InContext - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2022

Despite independent Kazakhstan’s close ties to Russia based on geographic proximity, economic interdependence, formal treaties of mutual cooperation, and a shared linguistic and historic heritage, the viability of these ties is being tested by events of the past year and in particular, by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Due to the widespread proficiency in the Russian language in all three countries, through internet access and social media, the people of Kazakhstan are able to access not only the Russian perspective of the war, but also that of the Ukrainian people. Internationally, Kazakhstan’s leaders are attempting to maintain a delicate balance vis-à-vis Russia, ensuring on the one hand that their alliance based on mutual interests and a common history is not endangered, yet needing on the other hand to appear credible and responsible in the eyes of European and Western powers in view of their long-term strategic plans for Kazakhstan’s development as a major player in Eurasian affairs. The analysis by Maerz (2019) posits that autocratic regimes such as those in Russia and Central Asia tend to use democratic terms in a way which only simulates pluralism by camouflaging their actual intent. All parties to international negotiations, including interpreters, need to be aware of these linguistic practices to properly understand and convey the actual message. The delicacy of this balancing act highlights the need for translators and interpreters employed at international negotiations and encounters to be aware of the historical precedents as well as the current ideologies and contemporary status of relations between the parties involved. Translations cannot be rendered solely according to linguistic equivalents, as identical terms can transmit divergent meanings when seen through the lens of a different heritage or ideology. The stakes at such international encounters are extraordinarily high: nothing less than stability, prosperity, and world peace. Th s argues for the importance of offering professional development opportunities for translators and interpreters to maintain their awareness of the nuanced issues in play. There is a need to acknowledge the crucial role and need of these professional communicators to constantly maintain their knowledge of the social and political context.

Interpreting pedagogy has traditionally focused on the training of skills to fulfill market needs. Cultural Studies elements—in particular discourse on gender, identity, and power relations—have rarely been foregrounded in the teaching of interpreting, and even less so in conference interpreting programs. It is an industry-oriented pedagogical practice which has, on the more extreme end, fed into the glamorization of a profession which arguably should be more introspective on its complicity in upholding relations of power. With the aim of providing students with a more rounded education in interpreting, this article documents and discusses a preliminary attempt to introduce cultural studies discourse in a consecutive interpreting course conventionally positioned as a technical one, and one where students are commonly evaluated according to the criteria of accuracy, language, and delivery. By analyzing a real-world interpreting event—the US-China Anchorage talks—using the concepts of gender, power, and identity, the instructor attempts to counter institutional marketing claims of the profession being necessarily conducive to “intercultural communication.” Instead the analysis demonstrates that the claim masks what is in effect displays of power driven by domestic interests rather than target audience needs. It is an analytical account based on a cultural studies theoretical framework not meant to prescribe fixed methods or materials for the classroom. Instead it is offered as an example where alternative methods or materials can be introduced to initiate a line of inquiry for culturally-minded instructors who find the instrumentalist framework of accuracy, language, and delivery restrictive in explaining the dynamics between language and power. The role of the interpreter in the process of communication is thus problematized; the supposed agency the interpreter enjoys is also questioned. In fact, the analysis suggests that the higher the level of interpreting (i.e. high- level interpreting) the more the interpreter functions in service of power rather than an idealized notion of the common good, a reality that students deserve to understand.

Self-assessment in interpreter training has been recognized as an important tool to motivate learners and help them learn to evaluate their own performance. The literature on this topic shows that students’ self- assessment ratings positively correlate with trainers’ assessments, but there are certain differences between the two groups in terms of interpretation quality assessment. The present study wishes to contribute to research on self- assessment as a learning tool by comparing students’ self-assessments with teacher assessments in terms of a set of quality categories and identifying in what areas students need more guidance to draw pedagogical implications. For data collection, 20 first-year graduate students of Korean-English interpretation conducted self-assessment of their sentence-by-sentence consecutive interpretation in both directions. Two broad quality categories were applied, which are fidlity to the source text and target language adequacy, along with the three sub-categories of fidelity which are omissions, misinterpretations, and additions. An experienced interpreter trainer was recruited to perform assessment of the students’ consecutive interpretations based on the same quality categories. The results show that the students tended to focus more on target language quality in both directions while the teacher applied stricter criteria in evaluating fidelity of the interpretations. For instance, the study found several instances where students marked parts of their interpretations as target language errors while the trainer marked them as fidlity errors such as omissions and misinterpretations. The results suggest that the students were not consistent and reliable detectors of errors in their interpretation performance during self-assessment. This may be partly attributable to the fact that the participants were in the second semester of the two-year long graduate program, and in the process of learning how to evaluate the quality of interpretation accurately. Pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed, including the kind of guidance needed for students to learn how to conduct self-assessment more successfully.

A binomial, or binomial pair, is a pair of words conventionally linked by a lexical link such as a conjunction or a preposition, for example, “day and night”, “life and death”, “dos and don’ts”, etc. Binomials are very common in all languages. Binomials can be reversible or irreversible; i.e. they share/do not share the same word order in the Source Language or Target Language. Binomials play a very import role in learners’ or speakers’ competence; the more binomials you are familiar with the more competent one would be. In this paper, we will examine binomials in the Arabic language; we will use corpus-based approaches to explore how binomials are reversible in Arabic and English. In an attempt to find a practical-digital way for language learners and translators to rely on when they come across conjoined words, mainly binomials, different approaches to binomial extraction have been explored. Corpus linguistic techniques and Mutual Information1 statistics are used to test the relations between the different parts of binomials; the most frequent binomials and conjoined phrases are analyzed in an Arabic text coupled with their translations into English. By calculating the significant binomials, mutual information helps us to identify what to examine in the concordance lines. Based on the analysis of the concordances of the data, some rules have been proposed, something which would enable language learners and translators to make generalizations and reach firmer conclusions regarding the order of parts within binomials and whether they are reversible or irreversible when translated from one language into another.

Th s paper delves into the rationales as to why Indonesian migrant workers (mainly those who own private Korean language courses) like to use code mixing. They tend to add or insert Korean language either in Hangeul or its transliterated versions onto their social media posts, Facebook in particular. The fact that they are basically returned migrant workers with no formal background of Korean language education and the fact that they do this code (language) mixing so often has motivated the researcher to explore this phenomenon further. Online data gathering and online interviews with 4 respondents were conducted and 33 tokens of code-mixing and code switching were collected. Th s research attempts to reveal whether they want to show their particular identity as returned migrant workers who are different from the rest or they are simply a marketing gimmick for their business. The goal of the research is to determine the relationship between the use of the Korean language and the identities these returned migrant workers from Korea opt to project, the options being: identity as a returned migrant worker, identity as an owner of LPK (Korean Language Training Center), or other identities that can be revealed through this research.

The research indicates that despite the fact that there are equivalent words or phrases in Indonesian, they do code mixing to emphasize that Korean words are sometimes more appropriate in certain contexts to express something they feel or think. Second, they do code-mixing to show their closeness to Korea and their breadth of knowledge about Korea. Th d, they do code mixing as a way to show their academic background. Hence, a special identity to perpetuate an image of themselves as a returned migrant worker who is now an entrepreneur managing Korean language institutions as well as being a teacher.

Batik has long been well-known in Java. Its reputation increased significantly during President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s (SBY) administration who declared national batik day. This encouraged provinces with no batik tradition before to create batik with its unique local identity. Th s article aims to map the roles of different agencies from educational institutions in the emergence of the local identity symbol of Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB) province represented by Sasambo batik.

This research shows that cultural policies in Indonesia must consider locality. Local cultural expressions in Indonesia, especially in Eastern Indonesia, are often ‘forced’ to follow what is suggested and brought by actor from different traditions. The situation became more complex when the cultural expression introduced was packaged through the ideology of nationalism, Batik, which was originally part of Javanese culture, has been elevated to become a National culture. Adopting batik as part of national identity is an important cultural strategy considering that the use of batik has spread throughout Indonesia whether we like it or not. The problem is, the presence of batik technology has had an effect on local cloth craft that use a different concept from batik, such as NTB Ikat weaving.

Ikat woven craft are made through a long process and are more expensive than making batik, where the preparation and materials are easier to obtain and cheaper. In this case, the woven craft en cannot compete economically with those who make batik. Batik is faster and more can be produced. Batik was introduced systematically through the education system, while woven cloth was left as it was.

This research is part of an ethnographic research and the data were collected through observation and in-depth interviews. It was found that teachers play important roles in establishing a good reputation and even competing with the local woven cloth of NTB province. At the same time, there was a struggle over meanings between national and local batik. The ideology of nationalism used by the teachers in the end benefits not only individuals, but also groups, even government.

This paper discusses the language policy and its current place in Uzbek society, focusing on the legal basis that the Uzbek government has created for the mother tongue. The adoption of the Uzbek language as the state language 34 years ago was a prelude to the country’s independence, setting the stage for the emergence of a new generation proficient in their mother tongue while helping clean and enrich the language’s vocabulary.

The scope of the use of this state language remains limited since many prestigious offices still keep documents in Russian, and signs, advertisements, letterheads, receipts, menus, and many other items have yet to be Uzbekized. Another problem is the decline of written literacy in Uzbek among young people, which is associated with the “phased introduction” of the Latin alphabet that led to the circulation of two competing scripts (i.e., Latin and Cyrillic alphabets).

Furthermore, the programs of teaching mother tongue and Uzbek language subjects in primary and secondary schools need serious reform since the state language literacy is low for both Uzbek school graduates and those graduating from Russian-speaking schools. The language literacy of ambassadors and other government personnel must also meet the requirements. More recently, educational reforms are widely taking place across Uzbekistan, including the expansion of foreign language teaching—on top of the state language training—as a way of integrating into the world community.

The authors put forward proposals and recommendations to tackle these challenges: The oral and written literacy of graduates from secondary schools needs to be improved; to this end, reforms are needed in the assessment and testing system, and new types of tests should be adopted in higher education institutions.

A targeted, unified approach based on international standards is required for foreign language teaching. At the same time, a precise evaluation system should be put into place to determine the professional competence of teachers. While ensuring the effectiveness of foreign language training courses and their coherence with the educational process, Uzbek language training should also continue in higher education.