Englishing the Conservation of the Vjosa River

Abstract

In this paper, we will look at the way in which written material produced to promote Vjosa/Aoos river conservation projects has been formulated in English, a process we refer to as "Englishing". Our focus will be both on translation into / rewriting in English (mainly from Albanian), but also on manifestations of English as a Lingua Franca in the material published. Special attention will be paid to lexis and terminology, and also to the way in which aspects of the particular cultures and traditions of the various communities living in areas that are an integral part of the Vjosa river system are rendered in English. Our aim is to identify successful strategies in such texts that emerge from a processing of Englishing, successful not just in the sense of adherence to some native speaker standard of English but also in terms of such criteria as general linguistic accuracy, communicative efficacy in a Lingua Franca context, stylistic effect, and establishment of ethos (i.e. writer's author and credibility).