The Cavafy Effect: Homages, Allusions, Readings, por Fabián O. Iriarte

Fabián O. Iriarte holds a Licenciatura en Letras from the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (1987) and a Doctoral Degree in the Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas (1999). He currently teaches English and US Literature and Comparative Literature at the UNMdP and is a member of the Problemas de la Literatura Comparada research group. Some of his essays on translation have appeared in Traducción como cultura (1997) and La cultura de los géneros (2001). He has directed seminars on translation and gay & lesbian poetry. His translations of Jorie Graham’s and Adrienne Rich’s poetry are featured in the anthology Los pájaros, por la nieve (Santiago de Chile: RIL, 2008); he also co-edited and co-translated with Lisa R. Bradford Usos de la imaginación: Poesía de l@s latin@s en EEUU (Mar del Plata: Eudem, 2008).

W. H. Auden declared, in his Introduction to the 1961 edition of The Complete Poems of C. P. Cavafy, that the Alexandrian poet's work remained an influence on his writing since the time he had been introduced to it, thirty years earlier: "I can think of poems which, if Cavafy were unknown to me, I should have written quite differently or perhaps not written at all." Cavafy seems to have had a similar effect on a host of American and British writers (some of whom identified themselves as either "homosexual" or "gay"). His poetry has been disseminated and multiplied in numerous texts by poets acknowledging their debt in several ways. Roughly classified, their poems may be seen as "homage poems" (like Peter Bradley's "On a Snapshot of Cavafy's House", 1990), "allusive poems" (like William Plomer's "A Casual Encounter", 1973), and "poems of reading experience" (like Timothy Liu's "Reading Cavafy", 1998). An analysis of these texts will reveal the productive effects of Cavafian poetry in translation in the English-speaking world and the way his poetry found new life in poetic homages, re-stagings of typical Cavafian scenes, and revisitations.

Addressing Gender-based Ideologies, por Andrea Insaurralde

Lic. Andrea Insaurralde. Profesora en Inglés e Inglés Técnico – Instituto Nacional Superior del Profesorado Técnico. Licenciada en Lengua Inglesa – Universidad de Belgrano. She has specialized in the teaching of Language and teaches at Universidad CAECE and Instituto Superior CEM. She is also teaching Grammar I at Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. She has been a teacher at several secondary schools and Teacher Training Colleges in Buenos Aires, Santa Cruz and Corrientes.

The study of language and gender has always been grounded in eliminating disadvantage. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the USA, women began to examine social practices that supported gender discrimination. This led to the study of language and gender with the aim of banishing societal inequities based upon gender. The aim of this class is to raise awareness of the constitutive nature of discourse, that is to say, how our language use shapes our understanding of the social world, our relationships to each other and our social identities, and how gender-differentiated language use can reflect and help perpetuate the subordinate status of women in society. By recognizing the constitutive nature of language discriminatory practices can be challenged and transformed through our language choices.

Since the components of our social identity – social class, ethnicity, gender, age and so on – have a crucial bearing on our experience of and relationship to social processes, one step towards redressing social inequities is the use of nonsexist language. In light of this fact, the notion of “sexist language” will be addressed, together with the question of possible gender differences in the area of language usage. The former will include the discussion of naming conventions, lexical choice and the use of generic “he”, and the latter, two different approaches to the study of language and gender: the dominance approach and the dual-culture approach.

Awkward Phrasing in Advanced EFL Writing, por Susana B. Tuero y Marina Selesán

Tuero, Susana is a full-time professor at the Departmento de Lenguas Modernas, and at the Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. She holds a Master’s Degree in TESOL, and a Ph. D in English -Applied Linguistics from Michigan State University, USA. Her areas of interest are testing, vocabulary, and writing in EFL.

Research findings in the late 1970s, changed our perception of the writing process. The product-based approach that viewed writing as a linear process was abandoned as writing was considered a cognitive-based process that was recursive in nature. In this paradigm, writing is perceived as a process in which the writers moves back and forth throughout a series of stages: thinking about the topic, organizing ideas, writing, revising, and re-writing.
Even though it is claimed that it is absolutely necessary to revise, inexperienced writers are very reluctant to revise their own writing. They find it hard to understand that revision is an essential part of good writing. Professional writers go through several drafts to achieve the results they want. Good writers are in fact re-writers.
In EFL writing classes, feedback on the various drafts is what helps students move through the process, and improve their writing skills. A review of the literature reveals three major areas of feedback as revision: the teacher, other learners, and the student him/herself (Keh, 1989). Researchers and composition instructors agree that teacher feedback is highly effective in the process of constructing a text.
Most writing teachers use symbols and abbreviations to indicate the sections in the student’s text that call for improvement; for example, ‘gram.’ written on the margin suggests that a syntactic structure must be corrected/improved; ‘not relev,’ helps students understand that the detail(s) provided may not be connected to what is being discussed; and ‘sp’ is used to indicate that there is a spelling error. One comment that student writers find particularly puzzling, and do not know what they should do, is the notation awkward. The problem of awkward phrasing is not easy to define, its characteristics are difficult to define, and its solution hard to achieve.
The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the common features of awkward prose, to present a working definition, and to suggest steps that writing teachers can follow to help their students eliminate awkward phrasing from their writing. A set of awkward sentences will be presented to the audience and possible solutions discussed.

Un blog para los alumnos de Profesorado y Traductorado de Inglés de la UNLP, por Silvia C. Enríquez

Silvia Enriquez: Profesora de Inglés graduada en la Universidad Nacional de La Plata en 1981. También aprobó 25 materias de la carrera de Letras en la misma Universidad.
Desde 1990 trabaja en la Cátedra de Lengua Inglesa III, Profesorado y Traductorado de Inglés de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, UNLP. Actualmente se desempeña como Jefa de Trabajos Prácticos.

Los avances tecnológicos hacen posibles nuevos modos de comunicación con los alumnos, a la vez que facilitan el acceso a modalidades de trabajo que no existían hasta hace unos pocos años. Debido a las posibilidades que ofrece el uso de la web 2.0, la cátedra de Lengua Inglesa III del Profesorado y Traductorado de Inglés de la UNLP reemplazó en el transcurso de este año parte de las horas de consulta ofrecidas semanalmente por el uso de un blog a través del cual los alumnos pueden debatir temas propuestos por la cátedra. Esto les permite ejercitar su capacidad crítica y las destrezas necesarias para escribir los textos argumentativos que constituyen parte de los trabajos prácticos de la materia. En el presente trabajo se comentan los resultados de la experiencia, tanto desde el punto de vista de los docentes como de los alumnos. El resultado en general es positivo, ya que ha permitido que los estudiantes comprendan mejor las características y la función de un texto argumentativo fuera del ámbito de clase.

The Sharp Shock of Digging Up “Real” English, por Chris Kunz

Chris Kunz: ELT Professional in Argentina, Australia and UK for 17 years. Currently living and working in England. Senior Director of Studies at Kensanglia Schools of English, Buenos Aires. Has been lecturing on ELT Methodology, Advanced Language for teachers and English Phonetics and Phonology in Argentina and overseas since 1997.Has been involved with the Anglia Examination Syndicate Testing Services since 1996. Is the Academic Representative for South Amerca & Mainland Spain. Holds the Cambridge/RSA Cert. / Dip. ELTA.
Main interests: "Evolution and Change in Spoken English", "Diversities of English Accents" and "English Language Teaching Resources".Now divides his time between Chichester College, England, as EFL Lecturer, and Anglia Examination Syndicate. Facilitator/ Interlocutor in UK with several exam boards for Skills for Life Examinations. Has delivered the Phonology Modules of LSC Skills for Life Quality Initiative Professional Development Programme in UK.

Language will always be changing, according to world-class linguist David Crystal. This is something we cannot stop, no matter how hard we try. The key to success though, to my mind at least, is being aware of what these changes involve, analysing them and eventually passing judgement on what they represent.
As we speak, falling standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, lexis and pronunciation are everyday international talking points among English language lovers. These so-called “falling” standards have come to stay and become part of our everyday repertoire.
Join Chris in this interactive presentation if you fancy a stroll through the fascinating and thought-provoking examples of what native speakers of English actually say or write these days.

Polyphonic Texts: Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia and Zadie Smith's White Teeth, por Karen Cresci

Karen Lorraine Cresci graduated from UNMdP in 2006 and is a member of the research group "Problemas de la Literatura Comparada," directed by Dr. Lisa Bradford. Since 2005 she has been a fellow of the UNMdP and is doing research on translation studies and multicultural literature. She has contributed translations of Diana García’s poetry to an anthology of U.S. poetry in Spanish, Usos de la imaginación: poetas latin@s en EE.UU. (EUDEM, Argentina), that will be appearing in 2008.

Hanif Kureishi and Zadie Smith have been widely praised for their skillful representations of the multiplicity of voices that characterizes post-imperial England. Transposing these multiple voices poses a formidable challenge to literary translators. Since the way a character speaks is key in characterization, translators must strive to render the nuances of the speech of each character in the target language. In this talk, we will explore some of the difficulties that the translation of polyphonic texts entails. The novels The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi and White Teeth by Zadie Smith, and their Spanish translations will be analyzed.

ESP en Ingeniería, por Carolina Di Benedetto y Eva Brunstein Blum

Carolina Di Benedetto. Profesora de Inglés, UNMDP, 1996. She has worked at Facultad de Ingeniería, UNMdP in Inglés Técnico I and II since 1994 and Inglés Profesional I and II as Profesor Adjunto since 2002. She has also worked at JTP at Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, UNMdP. She has participated in Jornadas and Congresses as an author and exhibitor of papers related to ESP. She has worked in Tertiary level teaching Technical English in areas such as Programming and Industry Safety and Health.

Eva Brunstein Blum holds a degree as an English Teacher for Secondary School (UNMDP, 1989) and as a University English Teacher (UNMDP, 1991). She has taught English for Specific Purposes at Tertiary level in the areas of Programming and Marketing. She has attended several Congresses and Jornadas as an author of papers on ESP. At present she works as Profesor Adjunto of Inglés Técnico l and Inglés Técnico ll at Engineering Technical College (UNMDP), and as JTP at Inglés Profesional l and Inglés Profesional ll at the same college.

El idioma inglés se constituye como una herramienta fundamental en la formación de los estudiantes de ingeniería, tanto en la formación académica como para el futuro profesional. El idioma inglés se vuelve así un medio indispensable para acceder al conocimiento, por lo que se hace imprescindible el manejo la lectura. La comprensión global de un texto no es suficiente en este contexto ya que los saberes de los distintos campos de las ingenierías demandan más exactitud que un mero entendimiento de la idea general de los contenidos del texto. La precisión en la lectura del inglés requiere una metodología especial que la promueva y la desarrolle, tomando como pilar la adquisición de un vocabulario básico y una técnica de traducción literal, sin olvidar el objetivo final que es la comprensión. Esto se acompaña con un sistema de evaluación que estimula la apropiación de los conocimientos necesarios para llegar a tal fin. Ejemplificaremos y compartiremos nuestra experiencia en las cátedras de Inglés Técnico de la Facultad de Ingeniería, UNMDP y mostraremos el enfoque utilizado para que nuestros alumnos logren la mencionada precisión en la comprensión, así como el sistema de evaluación implementado.