Intellectual Contexts:Introduction and Skills

Session

5 October 2011Dr Georgina Collins

Overview

• Aims and objectives of the module• Methods of assessment• Relation to optional modules• Translating between French and English• Translation strategies and methodologies• Comparing and editing translations

Aims and Objectives

• to demonstrate appropriate factual knowledge and good understanding of key theoretical concepts• to present material and analyses orally and in a scholarly written format• to apply relevant theoretical concepts and use the appropriate technical vocabulary• to undertake further advanced study of materials

Methods of Assessment

For this particular module there are three choices of assessment:

• 5000-7000-word essay• translation with a commentary• commentary on the publication history/reception of a translated text

Course Director: Dr Oliver Davis

Relation to Optional Modules

• Language specific (texts and theories)

• Bringing theory and practice together

• Translating and translation

• Broad range of text types

Translation Strategies: Newmark

Introduction

• being a translator• the impact of mistranslation• transmitting culture• the translator’s choices – a puzzle• translation today

Translation Strategies: Newmark

The Analysis of a Text

• reading the text – 2 purposes:• understanding and analysis

• intention of the text and translator? • style of the text? • readership?• the register?• multiple layers of meaning?• culturally embedded words?

Translation Strategies: Newmark

The Process of Translating

• translating for exams/translating for real• two methods:

• sentence by sentence, add features later• translate when you have your bearings

• dictionaries / encyclopedias / forums• ‘naturalness’• collaborative exercise• give yourself time• read aloud

Translation Methodologies: Vinay et Darbelnet

Direct or oblique translation methods

1. Direct translation methods:

• l’emprunt - borrowing• le calque - calque• la traduction littérale – literal

translation

Translation Methodologies: Vinay et Darbelnet

2.Oblique translation methods

• la transposition - transposition• la modulation - modulation• l’équivalence - equivalence• l’adaptation - adaptation

What is a ‘relevant’ translation? (Derrida)

• a ‘good’ translation• does what you expect of it• performs its mission, honours its debt,

does its job/duty• inscribes the most relevant equivalent• uses language that’s the most:

right, appropriate, pertinent, adequate, opportune, pointed, univocal, idiomatic (p24)

What is a ‘relevant’ translation? (Derrida)

• Nothing can be either untranslatable or translatable (p25)

• Most pieces of work sit between the two (p26)

• To know what a ‘relevant’ translation can mean and be, we need to know its mission and goal (p29)

• Translation allows a text to ‘live on’ (p46)

Common terms and abbreviations

• SL / TL• ST / TT• Skopos• Domestication / appropriation• Foreignisation• Norms and conventions (Toury)• Equivalence (Nida)• loss and gain• interlingual/intralingual/intersemiotic (Jakobson)• adequacy / quality

Comparing and Editing Translations

Analysing, discussing, comparing and ‘improving’ your translations:

• Funk Upon A Time• (Re)Play

Analysing and critiquing published translations

• Martyrs

Questions and Comments?