English Studies at NBU

9

Authors: Blagovesta Troeva

Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty which resists conventional teaching methods. The phonological deficit hypothesis of dyslexia determines the present day focus on phonics targeting the primary area of difficulties experienced by learners with dyslexia – decoding. Phonological instruction, however, needs to be accompanied by the development of comprehension skills and presented within a rich language environment. Verbal memory and processing difficulties, typically associated with dyslexia, as well as other frequently co-occurring disorders require the adoption of a number of additional strategies for the teaching of reading to learners with dyslexia. The paper identifies a number of them: multi-sensory approaches, systematic (structured, cumulative and sequential) instruction, over-learning, reinforcement and metacognition. It recognizes the need of time, task and materials differentiation. The choice of particular teaching methods should take into account both the learner’s weaknesses and strengths. Such individually adapted teaching makes the successful inclusion of learners with dyslexia possible in the mainstream classroom.

14

Authors: Diana Yankova

The article considers some terminological aspects in the process of harmonization of legislation reflecting on different approaches to the study of terms and especially to synonymy and term equivalence. The various mechanisms available to the translator are examined within the EU context and against the background of Bulgaria’s legal culture. The analysis is based on translations of EU legislation from English into Bulgarian and highlights felicitous choices and techniques employed, as well as recurring inconsistencies in the long and arduous process of approximation of legislation.

14

Authors: Dmitry Yermolovich

The paper is based on the author’s experience of writing a Russian-English translation textbook and looks into the methodology of teaching students to translate into their non-mother tongue (language B). It is argued that a textbook delivering a course on general, rather than specialized, translation should move away from the popular format of text samples followed by glossaries and comments. Instead, the primary focus should be made on the utterance as the principal unit of translation. Utterances need to be analysed in terms of the situations which they reflect and their semantic class components (objects, events, abstracts, and relations). This approach, termed semantic-situational, can help make the learning and teaching of Language A to Language B translation more consistent and streamlined.

17

Authors: Tadd Graham Fernée

This article analyses Enlightenment ideas and nation-making practices in the American Civil War and pre-War civil societies. It analyses African American mobilization and the abolitionist movement, and Lincoln’s role in war, reconciliation and development. The international context is investigated in a case for relational nation making. The role of non-violent mobilization is assessed. It examines the war’s social revolutionary implications. The war’s unprecedented violence anticipated 20th century total war, fundamentally deciding the republic’s future. State/civil society interactions, and changes in public moral perception, reshape longstanding institutional arrangements, and decide core ethical issues including the meaning of humanity.