tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66466073432008495792011-12-20T06:30:46.399-05:00Papers about language, teaching, Dante, Buzzati (& a few translations)Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comBlogger191100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-78521040685159030802010-05-03T17:57:00.003-05:002010-10-02T12:04:45.236-05:00

Alberto Moravia “Una donna sulla testa” 'A Woman on His Head'Translated by Joan Taber( because someone had to do it) Determined to do any sort of work at all, I finally accepted a job as a messenger in the service of a Signor Crostarosa who owned a travel agency in the area up around Via Veneto. Crostarosa was a handsome man with a pink face, silver hair, and black eyes under two bushy little

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-8062769234628468592009-09-12T06:08:00.005-05:002009-09-12T06:21:40.763-05:00

This article was a guest-blog entry on http://www.jobs.ac.uk/blogs/my-tefl-journey/ Do check out this website if you're interested in any aspect of English-language instruction and jobs.Teaching English to Absolute Beginners Today’s blog is a guest entry by Joan Taber, a highly experienced educator, and someone with a lot of worthwhile things to say. Have a look at her entertaining and

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-42337452747068766112008-05-29T13:51:00.000-05:002009-09-12T06:23:36.405-05:00

Since the 1940s, the definitive solution to successful ESL instruction has been discovered many times. Like bestsellers, pop stars, and ice-cream flavors, second-language theories and methodologies enjoy a few afternoons or years in the spotlight and then stumble into the dusk of old age. There is always another tried-and-true methodology from yet another expert theorist who may or may not have

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-74458860186946812372008-01-29T13:19:00.000-05:002009-09-12T06:26:50.355-05:00

Many researchers proclaim that grade-school children who are not able to read are also lacking essential phonemic awareness, which is defined generally as the ability to recognize that words are made up of smaller segments, or sounds. More specifically, it refers to one's conscious ability to recognize and manipulate sound segments within words. Because there seems to be such an irrefutable body

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-16017943691093253342007-10-09T19:12:00.000-05:002007-10-09T19:20:59.030-05:00

Literally, Il fratello cambiato translates as "The Changed Brother," but I don't like this title at all. If I were taking liberties with the translation, I'd title it "Carlo." Il fratello cambiato byDino BuzzatiWhen we were children, my younger brother, God bless him, caused a great

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-85602165111047388252007-09-29T07:41:00.000-05:002007-09-29T07:45:51.732-05:00

Suicido al Parco By Dino Buzzatti “SUICIDE IN PARK”: A Translation Nine years ago, Stefano, my friend and colleague, thirty-four-years old, contracted automobile disease. He owned a 1960 model, but until that time he had never shown any symptoms of this terrible illness. Its course was rapid. Like great and fatal loves that overpower men, within a period of only a few days, Stefano

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-61231917678454773102007-09-03T07:17:00.000-05:002007-09-03T07:19:25.402-05:00

La giacca stregata THE ENCHANTED JACKETa translation Although I appreciate elegance of dress, I usually don’t pay attention to the perfection with which my acquaintances’ clothing is or is not cut. However, one evening, during a reception at a house in Milan, I met a man, about forty years old from the look of him, who literally glowed because of the definitive and utter beauty of

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-85883780412929276772007-08-30T08:31:00.000-05:002007-08-30T08:57:54.768-05:00

La Notteby Dino Buzzatti THE NIGHT(a fairly literal translation)Fear arrives, needing nothing, at the end of certain unforeseen evenings, assembling first along the hedges in the already lusterless valleys at the feet of ancient, time-worn walls. And behind the solitary churches? Or in that meadow at the foot of the apse where no one ever passes? Since afternoon, they have been able to detect

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-71261067546265452812006-11-13T09:02:00.000-05:002007-07-10T10:24:34.761-05:00

In education, as in most professional fields, methodologies and hot topics of discussion take their place on center stage, make head-turning fashion statements, and quickly disappear into dimly lit theater wings. But the teaching of grammar is one of those hot topics that never completely leave the stage; and methodologies abound for its teaching and even for its avoidance. The controversy

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-44657711108415648422006-10-11T08:24:00.000-05:002006-11-19T07:26:18.111-05:00

At a time when European scholars wrote exclusively in Latin, the language of the elite, Dante Alighieri chose to write his Commedia in the language of the people of Italy, which "existed in every city of the peninsula, but was present in none" (Cf. Gensini, 171-2). Although Dante has fallen in and out of literary fashion during the past 700 years, his work has never stopped firing the vision of

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-39729365114442349512006-10-09T09:46:00.000-05:002006-11-19T07:27:06.572-05:00

First published by The Translation ReviewDante's Commedia has been translated, recast, and transposed into English more often than any other work of poetry, often accompanied by the apologies of the translator. John Ciardi, whose aim was to reproduce the music inherent in the poetry of the Inferno, acknowledged his debt to all previous translators of Dante: "Without their failures I should never

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-28045657923394126722006-09-28T17:34:00.000-05:002006-11-19T07:16:52.084-05:00

First published by The Vocabula ReviewBefore I understood its imperfections, English was faultless. I was a happy follower of the prescriptive rules of English grammar who adhered to all the newest trends in grammar and never made an editorial move without consulting publications such as Warriner's English Composition and Grammar or The Chicago Manual of Style. The first twinges of doubt came at

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-67119030014150600612006-09-13T09:56:00.000-05:002006-11-19T07:27:36.108-05:00

In an attempt to make education accessible to all students, especially to those who express the least desire for it, educators have embraced and employed theories of motivational learning that have transformed US classrooms from bastions of pedantry and bolted-down desks into centers of inquiry and discussion. Academic motivation is a pedagogical hot topic that has forced educators to redefine

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-70084754073150978602006-08-20T07:05:00.000-05:002006-11-19T07:04:49.629-05:00

Participles are the shakers and movers of the English language. They stir up text, making it flow in smooth rhythmic waves; they create color and texture from dull shadow, encouraging them to dance on the page. They “–ing and –en” their way into otherwise dull syntactic structures, animating their forms, infusing them with meaning. Syntactically, a participle is a non-finite form of a verb, and

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-89224573834669241662006-08-18T14:36:00.000-05:002006-12-15T19:45:20.766-05:00

First published by The Vocabula Review"Tony is reel shamed of hisself," began my mother's carefully misspelled letter regarding my brother's unexcused absence from school the previous day, "an' he wont do nothin like dis aggen."It was a joke that no one understood except my mother and brother. I didn't get it either, but I was impressed by the furrows it had left on the brows of the office

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-25786249472400902142006-08-13T10:42:00.002-05:002009-11-13T06:23:02.499-05:00

Dino Buzzati—journalist, short-story writer, novelist, playwright, artist, mountaineer, poet, musician—explored the uncertain boundaries between reality and fantasy where symbols, space, and time overlap and intertwine; he observed the unobservable, documented everything that was elusive in that dimension, and chronicled his findings with the professionalism of a consummate newspaper reporter. He

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-63323023534216730142006-07-16T19:26:00.000-05:002006-11-19T07:14:53.722-05:00

Story by Dino BuzzatiAfter an interminable wait, when all hope had already begun to die, Giovanni returned home. It had yet not struck two, his mother was clearing the table, it was a gray March day, and crows were flying overhead.He appeared suddenly on the doorstep and his mother cried, “Oh, dear God!” running over to embrace him. Even Anna and Pietro, his much younger sister and brother, began

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-89642745466892244262006-07-01T18:01:00.000-05:002006-11-19T07:15:48.592-05:00

SEVEN FLOORSOne March morning Giuseppe Corte arrived after a day’s journey by train in a small Italian city that was famous for its excellent medical facility. Despite his mild fever, he felt up to walking the distance between the train station and the hospital, carrying his suitcase.Although his illness was hardly serious, Giuseppe Corte had been advised to check into the famous sanitarium,

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6646607343200849579.post-45464994802288434782006-04-16T19:20:00.000-05:002006-11-19T07:23:55.946-05:00

First published by The Vocabula ReviewThe way we address one another reveals our cultural and personal attitudes, our self-awareness, our sensitivity to others, even our social standing in relation to that of our interlocutors; for, as sociolinguists remind us, words never exist in isolation. It is also true that language, like all living creatures, is in a constant state of evolution; and most

Joan Taberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06523921024373714683noreply@blogger.com