LN102-30 Translation: Methods and Practice
Introductory description
This cross-School module provides students with an introduction to the principles of translation studies, including the challenges that translators encounter. It investigates how we read and analyse translations and explores the relationship between the source and the target text. Students will learn how to critically analyse translations and to explore translation as a process of negotiation between texts and cultures. Furthermore, they will have an opportunity to engage in the practice of translation and to analyse their own translation strategies.
Module aims
This course aims to allow students to become aware of the challenges associated with translation; critically reflect on the concept of translation as a cultural process; evaluate published translations from different genre from a cultural and linguistic perspective; gain an understanding of key terms and concepts in translation studies (such as equivalence, visibility and invisibility etc.) and experience in applying these terms when commenting their own or other translations; produce short translations into English that are appropriate for their specified purpose; develop their critical awareness, analytical and written skills; engage critically with theoretical literature and use this to support arguments; develop further key transferable skills including effective and efficient communication, self-motivation, self- reliance, co-operation, and time and information management.
Outline syllabus
This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.
Term 1, week 1
Lecture: Defining Translation
The lecture will provide students with an introduction to the concept and definition of translation in its multiple forms (ranging from literary translation to community interpreting).
Term 1, week 2:
Lecture + Seminar: Reading and Analysing Translations (1)
The session will look at translation as ‘transfer’ between two languages as well as two cultures.
Term 1, week 3 and 4:
Lecture + Language-specific seminar: Reading and Analysing Translations (2)
The lecture will discuss the different forms which reading a translation may take, spanning the practice of reading a translation as a text on its own right to comparative analysis of multiple translations.
Term 1, week 4:
Lecture and Seminar: Translation and Equivalence
The lecture will examine the concept of equivalence and its historical relevance in translation studies. The language-specific seminar will provide students with language-specific case studies.
Term 1, week 5: Lecture and Seminar: Foreignisation and Domestication
This session will discuss these notions in current translation practices and apply this to specific case-studies in the seminar.
Term 1, week 6: Reading Week
Term 1, week 7: Lecture and Seminar: Genre and Translation (Poetry) (1)
The lecture will look at the concept of genre and how it affects the theory and practice of translation, with a particular focus on literary texts.
Term 1, week 8: Lecture and Seminar: Genre and Translation (Poetry) (2)
The lecture will look at the concept of genre and how it affects the theory and practice of translation. The language-specific seminar will provide students with language-specific case studies.
Term 1, week 9: Referencing & Translating Literary Texts (e.g. Short Prose)
The language-specific seminar will also provide students with language-specific case studies.
Term 1, week 10:
Essay Writing Workshop in preparation for the submission of Assignment 1 (Critical Evaluation)
Term 2, week 1:
Lecture: Intersemiotic Challenges
Term 2, week 2:
Lecture and Seminar: Translating Advertising
Term 2, week 3:
Lecture: Culture and Translation (1)
The lecture will look at the cultural factors involved in translation as a concept and as a practice.
Term 2, week 4:
Lecture and Seminar: Culture and Translation (2)
This session will discuss the role of publishers and other cultural gatekeepers in current translation practices and analyse this in relation to seminar case studies.
Term 2, week 5:
How to Tackle Translation Analysis
Term 2, week 6: Reading Week
Term 2, week 7:
How to Make your Commentary more Critical
Term 2, week 8:
Lecture and Language-specific seminar: Honing Translations (writing and rewriting)
This session will look at the practice of translation as writing and rewriting.
Term 2, week 9:
Lecture and Language-specific seminar: Honing Translations (editing)
This session will look at the relevance of editing in translation practice.
Term 2, week 10:
Review
Term 3, week 1 and 2: Drop-in session in preparation for Assignment 4 (Annotated Translations).
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able to:
- Understand the linguistic and cultural implications of translating cultural products
- Reflect on the specific strategies that translators adopt when translating and how these strategies mirror linguistic as well as cultural dynamics.
- Use their language specialism and cross-cultural awareness to review published translations
- Use their language specialism and cross-cultural awareness to self-reflect on their own translating strategies
- Gain an understanding of key terms and concepts in translation studies and experience in applying these terms when commenting their own or other translations
- Produce short translations into English that are appropriate for their specified purpose
Indicative reading list
Baker, Mona, In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, (London: Routledge, 1992)
Baker, Mona and Gabriela Saldanha, eds. Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies (London: Routledge, 2009).
Bassnett, Susan, “The Translation Turn in Cultural Studies.” In Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation, edited by Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, 123-140 (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1998)
Bassnett, Susan, Translation Studies (London: Routledge, 2014)
Benjamin, Walter, “The Task of the Translator.” in Illuminations, translated by Harry Zorn. (London: Pimlico 1968/1999.)
Duff, Alan, The Third Language: Recurrent Problems of Translation into English (Oxford: Pergamon, 1981)
Munday, Jeremy, Introducing Translation Studies (London: Routledge, 2001)
Venuti, Lawrence, ed, Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology (London: Routledge, 1992).
Venuti, Lawrence, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation (London: Routledge, 1995).
Venuti, Lawrence, ed. The Translation Studies Reader (London: Routledge, any edition).
View reading list on Talis Aspire
International
All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.
Subject specific skills
This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of modern language culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of translation will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field.
Transferable skills
All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.
Study time
Type | Required |
---|---|
Lectures | 14 sessions of 1 hour (5%) |
Seminars | 24 sessions of 1 hour (8%) |
Private study | 262 hours (87%) |
Total | 300 hours |
Private study description
Independent study: 262 hours
Costs
No further costs have been identified for this module.
You do not need to pass all assessment components to pass the module.
Assessment group A1
Weighting | Study time | Eligible for self-certification | |
---|---|---|---|
Critical Review | 30% | Yes (extension) | |
30% Critical Evaluation of a Published Translation (from the target language into English) 2000 words in English [T2, week 5] |
|||
Translation Portfolio | 70% | Yes (extension) | |
70% Translation Portfolio (this includes 3 short translations of set texts from different genre (from the target language into English ca 300-500 words in total) and 3 commentaries of ca 750-850 words each in English [T3 week 3] Students will have the opportunity to complete practice tasks that help them to prepare for the summative assignments in the language-specific seminars -- these practice tasks will eliminate the need for formative assignments; no Tabula submission required. |
Feedback on assessment
Feedback will be provided in the course of the module in a number of ways. Feedback should be understood to be both formal and informal and is not restricted to feedback on formal written work.
Oral feedback will be provided by the module tutor in the course of seminar discussion. This may include feedback on points raised in small group work or in the course of individual presentations or larger group discussion.
Written feedback will be provided on formal assessment using the standard SMLC Assessed Work feedback form appropriate to the assessment. Feedback is intended to enable continuous improvement throughout the module and written feedback is generally the final stage of this feedback process. Feedback will always demonstrate areas of success and areas for future development, which can be applied to future assessment. Feedback will be both discipline-specific and focussed on key transferrable skills, enabling students to apply this feedback to their future professional lives. Feedback will be fair and reasonable and will be linked to the SMLC marking scheme appropriate to the module.
Post-requisite modules
If you pass this module, you can take:
- LN313-30 Undergraduate Translation Project
Courses
This module is Core optional for:
- Year 1 of UHPA-RP43 Undergraduate Hispanic Studies with Film Studies
This module is Optional for:
- Year 1 of UFRA-R900 Undergraduate Modern Languages
This module is Unusual option for:
- Year 1 of ULNA-R300 BA in Italian Studies
This module is Core option list A for:
- Year 1 of UITA-R3W5 Undergraduate Italian with Film Studies
This module is Core option list B for:
- Year 1 of ULNA-R4RJ Undergraduate Hispanic Studies with French
- Year 1 of ULNA-R9Q2 Undergraduate Modern Languages with Linguistics
This module is Core option list C for:
- Year 1 of ULNA-R9Q1 Undergraduate Modern Languages and Linguistics
This module is Core option list D for:
- Year 1 of UFRA-R900 Undergraduate Modern Languages
This module is Option list F for:
- Year 1 of ULNA-R9L1 Undergraduate Modern Languages and Economics (4-year)