Browsing Ph.D. theses (IBC) by Title
Now showing items 1-12 of 12
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Cross-lingual concept mapping based on the information receiver’s prior-knowledgeGlückstad, Fumiko Kano (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: A Japanese acquaintance who has been living in Denmark for more than 40 years formulated his difficult mission of undertaking translation tasks in the following way: “Once I deeply understood the two cultures [Denmark and Japan] and the cultural differences/nuances of conceptual meanings existing in the two countries, it became impossible for me to translate culturally-specific terms into the other language. Existing language resources [dictionaries etc.] are in this context useless”. What he was frustratingly expressing is that it becomes virtually an impossible task to precisely translate or convey the meaning of a Culturally-Specific Concept (CSC) if no exact equivalent concept exists in the Target Language (TL) culture. Despite this inherent frustration, communicators or translators are still required to convey such CSCs into a TL in an optimal manner such that a TL reader can instantly infer the original meaning of a given Source Language (SL) concept. In short, the key issue is whether there can be found a way to solve this inherently frustrating situation which even skilled human translators cannot easily cope with ? The challenge of translating CSCs from an SL is not only caused by the absence of equivalent concepts in a TL culture, but also due to differences of the background knowledge possessed by the two parties involved in a cross-cultural communication scenario. Sperber & Wilson (1986) emphasize that, although all humans live in the physical world, mental representations are constructed differently due to differences in our close environment and our different cognitive abilities. Because people use different languages and have mastered different concepts, the way they construct representations and make inference is also dissimilar. Since an individual possesses a total cognitive environment that is the set of facts based on his/her perceptual ability, inferential ability, actual awareness of facts, knowledge he/she has acquired and so on, it is much easier to achieve a so-called “asymmetric” coordination between communicator and audience (Sperber & Wilson, 1986).... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8546 Files in this item: 1
Fumiko_Kano_Gluckstad.pdf (11.35Mb) -
Insights into Language Choice from a Case Study of Danish and Austrian Multinational Corporations (MNCs)Bellak, Nina (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: International businesses like multinational corporations (MNCs) operate across national, cultural and linguistic borders both internally and externally, and thus are under pressure to make language choices. Despite the increasing tendency towards ‘English only’, little is known about whether language can be managed. In addressing this research gap, the present thesis explores language choice in four MNCs. A deeper understanding of language choice in its social context enables us to learn more about the manageability of language in such international business contexts. The theoretical framework draws on primarily sociolinguistic theories, combined with concepts from applied linguistics, language policy and planning/management, linguistic anthropology, translation studies, social psychology, and international business and management. The analyses in this qualitative case study are based on different empirical data, though with a focus on interview data, collected from two Danish and two Austrian headquarters and selected subsidiaries. The findings suggest that language choice is a social, contextually-bound and multilingual phenomenon. More specifically, the MNCs operate as multilingual speech communities where headquarters and subsidiaries choose their own language and English as a lingua franca only if necessary. The notions of corporate language and language policy are partly negatively connotated and point towards non-management. Furthermore, participants’ language choices are informed by (1) their language proficiency (first language and possible foreign languages), (2) their roles, role relationships within the employment domain, and politeness strategies, all shaped by relative status and power, (3) their attitudes to language and motivations, and (4) social forces external to the MNC community. At a more abstract level, social context is defined by (1) social-linguistic, (2) social-relational, (3) social-psychological and (4) social-regulatory contextual dimensions that inform or impose the choices of HQ languages, local/customer languages and English (as a lingua franca). The language choices can involve code-switching/-mixing, passive multilingualism, translation and interpretation, language learning and acquisition, human resource management (selective recruitment and staff relocation). Most of the choices are in fact made at both the individual and corporate levels, which are hard to separate from one another. The corporate level is fragmented into individual executives who make language choices in their own right which are far from harmonized. An additional level is external forces (e.g. authorities, laws) that impose the use of multiple languages on the MNCs. Finally, language choices vary across the MNCs’ organizational units, internal and external communications and communicative situations. It can be concluded that language choice is a social, complex, context-dependent and multilingual phenomenon which makes it hard to control or regulate. In conclusion, my research indicates that language management in international business contexts undertaken by MNCs can hardly be centralized or monolingual. Under the influence of external forces, it is even beyond their control. This suggests that language management needs to be localized, multilingual and sensitive to social context. Ultimately, one could question whether language needs to be managed at all or should be better left to individual choice. This knowledge can contribute to both research and business practice. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8973 Files in this item: 1
Nina_Bellak.pdf (2.797Mb) -
An eye-tracking and key-logging studySjørup, Annette Camilla (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis, titled Cognitive effort in metaphor translation – an eye-tracking and key-logging study, is an empirical investigation of professional translators’ cognitive effort during metaphor translation. Metaphors are defined as expressions in which one concept is used to characterise another concept, such as Peter is a wolf in which the characteristics of the wolf are used to define Peter. As a point of departure, the thesis adopts the direct access view of metaphors in which metaphors are regarded as unambiguous expressions which are interpreted as metaphors directly. Metaphors have primarily been researched in monolingual studies such as Glucksberg (2001) and Inhoff et al. (1984), who investigated how metaphors are processed and the cognitive effort required for this processing compared with literal expressions. The conclusion to their studies was that metaphors were not more cognitively effortful to process than literal expressions and that they were not necessarily more ambiguous either. Dagut (1987) and Newmark (1985, 1988) discussed metaphors from a translation perspective in which they regarded metaphors as a particular translation problem. Trim (2007) argued that the translatability of metaphors was related to their language-specific saliency. Neither Dagut, Newmark or Trim was empirical in his methodology, and the purpose of this thesis was to bridge the gap between the empirical methodology used in metaphor comprehension research and the more qualitative methodology used in metaphor translation research. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8698 Files in this item: 1
Annette_Camilla_Sjørup.pdf (2.263Mb) -
Understanding Preparation and PlanningLindholst, Morten (Frederiksberg, 2015)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Most scholars agree that engaging in preparation and planning is key to a negotiation’s effectiveness but research has largely focused solely on what happens at the negotiation table, rather than in preparation for it. This thesis addresses the balance by clarifying which preparation and planning activities are undertaken to conduct a complex business negotiation. It examines not only what activities are conducted, but also by whom, and when. One important question for both practitioners and researchers alike is the extent to which practitioners follow the recommendations of what is an extensive and highly varied literature on negotiation preparation. A review of the literature enabled a comprehensive activity checklist to be developed which, coupled with a number of propositions about how preparation could be expected to be conducted, formed the foundation for the data collection and analysis. The bulk of research into negotiation uses data drawn from populations in experimental design settings. However, this study follows a qualitative research design, which has multiple sources of inquiry and which draws upon data grounded in a large global, industrial company and, thereby, contributes to the limited selection of negotiation research that is conducted outside of university settings. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9198 Files in this item: 1
Morten Lindholst.pdf (2.950Mb) -
An Everyday PerspectiveChristensen, Elizabeth Benedict (Frederiksberg, 2016)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: In this dissertation, I qualitatively explore the everyday lived experiences of thirty-three 1.5 generation undocumented youth (1.5GUY) in the United States. Specifically, I examine how 1.5GUY experience and cope with sense of belonging (SofB) in their everyday lives in relation to their undocumented legal status (ULS). These youth, who have migrated at or before the age of twelve, have grown up and been socialized in the United States. Due to the Supreme Court Case, Plyler v. Doe (1982), primary and secondary (K- 12) educational access has been extended to all children, regardless of legal immigration status. Because the 1.5GUY have the opportunity to participate in everyday social, educational, and cultural life even despite their ULS, their experiences of belonging are relatively privileged in relation to their second generation undocumented contemporaries. However, their opportunity for participation parity is temporary, decreasing, and comes to an abrupt end during their transitions to adulthood, when the need for legal status becomes increasingly more salient in everyday life. In my exploratory and phenomenological study, I analyze narratives constructed through semistructured interviews with 1.5GUY and supplement this material with data from participant observation. In my examination, I focus on the relationship between ULS and SofB in everyday life, and especially the relationship between emotions, experiences, and performances. I analyze empirical material for the presence of emotions and experiences related to SofB, for example attachment, comfort, inclusion, participation, identification, safety, and community and conversely, insecurity, instability, uncertainty, doubt, compromised identity, and exclusion that may influence SofB. I am interested in the banalities of everyday scenarios—actions, interactions, and locations—that shape the 1.5GUY’s SofB. To capture the dynamics and diversity of experiences, emotions, and coping strategies related to SofB, I incorporate theories of identity, recognition, and citizenship, and related concepts such as the right to the city, participation parity, and coming out. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9319 Files in this item: 1
Elizabeth Benedict Christensen.pdf (2.187Mb) -
Kirkedal, Andreas Søeborg (Frederiksberg, 2016)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Stød is a prosodic feature in Danish spoken language that is able to distinguish lexemes. This distinction can also identify word class and has the potential to improve the performance of automatic speech recognisers for Danish spoken language. Stød manifestation exhibits a large amount of variability and may be perceptual in nature, because stød in some cases can be audibly perceived yet not be visible in a spectrogram. The variability is the primary reason there is currently no agreed upon acoustic or phonetic definition of stød. The working definition of stød is “. . . a kind of creaky voice” (Grønnum, 2005) and “stød is not just creak” (Hansen, 2015). In the present work, we investigate whether stød can be exploited in automatic speech recognition. To exploit stød without an acoustic or phonetic definition, we need to use a (almost) zero-knowledge datadriven approach which is based on a number of assumptions that we investigate prior to conducting ASR experimentation. We assume that stød can be detected in audio input, using acoustic features. To detect stød, we need to identify features that signal stød, which requires annotated data. To select the right features, the stød annotation must be reliable and accurate. We therefore conduct a reliability study of stød annotation with inter-annotator agreement measures, rank acoustic features for stød detection according to feature importance using a forest of randomised decision trees and experiment with stød detection as a binary and multi-class classification task. The experiments identify a set of features important or stød detection and confirms that we can detect stød in audio. Lastly, we model stød in automatic speech recognition and show that significant improvements in word error rate can be gained simply by annotating stød in the phonetic dictionary at the expense of decoding speed. Extending the acoustic feature vectors with pitch-related features and other features of voice quality also give significant performance improvement on both read-aloud speech and spontaneous speech. Decoding speed increases when we extend the acoustic feature vectors and actually improve decoding speed over the baseline where stød is not modelled. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9336 Files in this item: 1
Andreas_Søeborg_Kirkedal.pdf (5.921Mb) -
A Semiotic Approach to the Sentence Forms Chosen by British, Danish and Russian Speakers in Native and ELF ContextsIbsen, Olga Rykov (Frederiksberg, 2016)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: According to Durst-Andersen’s theory of communicative supertypes all languages can roughly be described as belonging to one of the following supertypes: (1) reality-oriented languages such as Russian and Hindi that speak of reality through the situation being common to the speaker and the hearer; (2) speaker-oriented languages such as Spanish and Japanese that speak of reality through the speaker’s experience of the situation; and finally (3) hearer-oriented languages such as Danish and English that speak of reality through the hearer’s experience of it. Using the above-mentioned approach, this dissertation investigates the following hypotheses: (I) native speakers of British English prefer indirect requesting strategies; (II) Danes and Russians favour direct requesting strategies in their mother tongue; (III) Danes and Russians transfer direct requesting strategies from their mother tongue to English; (IV) British, Danish, and Russian speakers prefer interrogative sentence structures with the situations where the speaker and hearer do not ‘share the same world’. Cross-cultural data consisting of the Trolley (Permission), the Window (Prohibition), and the Library (Impossibility) situations has been collected through role play from Danish, Russian, and English speakers (control group) at Carlsberg, and consists of both English Lingua Franca Data and Mother Tongue Data. The analysis of these three situations partially provided support for hypothesis I with the native speakers of English and II with the Russians though not with the Danes. By construing requests in terms of a ‘problem-solving’ activity, I found that almost half of the British English speakers ‘solved the problem’ straightaway by using the imperative sentence structure in the Trolley situation, e.g. Put your luggage on the trolley! Yet, among the three groups, the British English speakers were the only group who employed interrogatives most often. Both the Russian and Danish speakers preferred to solve the problem by offering their ‘best bid for a solution of a problem’ in the form of the declarative sentence structure in English, like.g. You can put your luggage on the trolley, whereas they preferred other ways of solving the problem in their native languages: the Russian mother tongue speakers overwhelmingly solved the problem on the spot with the help of the imperative form as in Stav’te svoi vešči na moju teležku! for ‘Put (IPFV) your belongings on my trolley!’, and the Danish mother tongue speakers mostly chose to solve the problem by ‘stating’ it, which is done with the hlp of the interrogative sentence structure, like Skal jeg ikke lige smide den med på min vogn ? for ‘Don’t you want me to throw it on my trolley?’. Hypothesis III was also partially confirmed with the Russians, who appeared to transfer the imperative sentence structure from Russian to Russian English in the Trolley and the Library situations. In addition, due to the original view on directives as trichotomous entities, it was possible to discover covert influence of Russian aspect and transfer of the imperative mood in Russian to Russian English. The analysis did not reveal any direct transfers of syntactic structures from Danish to Danish English. Finally, hypothesis IV was completely confirmed since the British, Danish, and Russian respondents largely preferred the interrogative sentence form with the Library situation. Even though the present study has analysed only a small sample, the findings for direct and subtle transfers from a mother tongue to English as a Lingua Franca can prove instrumental in improving global communication, say, in the form of developing teaching material for cross-cultural business organisations that use English as medium of communication. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9338 Files in this item: 1
Olga_Rykov_Ibsen.pdf (5.974Mb) -
[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis provides a framework for information retrieval based on a set of models which together illustrate how users of search engines come to express their needs in a particular way. With such insights, we may be able to improve systems’ capabilities of understanding users’ requests and through that eventually the ability to satisfy their needs. Developing the framework necessitates discussion of context, relevance, need development, and the cybernetics of search, all of which are controversial topics. Transaction log data from two enterprise search engines are analysed using a specially developed method which classifies queries according to what aspect of the need they refer to. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8720 Files in this item: 1
Esben_Alfort.pdf (5.804Mb) -
Schachtenhaufen, Ruben (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Med udgangspunkt i det danske talesprogskorpus DanPASS undersøges tilbøjeligheden til fonetisk reduktion i dansk talesprog i forhold til en række intralingvistiske faktorer. I undersøgelsen udføres en kortlægning mellem 300.000 fonemer og foner. På baggrund af denne kortlægning er det muligt at danne et meget detaljeret billede af både hvor i sproget den fonetiske realisering afviger fra den fonologisk forudsagte form, og naturen af denne afvigelse. I afhandlingen fokuseres der på den type afvigelser der kan karakteriseres som reduktioner, dvs. svækkelse og bortfald af de enkelte lydsegmenter. De reducerede forekomster sammenlignes med de øvrige annoterede lag i korpusset, herunder grammatiske, informationsstrukturelle og prosodiske forhold. Det demonstreres at tilbøjeligheden til reduktion, såvel som reduktionernes fonetisk resultat, i høj grad er knyttet til lingvistisk faktorer, såsom ordklasse, grammatisk funktion, ny vs. kendt information, fokus, emfase mm. foruden en række fonologiske faktorer. Reduktioner bliver ofte betragtet som sprogligt ukrudt, men på baggrund af den systematiske sammenhæng med informationsbærende elementer i sproget, virker det rimeligt at betragte reduktioner som funktionelle elementer, der er understøttende for kommunikationen snarere end forstyrrende. I afhandlingen udforskes og dokumenteres en række tilbøjeligheder som ikke tidligere er undersøgt i dansk, og kun sparsomt i internationale sammenhænge. Herigennem opnås et dybere indblik i dansk lydstruktur og de mønstre som reduktioner generelt ser ud til at følge. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8676 Files in this item: 1
Ruben_Schachtenhaufen.pdf (2.520Mb) -
Using eye Tracking to Further user Interface DesignPram Nielsen, Louise (Frederiksberg, 2015)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The primary focus of this PhD dissertation is an eye-tracking experiment examining target-user performance on so-called dual-entry modes representing Danish taxation terminology, to determine whether terminological ontologies should be included in the user interface. The conventional concept-oriented articles of term banks, which describe the meaning of a term by means of text, are combined with concept-oriented diagrams, which represent the meaning of a term by means of a terminological ontology displaying the underlying concepts, relations and characteristics. The latter provides the target users with overview and allows for the inference of consistent definitions, which in principle should benefit the target user. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9168 Files in this item: 1
Louise Pram Nielsen.pdf (7.491Mb) -
A Cross-sector Study of Financial Service Companies and Manufacturing CompaniesSanden, Guro Refsum (Frederiksberg, 2015)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Situated at the intersection of sociolinguistics and international business and management studies, this PhD project focuses on language management in two different industry sectors, namely the financial service sector and the manufacturing sector. Employing a multiple case study design consisting of two matched pair cases, the study examines the means by which language is managed, i.e. language management tools, in the two financial service companies Nordea and Saxo Bank and the two manufacturing companies Grundfos and ECCO. The contribution of the thesis lies in capturing the effect of industry sectors on corporate language management – a level of analysis which has largely been overlooked in previous research. The findings indicate that industry sectors embody great explanatory power with regard to the selection of language management tools at company level. The financial service companies and the manufacturing companies were found to have three sector-level factors in common, though with somewhat different outcomes. Economic geography increases the use of English for corporate level functions in the two financial service companies owing to the companies’ presence in international financial centres. On the other hand, in the two manufacturing companies, this factor increases the need for multiple corporate languages and translation into the mother tongue spoken by the production workers in the industrial locations where English language skills tend to be scarce. In manufacturing, economic geography was also found to lead to the use of language intermediates as mediums of communication. In all case companies, global integration increases cross-border communication and the use of English for corporate level functions, which also increases selective recruitment of English-skilled employees in both sectors. Industry speak is found to be closely related to company-specific language in all case companies regardless of sector, and technological solutions are implemented in order to manage large term databases in both sectors. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9174 Files in this item: 1
Guro Refsum Sanden.pdf (3.766Mb) -
A Corpus-Based Cross-Linguistic StudyGylling, Morten (Frederiksberg, 2013)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Effective communication requires texts to be organised into a coherent discourse structure. But languages vary considerably in how they do this, posing a challenge for effective intercultural communication. Instead of relying on our own preferred persuasion style to be the most effective, we need to take into consideration that people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds do not necessarily employ the same linguistic means in similar communication situations. This is of particular importance in a business context, and a profound understanding of cross-linguistic differences in the organisation of argumentative texts is needed. In order to address this challenge, this thesis presents a study of structural characteristics in argumentative texts across three different languages. The aim of the study is to examine some of the linguistic means that writers of different languages employ when creating persuasive discourses. The study is based on 150 Danish, English and Italian speeches held by Members of the European Parliament in their native language. The linguistic means under investigation are conceptualised as belonging to three different structural domains which account for different ways of linking discourse units in a text: a syntactically organised text structure, a rhetorically organised discourse structure and an information packaging organised information structure. The structural domains are defined from a cognitive-functional perspective and juxtaposed into a single analytical framework. The analyses show that writers across the three languages generally use the same rhetorical relations to build up persuasive discourses. But the analyses also reveal that the Danish, English and Italian writers textualise relations differently. The Danish writers use almost exclusively finite verb forms in coordinate and subordinate structures. The English writers tend to avoid explicating the rhetorical relations between discourse units, and the Italian writers tend to include more units inside the same sentence than the Danish and English writers. The analyses also suggest that the cross-linguistic differences in textualisation can be correlated with certain persuasive strategies. The Danish writers tend to persuade by analogy, making use of typical features from narratives. The English writers make use of presentational persuasion style, involving themselves in a more personal way than the Danish and Italian writers. And lastly, the Italian writers make use of typical features from quasilogical persuasion style, adopting a formal register and argumentation. This thesis formulates an analytical framework for a systematic investigation of the structure of discourse across languages, pairing theories and methods from the two parallel disciplines of linguistics and rhetoric in order to gain more insights into effective intercultural communication. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8794 Files in this item: 1
Morten_Gylling.pdf (2.451Mb)
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