This paper explores, within an ecological perspective on language learning (cf. van Lier 2004), the valuable role that translation as adaptation can play in mediating and making sense of cross-cultural experiences in the multilingual language classroom. The aim is to develop a multilingual pedagogy that includes translation as adaptation as an integral part of the language curriculum in order to foster translingual and transcultural competence, this being the goal of foreign language education in the 21st century (cf. MLA 2007:2). The first part of the paper introduces the theoretical framework that conceptualises translation as being closely related to adaptation. It then analyses salient scenes from Gianni Amelio’s bilingual drama La stella che non c'è/The Missing Star/L'Étoile Imaginaire (2006) filmed in Italy and China and screened in competition as part of the 2006 Venice Film Festival. Moving on from research to pedagogic practice, the final part of the paper outlines a teaching unit that is based on the film and is aimed at undergraduate L1 Chinese learners of Italian and L1 Italian learners of Chinese. The objective of the pedagogic unit is to raise awareness of the transformative power enshrined in linguistic and cultural exchanges mediated by audio-visual translation as an eminent example of adaptation.
The present paper introduces definitions of the key concepts that frame the research on the theatricality of public events held at the Department of Theatre Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, since 2010. The overview presents concepts such as theatricality, performance, and symbolic aspects of acting as well as the concept of "theatre as a cultural model" (i.e. theatre in the broad sense of meaning). Present research allows for the symbolic acts to be perceived as spontaneous; it also concentrates on the way in which acting in everyday life, and during public events is being made prominent by theatrical means (e.g. set, costumes, expressivity). More generally, exploring the limits of theatricality enables theatre scholars to open up their field for impulses from anthropology, sociology, and culturology, hence approach their subject of inquiry in a more interdisciplinary way.
This article discusses Kenneth Burke’s theory of the symbol, which considers the use of the sign as a specifically human activity associated with the formation of meaning. In Burke’s view, the symbol is a meaning-making device that can influence human action and thoughts, and therefore represents the key to understanding the nature of human communication. In this article, Burke’s ideas are compared to other sign-symbol theories — namely, the semiotics of Umberto Eco and Juri Lotman, Charles Sanders Peirce’s semeiotics, as well as Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms —, with analysis on the way each of these theorists defines the nature of the symbol and its conventional acceptation, principle of identification, and the characteristics of the symbolisation process itself.
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