Please help me check these two thesis abstracts on linguistics about Hakka

Nightstalker — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 03:36:53 GMT

My high school Chinese teacher asked me to help her translate these two abstracts from Chinese into English. I have finished, but I need to correct them into better English. Please help me. I have to give my teacher the translation. She helped me quite a lot while I encountered the most unfortunate fate in high school days, so I wish I could help her in return. Please help me check one of these two if you have time.

1. Abstract

This study aimed at the morphological comparison of Hai-Lu Hakka and Southern Min including speech sounds, morphology, grammar and culture. The following is the content of this study:

Chapter One Introduction: Presenting the research motive and research method, etc.

Chapter Two Literature Review: Revealing the importance of research in bi-dialects.

Chapter Three The Relationship of Hakka and Southern Min: This chapter presented the overview of historical background, geographical distribution and social contact of the Hakka and the Southern Min.

Chapter Four Phonological Comparison of Hakka and Southern Min: This chapter examined the rules of code-switching and the history of the phonological evolution of both dialects.

Chapter Five and Chapter Six were the morphological comparison of the classification, number of syllables, the composition and the word order regarding Hakka and Southern Min lexical words. It was the hope to find the unique feature words of Hakka and Southern Min as well as those that revealed the linkage of the two dialects.

Chapter Seven Syntax Comparisons: This chapter discussed the dynamic aspect of words as they turned into sentences, including discussions on aspectuality and sentence structure.

In addition, Chapter Eight probed further into lexical items in terms of culture, focusing on the classical words, words with âmaâ, the forbidden words and the borrowed words and the way they reflected the culture.

Chapter Nine Conclusion: this chapter presents the conclusion of this study and suggestion for future research.

This study looks forward to a more rising research attention regarding the languages of Taiwan enabling the development of Hakka and Southern Min to move from the state of co-existence to the common good in this new century.

Key words: Hai-Lu Hakka, the comparison of Hakka and Southern Min, bi-dialects, the languages of Taiwan, morphology

2. The Morphology of Hakka Gender Word âmaâ and the Cultural Interpretation

Abstract:

Language is the symbol of culture. When a dialect has a word that is rare or even unfound in others, this word is considered precious for it often reflects the unique culture of this dialect. Such a word was found in Hakka. It was the gender word âmaâ, which was unusual in other dialects but was habitually used in Hakka as a feature word. On the basis of the research of this study, âmaâ was used with at least eighty Hakka lexical words. This study examined the usage of the lexical words with âmaâ; first, the semantic relationship and morphology of the word âmaâ was discussed before probing into the cultural implication for its extensive use in Hakka. The goal was to uncover the various complicated semantic relationships. This study discovered that âmaâ had as many as 15 lexical combinations and at least 9 extended meanings. It should be noted that in some combinations âmaâ were considered affixes while in others they were only quasi-affixes. In addition to âmaâ, discussions of other gender words in Hakka such as âkungâ, âkuâ and âpoâ were also included in this study.

The conclusion of this study was that Hakka had a particularly rich gender affixes and it was highly likely to be the results of general personification or deification of the Hakka. Based on the word âmaâ, the unique characteristics of Hakka culture was also revealed to a certain degree.

Key words: Hakka lexical words, feature words, affixes, gender, ma

Note: âma(old lady or granny)â, âkung(elder man)â and âpo(old lady or old woman)â can be shown using the original character and transliteration such as "ma(å«²)". They are the gender affixes for words in Hakka or Southern Min such as âgingerâ, âThunder Godâ and ârocksâ, etc.

Re: Could Someone Proof Read my Short Essay that is due on Monday : )

CalifJim — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 07:24:06 GMT

I would have used a comma before the final "and" or "or" in a series, like this:
mother, and lesbian
church, or community

You need "losing parental custody" -- one "o" in "losing".

I think you need a more parallel structure than "as an activist and through faith", maybe "through faith and activism" or "through activism and faith".

The choice of "accompany" in "... injustices that accompany many gays ..." is not really satisfactory. I'm not sure that injustices can "accompany" people -- maybe "face", "confront", "are experienced by", something like that?

I would have used "discrimination" rather than "discriminations".

"the key in building bridges" should be "the key to building bridges". (We say "the key to the locker", right? -- not "the key in the locker"!) But, on the other hand, you may want to reconsider whether you really want to say what you said in the final sentence. How is your reader going to interpret "building bridges between the gender issues"? In what sense is there a bridge between one gender issue and another gender issue? I can't be sure, but I think you intend to say something a little different from what you actually wrote.

You may want to consider using "Boatwright" less often or at least using it in a greater variety of positions within the sentences. It is the first word in a large number of the sentences in the essay. Likewise, the word "Colorado" comes up too close to another "Colorado", and the same happens with "church" in another passage.

Related to that, you could provide the reader with a little more interest if you were to use a greater variety of sentence structures. For example, you might use a few more subordinate clauses with "although", "since", "because", and so on. Varying the length of the sentences might also help. And your reader would be swept along through the essay more smoothly, I think, if you used just a little sprinkling of some connective expressions to relate sentences to one another -- like "yet", "still", "nevertheless", "also", "further", "even so", and so on -- but you don't want to overdo it, and you'll need to think of what will work best with the meanings of the sentences.

Writing is extremely difficult; you've done a great job, and my suggestions are mostly to do with polishing what you have so far. I hope they will help.

Search results for 'tag:Sentence structures tag:Genders' matching tags 'Sentence structures' and 'Genders'

Please help me check these two thesis abstracts on linguistics about Hakka

Re: Could Someone Proof Read my Short Essay that is due on Monday : )