Introductory description

This module constitutes the final dissertation for students enrolled on the MA in Translation and Cultures.

Module web page

Module aims

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.

N/A (independent study and individual consultations)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Plan and write autonomously a dissertation that evaluates and synthesises written and optionally also audiovisual materials in an advanced piece of independent, academic research on a chosen topic which has been approved by the Module Leader
• Develop independent and advanced critical research and project management skills
• Interpret, critically engage with and integrate conceptual theory and method in their chosen field of study
• Research and evaluate complex issues in translation and transcultural studies, including recent approaches, current problems and potential future developments
• Demonstrate conceptual knowledge and awareness of specific translation practices and the role of translation, the translator and translation studies more broadly in resolving linguistic and cultural complex challenges in communication
• Develop an advanced awareness of the role of translation, the translator and translation studies in various areas of cultural production, activities and exchange (i.e. audio-visual media, publishing, localisation etc.), depending on the chosen area of study

Indicative reading list

Depending on the specialism chosen, the following works should be useful:
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).
Translation and Poetry Boase-Beier, Jean, Stylistic approaches to transaltion (Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 2006).
Jones, Francis, Poetry translating as expert action: processes, priorities and networks (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011).
Perteghella, Manuela, ‘Unlocking the black box; researching poetry translation processes’, in
Translation and Creativity: Perspectives on Creative Writing and Translation Studies (London: Bloomsbury, 2007),
Reynolds, Matthew, The poetry of translation: from Chaucer & Petrarch to Homer & Logue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Robinson, Peter, Poetry and translation: the art of the impossible (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010).
Translation and Children’s literature Lathey, Gillian, ed, The Translation of Children’s Literature: A Reader (Clevendon: Multilingual Matters, 2006)
Lefebvre, Benjamin, ed, Textual transformations in children’s literature; adaptations, translations, reconsiderations (London: Routledge, 2013)
Maguire, Nora and Beth Rodgers, eds, Children’s literature on the move: nations, translations, migrations (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013)
O’Sullivan, Emer, Comparative Children’s Literature (New York: Routledge, 2005)
Van Coillie, J. and W.P. Verschueren, eds, Children’s Literature in Translation: Challenges and Strategies (Manchester: St Jerome, 2006)
Literary Translation Boase-Beier, Jean, and Antoinette Fawcett and Philip Wilson, eds, Literary Translation: Redrawing the Boundaries (Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2014) Boase-Beier, Jean and Michael Holman, eds, The practices of Literary Translation and Constraints (New York: Routledge, 2014)
Landers, Clifford E., Literary Translation: A Practical Guide (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2001) Wright, Chantal, Literary Translation (New York: Routledge: 2016)
Audiovisual Translation Banos Pinero, Rocio, and Jorge Diaz Cintas, eds, Audiovisual translation in a global context: mapping an ever-changing landscape (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
Diaz-Cintas Jorge and Josélia Neves, eds, Audiovisual translation: tacking stock (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015)
Perez-Gonzales, Luis, Audiovisual Translation: theories, methods and issues (London: Routledge, 2014)
Translation in Advertising Adab, Beverly and Cristina Valdés, eds, ‘Key debates in the translation of advertising material’, special issues of The Translator, 10.2 (2004). Brierley, Sean, The Advertising Handbook (London: Routledge, 1995) Goddard, Angela, The Language of Advertising (London, New York: Routledge, 1998)
Torresi, Ira, Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts (Manchester: St Jerome, 2010).
News Translation Baker, Mona, Translation and Conflict: a narrative account (London: Routledge, 2006)
Bielsa, Esperança, “The pivotal role of news agencies in the context of globalisation: a historical approach”, Global Networks 8.3 (2008), 347-66. Bielsa, Esperança and Susan Bassnett, eds, Translation in Global News (London: Routledge, 2009).
Bielsa, Esperanza and Christopher Hughes, Globalisation, Political Violence and Translation (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009)
Thomson, Elizabeth A. and Peter R.R. White, eds, Communicating Conflict: Multilingual
Case Studies of the News Media (London: Continuum, 2008) Transcultural Amin, Ash, Land of Strangers(Cambridge: Polity, 2012)
Antor, Heinz and Matthias Merkel, Klaus Stierstorfer, Laurenz Volkmann, From Interculturalism to Transculturalism: Mediating Encounters in Cosmopolitan Contexts (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2010)
Assmann, Aleida and Sebastian Conrad, eds, Memory in a Global Age: Discourses, Practices and Trajectories (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
Bachmann Medick, Doris, Cultural turns: New Orientations in the Study of Culture (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016)
Beck, Ulrich, Cosmopolitan Vision (Cambridge: polity, 2006)
Bond, Lucy and Jessica Rapson, The Transcultural Turn: Interrogating Memory Between and Beyond Borders (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014)
Boym, Svetlana, The Futures of Nostalgia (New York: Basic, 2001)
Castells, Manuel, The Rise of the Network Society, Blackwell, 1996. Chea, Pheng and Bruce Robbins, eds, Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1998)
Davis et al., Towards a Transcultural future: Literature and Society in a ‘Post’-Colonial World (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005)
De Cesari, Chiara and Ann Rigney, eds, Transnational memory: Circulation, Articulation, Scales (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014)
De Gay, Paul and Stuart Hall, Questions of Cultural identity (London: Sage, 1996) Featherstone, Mike and Scott Lash, Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World (London: Sage, 1999)
Friesen, John W., When Cultures Clash: Case Studies in Multiculturalism (Calgary: Detselig, 1985).
Gupta, Suman, Globalisation and Literature (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009)
Hall, Stuart, “The Rediscovery of Ideology: The Return of the Repressed in Media Studies” in Culture, Society and the Media, edited by M. Gurevitch et al. (London: Methuen, 1982), pp. 56-90. Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard and Jürgen Kocka, Comparative and Transnational history: central European Approaches and New Perspectives (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2009)
Hepp, Andreas, Transcultural Communication (Chichester: Wiley, 2015) King, Anthony D., Culture, Globalization and the World System (Binghamton: State University of New York at Binghamton Press, 1991)
Kymlicka, Will, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Clarendon Press, 1995. Morley, David and Kuan-Hsig Chen, eds, Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 1992)
Moses, Dirk A., Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2010)
Rothberg, Michael, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonisation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009)
Shapiro, Michael J. and Hayward R. Alker, eds, Challenging Boundaries (London, Minneapolis: Universisty of Minnesota Press, 1996)
Taylor, Charles, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)

Research element

Through a combination of independent research and targeted support, students undertake a supervised research project, and produce a coherent and logically argued piece of writing that demonstrates knowledge of and ability in a chosen area, commensurate with the accomplishment of an MA degree.

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 language culture through analysis of this primary material and through independent research and discussion with dissertation supervisor aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of constructing a dissertation will be enhanced through dissertation meetings and supervision, and independent research 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.