Intellectual Contexts:
Introduction and Skills
Session
5 October 2011
Dr 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?