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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2015/2016

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : Common Courses (School of Lit, Lang and Cult)

Undergraduate Course: Thinking Translation: a Beginner's Guide (CLLC10003)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThinking Translation: a Beginner's Guide will introduce students to the challenges brought about by translation through a consideration of various genres and themes. The course will present various theoretical approaches to the study of translation. As such the course is an introduction to the field of Translation Studies, which is currently solely taught at Edinburgh University at Postgraduate level.
Thinking Translation: a Beginner's Guide is an introduction to the activity of translation and the discipline of Translation Studies. It aims at giving the students an idea about what the translation profession involves, what role translations and translators may play in a society, and which areas Translation Studies as a discipline covers.
The course is open to year 4 Honours students in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures who are interested in translation (except DELC/IMES/Asian Studies joint degree students). No prior knowledge of Translation Studies is necessary but if you love doing translation and are keen on engaging seriously with its study, then Thinking Translation: a Beginner's Guide will give you the opportunity to learn to think and write about translation in more depth.
The course will survey a broad range of translation genres including children's literature, autobiographies and films. Sessions take the form of tutorials or workshops on specific genres or translation areas in order to sensitize students to the challenges of translating different type of texts.

Delivery will be in English.
Course description Week 1. Introduction to the course
The first class will be dedicated to presenting the course and starting to think critically about translation in terms of genres.
Reading: TBC (no reading or a short introduction to TS)

Week 2. Representations of translators and interpreters
The session will look into how translators and interpreters are represented, through the lens of movies. It aims at raising the students' attention to issues surrounding faithfulness, expectations in cross-linguistic encounters, responsibilities, control, and anxieties surrounding the duplicity of translators and interpreters. Several excerpts from relevant movies will be shown and discussed.
Reading: Cronin (2009) Chapter 1

Week 3. Translating for Children: Putting Humpty together again
This session will focus on the joys and challenges of translating children's literature. The session will explore some questions particularly challenging to the translation of children's literature: from what is 'children's literature' to the age of the target readers, the use of fantasy and elements of nonsense and poetry. The students will discuss existing translations as well as try their hand at translating short pieces.
Reading: Guix, Juan Gabriel Lopez (2006)

Week 4. Translating multilingual films
This session will explore the challenges brought about by multilingual films. Students will need to watch a film (Inglorious Basterds) and have thought about the following questions: what is the function of each language present in this film, if it was subtitled or dubbed in one language (i.e. your mother tongue or other working language) how would you cope with the presence of various languages.
Reading: Film screening Inglorious Basterds (Tarentino, 2009) & tbc one article on multilingualism.

Week 5. Translating the Four-letter Word: 'F**k, is that possible?'
This session will explore the challenges of translating shifting language registers. It will focus specifically on texts that are inflected by swearing, slang or obscenity highlighting differences in regional/class registers and translating swearing from previous centuries. Students will evaluate the function of such language use in literature and compare them across the language pairs that they have. What are the challenges of translating such language use and are there any strategies that can be employed? They will also try their hand at translating short extracts of English literary texts from previous centuries that employed swearing into contemporary English and into their second language.
Reading: TBC

Week 5 submit mid-term discussion paper (1,000 words, 30%).
Tutorial Diary: how has your understanding of translation evolved since you started the course?

Week 6. Song translation
The session will focus on the different ways song lyrics may be translated under different circumstances (for dubbing, cover versions, surtitling, record inserts, etc.). The session aims at raising the students' awareness on the different functions a translated text may fulfil and the varying requirements that go with these functions.
Reading: Franzon 2008

Week 7. Feedback session on mid-term paper & Poster presentations ' In Search of Translation
The first part of the session will be looking at the feedback students received on their mid-term papers. In the second part, the students will be invited to bring examples from a variety of text types that may include translations, either overtly or covertly. These may range from newspaper articles to blogs. The presentations will focus on what gets translated, by whom, for which purposes, and how. The intended outcome is to open the students' perceptions to the prevalence of translations in daily life.

Week 8. Workshop: Lives in Translation
This session will explore what it means to translate texts such as autobiographies, memoirs, testimonials and diaries that set out to record the lived experiences of the author. Students will be encouraged to think about questions of accuracy, representation and responsibility, especially in light of works that deal with events that are traumatic or far outside the translator's own realm of experience. The discussion will be based on examples of translators' paratexts that engage with these issues, and students will then be invited to consider the specific challenges they might face when translating a selected passage.
Reading: tbc

Week 9. Difficult translations
The session will focus on translating antagonistic texts. Students will be offered texts which might be challenging for them, not in terms of their linguistic difficulty or cultural otherness, but in terms of the ideologies inherent in the texts. This session will tie in discussions within translation studies surrounding ideology, gender, and ethics, among others.
Reading: TBC

Week 10. Beyond the text
This session will consider the influences exerted by other agents in the translation process and will pay particular attention to how publishers package and market translated texts. Students will have the opportunity to investigate the contributions made by editors, preface-writers, cover designers etc. and to explore the reasons behind specific paratextual decisions. Translation reviews will also be brought into the discussion in order to assess the effectiveness of certain marketing strategies.
Reading: Kershaw, Angela (2014).

Week 11. Course review & Q&A
This session aims at bringing together the issues covered during the course in preparation to submitting your 2,500 word essays.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements This option is open to DELC/IMES/Asian Studies single honours students and to English Literature students who have a knowledge of another language than English. These students should have the equivalent of at least 2 years of study at University level of the appropriate language(s) and culture(s).
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesVisiting students should have the equivalent of at least 2 years of study at University level of the appropriate language(s) and culture(s).
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2015/16, Available to all students (SV1) Quota:  15
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20, Feedback/Feedforward Hours 2, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 174 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 80 %, Practical Exam 20 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Student performance will be assessed by one 2,500-word essay (50%), a mid-term discussion paper (1,000 words, 30%), and a course participation grade (20%).
Feedback Not entered
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. to construct coherent arguments which demonstrate an awareness of the problems and translational issues posed by the texts/ issues studied
  2. to recognize and acknowledge the complexity of the subject
  3. to demonstrate a high level of expression in both written and oral presentations
  4. to demonstrate an awareness of the research agenda relating to the topic.
  5. to carry out personal research on the specific topics covered under the guidance of the tutor and offer evidence of research initiative; to demonstrate an awareness of the research potential relating to the topics covered in class (to provide examples in class, to write essays or do to presentations).
Reading List
Compulsory:

Cronin, Michael (2009) Translation Goes to the Movies. London and New York: Routledge.
Franzon, Johan (2008) 'Choices in Song Translation. Singability in Print, Subtitles and Sung Performance'. In 'ebnem Susam-Saraeva ed. Translation and Music. Special issue of The Translator 14(2): 373-399.
Guix, Juan Gabriel Lopez (2006) 'The translator in Aliceland: on translating Alice in Wonderland into Spanish,' in Susan Bassnett and Peter Bush (eds.) The Translator as Writer, London & New York: Continuum, pp. 95-105.
Kershaw, Angela (2014) 'Complexity and unpredictability in cultural flows: Two French Holocaust novels in English translation', Translation Studies, 7:1, 34-49.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills A working knowledge of at least another language (apart from English)
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserDr Charlotte Bosseaux
Tel: (0131 6)51 3735
Email: Charlotte.Bosseaux@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMr David Lonergan
Tel: (0131 6)50 6949
Email: David.Lonergan@ed.ac.uk
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