Kazuma Hatano
Abstract
The growing role of technology in society, particularly machine translation, has grown due to its enhanced accuracy. Yet, communication quality depends not only on translation precision but also on user factors. It is vital to understand communication characteristics when using machine translation for ...
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The growing role of technology in society, particularly machine translation, has grown due to its enhanced accuracy. Yet, communication quality depends not only on translation precision but also on user factors. It is vital to understand communication characteristics when using machine translation for its future application in daily life, business, and education. This study investigates these characteristics in face-to-face communication using consecutive speech machine translation technology. Participants were international students at a Japanese university who conversed using speech machine translation. Despite mistranslations, they continued to communicate, either understanding most of the message or giving up due to incomprehension. Notably, the turn-taking order was alternated mechanically, even when there was a long wait for the other person to speak. Unlike previous studies, gestures were not used to overcome communication barriers due to mistranslations; rephrasing was preferred. This study proposes the concept of “speech production load,” the burden of device operation and translation waiting time, as a determi-nant of the relationship between a speech machine translation system and user communication behavior in the context of modern technology.
Ghazaaleh Homayouni; Masood Khoshsaligheh
Abstract
Audio description (AD) technology, as a means of audiovisual translation (AVT), provides media accessibility (MA) for blind and partially sighted audiences. Through this innovative technology, the audio describer engages in real-time communication and gives a running commentary on the visual elements ...
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Audio description (AD) technology, as a means of audiovisual translation (AVT), provides media accessibility (MA) for blind and partially sighted audiences. Through this innovative technology, the audio describer engages in real-time communication and gives a running commentary on the visual elements that are seen on the screen. The intersection of communication and technology in translation as reflected in how culture-bound elements are addressed in AVT has lately gained increasing attention. This phenomenological research aims to describe the solutions audio describers resort to for the rendition of culture-bound elements in Anglophone films into Persian. The audio descriptions of four Persian-dubbed English-language films were purposively selected as the sample corpus. The findings revealed that communication-centric strategies of specification, naming, and retention are, respectively, the most applied in the process of communicating the English culture-bound elements across the target culture by the audio describers. The implications of the findings for practice and theory are discussed.
Younos Dost Mohammadi
Abstract
This qualitative study explored the perceived experiences of Afghan English language teachers teaching at the Afghanistan National Army Officers Academy in terms of the student’s communication, motivation, and willingness to communicate. The study also investigated the challenges faced by language ...
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This qualitative study explored the perceived experiences of Afghan English language teachers teaching at the Afghanistan National Army Officers Academy in terms of the student’s communication, motivation, and willingness to communicate. The study also investigated the challenges faced by language teachers when teaching English communication skills to military students and the most effective instructional strategies for enhancing student communication skills and motivation levels. Data was collected through Skype interviews with five Afghan teachers and analyzed through deductive thematic analysis coding. The findings revealed the challenges faced by instructors and the most effective instructional strategies for enhancing communication skills and motivation among students. The study highlights the importance of considering the experiences and challenges faced by language teachers in enhancing the acquisition of English communication skills and motivation levels among students and the need for considering the context and challenges faced by instructors in developing effective pedagogical approaches.
John Demuyakor; De-Love Anobah Opare; Rachel Naa Kwarkor Quartey
Abstract
The communication skills of politicians determine the attitudes of electorates towards the outcomes of national elections. However, media news framing of presidential elections affects and shapes the electorate’s perceived attitudes toward elections. This study employed a comparative experimental ...
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The communication skills of politicians determine the attitudes of electorates towards the outcomes of national elections. However, media news framing of presidential elections affects and shapes the electorate’s perceived attitudes toward elections. This study employed a comparative experimental design to test the hypotheses by varying the valence and types of frames (i.e., positives vs. negative frames × thematic vs. episodic frames) to evaluate how these news frames affected the perceived attitudes of Ghanaian electorates towards the 2020 presidential election in Ghana. Stratified sampling approach was used to enroll 2,702 participants for this study from nine regions. The findings showed that the framing effects were few, weak, and not robust among the electorates in the nine regions. The findings further indicated that the perceived attitudes of electorates toward the elections were not consistent. The perceived attitudes towards the election were influenced by a single news frame and the effects of the news frames were not determined by a single news frame. Finally, the perceived attitudes of Ghanaian electorates toward the 2020 elections were found not to be determined by a particular news frame.
Faeze Pouria; Tahereh Zamani Behabadi
Abstract
The current study, following a mixed-methods design, aimed at: 1) investigating whether internet-based applications including Adobe Connect and Shaad for online teaching could improve communication and vocabulary knowledge for pre-intermediate EFL learners, 2) examining if the difference varies with ...
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The current study, following a mixed-methods design, aimed at: 1) investigating whether internet-based applications including Adobe Connect and Shaad for online teaching could improve communication and vocabulary knowledge for pre-intermediate EFL learners, 2) examining if the difference varies with respect to the learners’gender and 3) detecting learners’ reactions to the role of online learning in improving their vocabulary knowledge. In doing so, 34 Iranian pre-intermediate EFL students were selected to take part in the study. The results of one-way ANCOVA confirmed that the Adobe Connect group outperformed the Shaad group with respect to vocabulary knowledge. As for gender, the results of the t-test confirmed that there was statistically no significant difference in students’ scores. The commonalities from the interviews indicated that it was a novel experience and a challenging task to learn new words. Finally, practical implications were offered for EFL students and teachers.
