Advice and Suggestions to Students Planning to Write an Undergraduate Dissertation ("Mémoire") in English Synchrony.
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A linguistic dissertation is written in TWO years : one year is spent collecting the necessary material (bibliography, corpus, survey etc.) and another year exploiting the material and actually writing the essay. In other terms, the senior year (2nd licence) is TOO LATE to apply for a subject, and a fortiori to start working on a memoir. To start working on the dissertation after Easter in 2nd licence is sheer madness.
RECOMMENDED READING : It may be a good idea to consult a specialized book on how to write a dissertation before starting. One suggestion is Ralph Berry's The Research Project : How to Write It (Routledge, 2004).
SUBJECTS : Students may work on a subject of their own choice or apply for one. Before applying for a subject, students should have some idea of the direction in which they would like to work. For students lacking ideas, a list of suggestions is appended. Good ideas and advice are also to be found in Harris & Morgan, Language Projects (available at the PUB bookshop). Subjects in translation are acceptable only if they constitute an original contribution to and/or reflection on these sciences (see special section). A translation by itself (even a good or very substantial one) does not constitute a valid dissertation.
CONTENTS : In general terms, a dissertation should feature at least the following elements : a clear statement of the issues to be investigated; a justification of the interest of the study; a formulation of working hypotheses; a proposal of methodological approach and justification of the same; the research project itself (whether corpus- or literature-based); an attempt at interpretation of the data; a conclusion or appraisal of results; a comparison of the conclusions reached with those available in other research and with one's own hypotheses.
TIMING : This point should be taken very seriously. Too many students start too late and are forced to take an extra year to finish their dissertations. On the one hand, this solution is very unpopular with the University authorities (there is no reason why a four-year course of studies should be accomplished in five -- just think of the expense !), and on the other, it rarely improves the quality of the dissertation (students get a job and still do not devote sufficient time to their research).
The following schedule should be respected inasmuch as possible. It is not the tutor's responsibility to constantly remind the student of his/her timetable, nor can he be held responsible if the student is unable to plan his/her work in such a manner as to submit his/her essay in due course.
FIRST YEAR : After a first, heuristic stage, students should discuss with their tutor the precise subject of the dissertation, and formulate a number of working hypotheses (even if these are to be abandoned afterwards, e.g. if linguistic facts point in a different direction). Students should inform the tutor regularly of the state of advancement of their research and of any problems encountered. Meetings should be arranged at the student's, not the tutor's initiative. An interim report is to be handed in to the Faculty in the MA1 year (see highlighted passage below).
The tutor may aid the student in locating a certain amount of information or in obtaining bibliographic references, but this is not his specific responsibility. Nor should his personal library be considered as a public institution. It is advisable to perform a bibliographic search first. The Library owns a number of interesting reference tools in books and online (Scheurweghs, Dissertation Abstracts International, MLA, SSCI, ABELL, Firstsearch...), while others can be consulted at the Albertine Library Reading Room. The University also has an online database service which allows researchers to receive printed bibliographies from commercial data banks. But recourse to these resources may be wasteful (of time and money) if not carefully targeted. Books on research strategies may be obtained from the departmental library.
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SECOND YEAR : If, due to exceptional circumstances, a student starts research and work only in the senior year, he/she must give evidence of a substantial effort and a satisfactory state of advancement before the Winter holiday. If such is not the case, the student will be advised not to take the risk of writing a dissertation in English synchrony.
By Christmas, the student should have written a draft of the introductory chapter (not the preface) reporting on the motivation of the study, the state of the art (= results of the library work), the general background to the study and the strategies resorted to. After this, students should report on a monthly basis to inform the tutor of the advancement of their work. Samples may be brought in for discussion. While these need not be typewritten, they should be legible to one not familiar with the student's handwriting, and not contain hermetic abbreviations.
Although the tutor will make every possible effort to read a maximum of the student's work before it goes to print, it is not his task to proofread every single page of the manuscript. Recurrent mistakes will be pointed out in a cross-section of passages, and stylistic advice will be given whenever necessary, but here as before, students should learn to work independently, referring to writing manuals (e.g. the Harbrace College Handbook) or seeking the tutor's help only when necessary.
It is nowadays possible to resort to computer assistance for statistical or computational aspects of certain projects. While the tutor may advise students in the choice of a specialised counsellor for this approach, he cannot guarantee that external advisers will be available and/or willing to collaborate.
Students should understand that the tutor can accept responsibility only for work that is known to him. While it is creditable to work without outside help, it is also a safe precaution to keep the tutor informed on developments : The end of the 2nd licence is too late to find out that one has chosen the wrong method or pursued a line of work that yields no interesting results !
Work on the dissertation should be finished by Easter in order not to jeopardize studying for the final exams. It is not a very good idea to postpone handing in the dissertation : students choosing to submit their essays in September must be aware that no help will be available during the summer holiday, and that this involves risks. Prof. van Noppen is available on a daily basis during all of the academic year; but he is not disposed to devote his holiday to reading or correcting memoirs. Sorry - his wife and children are entitled to a husband and father every once in a while, and we all need a rest sometimes.
A style sheet is appended with advice on the typographic formating of your dissertation. It should be consulted before editing the fair draft of the essay.
There is, in principle, no obligation to have the dissertation typed by a professional, to have the copies Xeroxed and/or bound, as long as the result is presentable and legible. But recourse to professionals is often a convenient time-saving device, especially if they use some form of word or text processing. Always keep a copy of your manuscript, in case your original gets lost at the typist's or the printer's. If you use a word processor, always keep a backup copy of your text.
The title of the dissertation should give a clear idea of the subject dealt with, and whenever possible, of the discipline the essay belongs to, the issue(s) involved and the method used, e.g. : Hemingway's Sentence Structure. An Essay in Computational Stylistics, or : Metaphor as Linguistic Deviance. An Analysis and Assessment of Post-1970 Publications on the Subject. All important words in the title (i.e. anything except non-initial articles, conjunctions and prepositions) should be capitalized .
The title page and/or cover
should furthermore mention : the name of the University, Faculty
and Department; the term (année académique); the
author's name; the degree in requirement of which the dissertation
is written; and the name and title of the tutor.
A preface may be written to record the student's acknowledgements.
The introductory chapter should clearly state the motivation of the study, the issues involved, the working-hypotheses or questions pursued, and the methodology chosen with a view to obtaining the answers. The Corpus, when there is one, should be carefully described and its choice and structure justified. Subsequent developments should be carefully structured into chapters and paragraphs. The various steps in the argument may be indicated by numbering of chapters and paragraphs (e.g. 3.2.5 = third chapter, second argument, fifth point). The final chapter should give a clear picture of the conclusions reached, and possibly give an assessment of these with regard to the questions asked at the outset. When applicable, the student's conclusions should be situated with regard to those put forward in comparable investigations.
The essay should be written in a formal, academic style (though not in "officialese" or inaccessible gibberish) and refrain from using conversational English or turns of phrase (Cf. the appropriate sections in the pragmastylistics coursebook). On the other hand, the use of jargon should be reduced to a minimum. Walter Nash's book English Usage and John Clanchy's How to Write Essays contain excellent advice on how to achieve clarity in writing. Obviously, the language of the essay must be impeccable, and the final script should be carefully proofread (by the student, not by the Professor) for errors. This is not advice to be ignored : in the past, dissertations have been refused or marked down because the language was incorrect or careless. This website contains a checklist to help you assess your own writing. Use it.
The text itself should be formated as specified in the Guide de l'étudiant . Paragraphs should start with an indentation.
All quotations or excerpts must be acknowledged. Direct quotations are to appear between inverted commas, indirect references may be integrated in the text but must refer to their source. Long quotations should be indented on both sides and single-spaced. References in the text should take the form now generally adopted in linguistic essays, i.e. (Quirk & Greenbaum 1973 :54). Publications of one author or group of authors within the same year are indicated as 1973a or 1973b. It is a sign of academic seriousness to acknowledge the sources of ideas that are not yours, even when they are not quoted chapter and verse. Do not lay yourself open to the charge of plagiarism ! The same applies, of course, to data culled from the Internet. In the past, dissertations have been turned down (received a "zero" mark !!!) because they contained unacknowledged but identifiable collages of passages from the Internet. Don't take the risk.
REFERENCES should be given in a separate bibliography, after the actual text. A bibliography is not an exercise in name-dropping : students should refer only to books and papers actually referred to or directly relevant to the topic dealt with -- not to works they have never seen or read. References should be classified alphabetically according to author's name unless there is a good reason to proceed otherwise (e.g. primary sources vs. secondary references, etc.) The format for linguistic books and papers is as follows :
for BOOKS :
Quirk, R. & Greenbaum, S. : A University Grammar of English. London, Longman, 1973.
for ARTICLES
:
Lewin, K. : "Studies in Topological and Vector Psychology",
in University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare 16 (1940)
n° 3, pp. 9-43.
for PAPERS IN
COLLECTIVE VOLUMES :
McDavid, R. I. & O'Cain, R. K. : "Prejudice and Pride : Linguistic Acceptability in South Carolina", in Greenbaum, S. (ed.) : Acceptability in Language. The Hague, Mouton, 1977, pp. 103-132.
A NOTE ON DISSERTATIONS («MÉMOIRES») IN TRANSLATION
If you choose to write a mémoire in translation, it should be clear that the translation proper is only a small part of the work to be done. The instructions which are reproduced above state that « subjects in translation and terminology are acceptable only if they constitute an original contribution to and/or reflection on these sciences. A translation by itself (even a good or very substantial one) does not constitute a valid dissertation.»
This means that your translation should either be an illustration of a particular translation approach, or raise particular translational issues which you are suggesting to solve (in somewhat imaged terms, you are going to construct a «machine» custom-made to do a particular «job», and then show -by means of your translation- whether it works, and how.)
It is, then, useful to choose to translate a text which raises a specific set of translation issues and problems.
Of course, each of these issues can be solved (A) in an ad hoc manner whenever a problem turns up, but also (B) approached in terms of a global «translation policy» which you adopt from the outset. In the first case (A), the result of your translational decisions will probably be found and commented upon in footnotes, where you justify your options whenever you are confronted with a meaningful choice (to give but one example, you may at several points have to decide whether you are going to render «you» as «tu» or «vous». Clearly, your choice will be guided by your own insight into the interpersonal relationship prevailing between the characters; and this may in turn lead you to seek guidance in Trudgill's chapter on power and solidarity); but your various ad-hoc decisions should add up to a coherent "policy" that will probably be found in a final synthesis. While in the second case (B), you are more likely to state your policy in the introduction, and present your translation as an implementation of your model .
The theoretical or analytical part of your study should be written in the foreign language, and not -definitely not- be a mere rehash of a course on Théorie et pratique de la traduction or some book (e.g. Vinay & Darbelnet) : there are plenty of good books on translation -- Newmark's works being among the most useful recent ones, but there are others in our library (Chuquet, Grellet, Bell, Hatim & Mason, Catford, Savory, Nida, etc... ). So if you do not feel like constructing a translation theory of your own, custom-made to fit your purpose, you can always proceed eclectically and glean from other people's enlightened insights such advice as you may require -- but always proceed critically, i.e. show that you have given your choice of masters mature thought, and that you have not made a blind , uninformed choice or (worse) no choice at all and taken whatever came first.
There have been earlier mémoires in translation, some of which were successful. For instance, one student translated a novel by a gay author, and studied how he could render the somewhat «precious», effeminate style. This, of course, required a serious stylistic analysis in both the SL and the TL, which he then correlated with the author's options. Another student translated a number of Afro-English stories, and studied how she could render all the Africanisms and cultural allusions in the text to keep its characteristic tone and local colour. Someone else spotted puns in the Satanic Verses and investigated to which extent they could be (or had been) rendered, translated or adapted. Yet another student chose to translate a difficult philosophical text and commented (in footnotes) on every translational decision she made -- not just in terms of personal preference (that would have been unscientific) but by trying to understand what the author meant in the first place, by retracing his ideas to his sources (Plato, Aristotle, Nicene and Patristic theology) and by choosing from the «official» translations of these Greek and Latin texts the terminology which best suited the course of ideas in the text to be translated. Another idea (though not pursued with much success so far) is to translate a highly technical text and to find (or whenever necessary construct, according to well-determined rules) the proper terminology in the TL, and thus to build up a specialised, corpus-based glossary.
It might be a good idea to get hold of these mémoires and to look at how their authors worked. Ask the librarian for the dissertations of Patrick Binot, Brigitte Vanderborght, Nathalie Van der Elst, and Giannoula Griva. The doctoral thesis of Jan Walravens shows how one may construct and implement a translation model of one's own, and Christine Michaux' undergraduate dissertation shows how one may test an extant translation model by applying it to a real text.
SUBJECTS FOR MEMOIRS (in addition to the research projects suggested in the new MA1 course)
* in front of a subject means that this subject is suitable for a dissertation in multilingual communication (as it may involve a research project , require a stage or is media-oriented ).
* in front of a subject means that an option has been taken -- sometimes temporarily, so check this page regularly.
* means that a subject is no longer available.
THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS HAVE BEEN SUGGESTED BY
Ms. KEMLO AND WOULD BE SUPERVISED BY Prof. van NOPPEN AND HERSELF| COURSE INFO | 2011-2012 | UNIV. VIRTUELLE | BA1 | BA2 | BA3 | BA3 ERASMUS | MA1 |
