holy    /ˈhəʊli/

NB The text also contains five homonyms:

can - modal verb or container for drink or food

found - past tense of 'to find' or present tense of 'to found' (to establish, begin)

right – opposite of left, or correct, or opposite of wrong

just – adverb (only or precisely), or fair (justice)

down – adverb (opposite of up) or goose or duck feathers