One third of older adults in Canada are foreign-born, yet there is a dearth of literature on this population. When our team set out to engage in a mixed-methods study on the physical activity and mobility of foreign-born older adults (FBOAs), we found limited guidance. The objective of this Research Note is to share the lessons that we learned in implementing a mixed-methods study in five languages, with 49 visible minority FBOAs from diverse ethno-cultural groups. With an emphasis on practical implementation, here we share our reflections on early community engagement, linguistic accessibility and literacy considerations, facilitating communication with the research team, creating a support role for multilingual family members, organisational suggestions, and working with interpreters and monolingual transcribers. The older Canadian population is projected to become increasingly diverse in the coming decades, and it is our hope that this note will further facilitate research in this understudied area.

The Edinburgh Feeding Evaluation in Dementia (EdFED) Scale was designed to identify feeding difficulties for people with moderate to severe dementia. Its Canadian-French cross-cultural adaptation was carried out, as part of an experimental study, whose secondary objective was to document its construct validity. A back-translation method was followed. The EdFED-f was used during a meal with 26 elderly residents who had cognitive disorders. There was a significant correlation between EdFED-f scores and energy intakes calculated using a visual estimation of plate wash method (r=-0,50, p=0,009). EdFED-f scores also showed a significant difference according to the percentage of food consumed at meals (p=0,015). These results support the validity of the EdFED-f to assess feeding difficulties among elderly French-speaking Canadians living in residential and long-term care centers.

The objective was to translate into French the American questionnaire “Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture” and to test the feasibility of its use in a sample of nursing homes. The questionnaire was translated by a multidisciplinary group of six experts and tested on a sample of people working in nursing homes. The questionnaire was then administered in five nursing homes. A first version of the French NHSPSC is proposed in this article. Despite similarities between items and ceiling effect for one item, the choices made were conservative to allow international comparisons. The administration of the questionnaire in five nursing homes confirmed the feasibility of the approach, with a participation of more than 50 per cent. This work made a French version of the NHSPSC available and confirmed that it is a feasible method for evaluating safety culture in nursing homes.

The study explores the expression of the unexpected by English adjectives and participles prefixed in un- in The Picture of Dorian Gray. The study compares their oral realizations and translations in connection with the various modes of construction of otherness, which can either be a dual opposition between the expected and effective values, with participles and some adjectives, or a gradient between the two values with adjectives. In the case of dual opposition, ungradable adjectives tend to be translated using positive adjectives and there is clear acoustic prominence on the prefix, as in the case of special focus. “Constructed negation” in translation is illustrated by sans + (aucun) NOUN or the suffix -able, and corresponds to greater duration of the prefix. In other cases, the base is acoustically prominent, but translation techniques vary, although four techniques account for 80% of the entries, even if translator styles differ considerably.

In music copyright infringement cases, forensic musicologists are often called to testify as to whether or not two songs are ‘substantially similar.’ While it is standard practice to rely on experts to dissect the works in question, this is a fairly recent phenomenon. Until the 1950s, it was not the scientific analysis of the pieces, but the impressions they left on the ‘untrained ears’ of everyday listeners that was used to determine copyright infringement. This paper presents an overview of American music copyright infringement cases to document this shift in how the question of substantial similarity has been approached. We argue that the courts’ inability to objectify what listeners hear created the need for experts who could translate music into legal evidence that could be visually witnessed. This practice of judging plagiarism according to how songs look on paper may account for why the courts have viewed musical sampling as copyright violations.

The authors propose a new translation of James 2.1. This is based on a grammatical construction which does not force to such a degree the sense of certain expressions, and which integrates the verse in a context which insists on the vanity of eternal signs of glory. This interpretation underlines the relevance of Christology for the phrase and for the totality of the passage.

The French language imposes an additional difficulty for gerontological research: the lack of research on valid and reliable instruments of measurement in the French language. The translation into French of instruments already developed and validated in English is an interesting solution to this problem, since it offers the opportunity of profiting from previous research and allows for international comparisons. However, translation must follow strict rules to ensure that psychometric properties of the instrument have not been altered. A consensus workshop concluded that the following steps were needed in translating from English an instrument for gerontological research: (1) selection of the most valid and reliable instrument in English; (2) translation into French and back again into English; (3) review of the translated versions by a committee; (4) pretest; (5) test-retest (and if indicated inter-rater) reliability study. An inventory of all translated instruments showed that very few instruments fulfil these basic rules. This inventory is a useful tool for researchers and will stimulate research on measurement instruments and encourage publication of its results.

In the current context of a growing internationalization of scientific exchanges, the issue of the language of scientific publications – settled in the natural sciences since the 1980s – has now become a central issue for the Social Sciences. Our paper discusses this topical issue through a detailed analysis of the linguistic strategies adopted by two major French social science journals, Population and Revue française de sociologie (RFS), which have chosen to translate into English a selection (RFS) or all (Population) of their articles. In view of the measured effects in terms of visibility in the international scientific field – increasing visibility for the journal Population at the expense of its French edition and a marginal effect for the RFS – we raise questions about the role of national social sciences journals and recall that the specific intellectual mission of these journals lies beyond the pursuit of internationalization.

The Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) is among the most widely used depression screening measures. Existing research suggests a higher-order factor structure of responses among older adults (factors labelled depressive affect, absence of well-being, somatic symptoms, and interpersonal affect, each loading upon a second-order depression factor). The current study extends this research to ascertain whether this structure is equivalent (or invariant) between the English and French versions of the CES-D. Findings suggest that the number and relative contribution of each factor is similar for both language groups. Furthermore, interpretation of CES-D items is statistically indistinguishable for 16 of 20 items within this randomly identified, national sample of caregivers of persons with dementia. Results of this study support the higher-order factor structure of this measure and provide data in support of the reliability of responses. Furthermore, findings support the use of the CES-D in cross-cultural and comparative research with English- and French-speaking adults.