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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2024/2025

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : Asian Studies

Undergraduate Course: Translation from Japanese to English (ASST10148)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits10 ECTS Credits5
SummaryThis course provides non-native Japanese students with the essential skills for translating from Japanese to English and an understanding of relevant theoretical implications.

The work will consist of a series of tasks in translating from Japanese to English. Students will also have the opportunity to consider theoretical and practical implications of translation and to practise advanced grammatical analysis. This will be done through class discussion of the tasks assigned.
Course description Classes will focus on the course textbook, Hasegawa, Y. (2012) The Routledge Course in Japanese Translation, London and New York: Routledge.

Students will be assigned weekly readings from the textbook working through the topics covered, e.g., kinds of meaning, discourse genre, understanding the source text, translation techniques, learning from the discipline of translation studies, etc. The readings will be followed up by related practical translation exercises and discussion. These exercises will aim to enable students to acquire and apply a linguistic and sociocultural knowledge of both Japanese and English, by considering how they have read and understood each part of the text, examining particular grammar points and idiomatic expressions and comparing approaches to producing a convincing equivalent as their target text in English.

There will be at least one formative assessment session in which students will work in groups on an assigned translation exercise relating to a specific topic, then report informally to the whole class. They will be asked to identify what particular difficulties the topic poses for the translator, to suggest strategies to address these difficulties, and to demonstrate and discuss what they learned from the translation exercise using examples from their group's target text.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2024/25, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  28
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 100 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 11, Revision Session Hours 1, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 86 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Individual assignment (80%)
This will consist of a take-home exam assignment, to be released during the examination and assessment period at the end of semester 1. There will be a set of exercises focused on translation from Japanese to English, to be completed within a limited time frame of one week. These will normally include a source text or texts approximately 1500 characters long. Students will be expected to make appropriate use of library, online and other available resources while working on the assignment, and checking difficult terminology or phrasing with a native speaker friend/tutor and proofreading will permitted; however, production of the final target text will be the responsibility of the individual student. Students will be required to confirm that they have not made use of computer-assisted translation tools (CAT), (MT) engines, or generative AI tools to prepare the target text, and to provide a list of all dictionaries and other resources used for reference.

Practical translation exercises and class participation (20%)
These will be monitored through both in-class activities and regular online tasks and discussions via Learn.
Feedback Students will be provided with regular feedback on the practical translation exercises and online tasks, designed to support them in preparation for the take-home exam.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Read, understand, translate, and summarize Japanese texts that include advanced grammar and syntax and are written using the characters recommended for daily use.
  2. Produce translations from Japanese that read convincingly in the target language (English) and express the content and meaning of the source text accurately.
  3. Recognise and classify text types and their conventions in both source and target languages, and select appropriate lexical, grammatical, phonological and organizational features to compose text of the relevant type for the context in the target language.
  4. Apply in-depth linguistic and sociocultural knowledge of both the source language and the target language, and discuss critically their decisions in translating from Japanese to English
Reading List
Key text:
Hasegawa, Y. (2012) The Routledge Course in Japanese Translation, London and New York: Routledge.

Other recommended reading:
Baker, M. (2011) In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, Second edition, London, New York: Routledge.

Fawcett, P. (2003) Translation and Language: Linguistic Theories Explained, Manchester, UK & Northampton, MA: St Jerome Publishing.

Handbook of Translation Studies 2011, [Online],
Available: http://benjamins.com.ezproxy.webfeat.lib.ed.ac.uk/online/hts/.

Hatim, B. and Mason, I. (1997) The Translator as Communicator, London: Routledge.

Munday, J. (ed.) (2008) The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies. Revised Edition, London, New York: Routledge.

Nord, C. (2012) Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained, Manchester, UK: St Jerome Publishing.

Paul, Gillian. (ed.) (2009) Translation in Practice, © British Centre for Literary Translation, Arts Council England, The Society of Authors, British Council, and Dalkey Archive Press.

Ryan, Marleigh Grayer (1980) "Translating Modern Japanese Literature. " Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1. pp. 49-60.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Research and enquiry: Problem solving; analytical thinking; critical thinking; knowledge integration and application.
Personal and intellectual autonomy: Self-awareness and reflection; independent learning and development; creative and inventive thinking.
Personal effectiveness: Planning, organising and time management; team working; flexibility.
Communication: interpersonal skills, verbal and written communication.
Additional Class Delivery Information 5 x 1 hour classes in weeks 1-5; 1 x 2-hour seminar in week 7 (formative feedback exercise); 4 x1 hour classes in weeks 8-11; 1 x online revision session in revision period (after end of teaching and before release of assignment)
Keywordstheory and practice of translation,grammatical analysis,Japanese to English translation
Contacts
Course organiserDr Helen Parker
Tel: (0131 6)50 4230
Email: Helen.Parker@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMrs Lina Gordyshevskaya
Tel:
Email: pgordysh@ed.ac.uk
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