GERMN 385.04
Prof. Anderson
Hunter College
Spring 2013
Syllabus: Advanced German Through Translation
Willkommen! This course will engage you in advanced study of the German (and English) language
through the exercise of translating from German into English. It is conceived primarily as a workshop:
our discussion of vocabulary and grammar, the intricacies of German and English, and the art and
science of translation will be based heavily on the regular work you do translating a variety of written
texts.
I. General Information
We will meet on Mondays and Thursdays from 2:45-4:00 in HW1441. As a prerequisite for this Level II
language course, you should have successfully completed two courses at the 300 level in Hunter’s
German Department. If this is not the case, please see me immediately after our first class, as you will
need my permission to continue in the course.
My contact information is as follows:
Dr. Lisa Marie Anderson
HW1408
212-772-5006
lan@hunter.cuny.edu or lisa.anderson@hunter.cuny.edu (whichever’s easier to remember)
Office Hours: Mon 4:00-5:30, Weds 12:30-1:00, Thurs 11:00-12:00, or by appointment
II. Learning Goals
Now for a little disclaimer: this course will not prepare you to work as a translator, and is not designed
to do so. It is not a study of translation theory and practice per se. But here’s what the course is
designed to do for you (not necessarily in this order):
1) Strengthen your command of German and English vocabulary and grammar
2) Deepen your awareness of how language functions and is received
3) Improve your reading comprehension in German
4) Build familiarity with search and research tools, many of them online
5) Develop a working understanding of the translation process
You and I will assess your attainment of these learning goals primarily via an e-Portfolio, which you will
compile throughout the semester.
III. What is an e-Portfolio?
Let’s begin with the general idea of a portfolio, which you probably know as a set of work products
someone collects in order to document and display certain skills and achievements. From there we can
move to the more specific idea of a learning portfolio: a collection of materials selected by a student to
tell a coherent story of his or her learning. Your learning portfolio will consist of:
1) Evidence that you have achieved the learning goals listed above. Evidence usually consists of
examples of student work, purposefully selected, organized, and presented by the student. Your
evidence will include excerpts from the translations you prepare; you should supplement this
evidence with audio or video recordings and/or digital images as appropriate. I will give you
further guidelines as we go.
2) Your reflections on your evidence. The e-Portfolio is not just a place to collect your work, but
also to reflect on it. What does your evidence show, and how? Why did you select these
particular excerpts from your translations? How will this work contribute to your ongoing
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learning? These are just some of the questions that reflections answer. Again I will give you
further guidelines as we go.
Your learning portfolio for this class will be compiled online, which is why we call it an e-Portfolio. We
will use an e-Portfolio tool called Digication (homepage: https://hunter-cuny.digication.com), and will
have a training session on Digication this week. It is a user-friendly tool that you can use to create an
online portfolio not only for this course, but then for other purposes as well if you choose. More on all
that to come…
IV. What else do I need to succeed in this course?
While we will use Digication to assess your learning in this course, we will use Blackboard for the
purpose of managing course material and information. Please visit the Blackboard site for this course
before we meet again, and make a note of any questions or issues. If you are not familiar with
Blackboard, visit www.hunter.cuny.edu/icit/help-support/training-workshops, where you will find a list
of upcoming “Workshops for Students” as well as a schedule for walk-in Blackboard clinics.
I will use Blackboard to email you with any necessary communications between class meetings,
so please be sure to check your email regularly. If you receive email at an account other than your
Hunter address, please forward your Hunter email to that account so that you will receive my
communications without delay. If you do not know how to do this, contact the Student Help Desk at
www.hunter.cuny.edu/icit/help-support/student-help-desk.
One thing you will find on the course Blackboard site is a collection of helpful links, many of
them dictionaries and other online reference tools. You are welcome to use a hardback or paperback
dictionary as you like, but you should familiarize yourself with the online tools as well. You may also find
it helpful to have handy a reference work on German and/or English grammar.
Every translation you prepare for this class will be revisited and revised, perhaps even many
times in the course of the semester. For this reason it is important that you prepare your translations
on a computer and save the files for easy access later.
V. Grading Policies
Your grade for this course will be determined as follows:
 Attendance & Participation (25%). You are expected to attend every class meeting, arriving on time,
staying until the end of class, and participating actively in our discussions. Being absent, arriving late,
leaving early, arriving unprepared, or failing to participate will have an impact on your final grade.
Please note that in advanced courses like this, I do not distinguish between excused and unexcused
absences, because there is simply no substitute for being here and taking part in the day’s
discussion. I understand that things do happen, so if you have to miss a class meeting, the best thing
you can do is to keep up with course material: submit the assignment due that day (on time), and
find out from a classmate about the class discussion and the assignment for the following class.
 Written Translations (50%). I will assign regular written translations, giving you specific
requirements and expectations, grading information, and due dates. No written work will be
accepted after its due date for any reason. Any work you cannot submit in person in class must be
emailed to me before that class meeting begins or it will not be accepted. All of your translations
must be typed, double-spaced.
 e-Portfolio (25%). Throughout the semester, you will compile an e-Portfolio that demonstrates your
translation work and your achievement of the five learning goals listed above. You will select and
organize your evidence (primarily excerpts from your translations), and reflect upon them as
prompted by me. Further information, including expectations and the grading of your e-Portfolio,
will be provided.
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VI. Additional Information
“In compliance with the American Disability Act of 1990 (ADA) and with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation
Act of 1973, Hunter College is committed to ensuring educational parity and accommodations for all
students with documented disabilities and/or medical conditions. It is recommended that all students
with documented disabilities (Emotional, Medical, Physical and/or Learning) consult the Office of
AccessABILITY located in Room E1124 to secure necessary academic accommodations. For further
information and assistance please call 212-772-4857 or TTY 212-650-3230.”
“Hunter College regards acts of academic dishonesty (e.g. plagiarism, cheating on examinations,
obtaining unfair advantage, falsification of records and official documents) as serious offenses against
the values of intellectual integrity. The College is committed to enforcing CUNY Policy on Academic
Integrity and will pursue cases of academic dishonesty according to the Hunter College Academic
Integrity Procedures.” In order to benefit from the work assigned for this course, you must complete it
on your own. If you feel you need help with an assignment, come to me. Obtaining assistance from
individuals other than me or your classmates in this course will be treated as academic dishonesty.
Auditors should refer to the “Information Sheet for Auditors in Hunter College German
Courses.” For this particular course, I will not collect written translations from you or assign you grades,
and you will not compile an e-Portfolio. Of course you are welcome to prepare translations for your own
purposes and bring them to class. I will give you instructions for discussing them with your classmates,
often with other auditors.
VII. Preliminary Course Schedule
The following is an outline of how we will begin the course. Schedules for subsequent class meetings will
be discussed and distributed as we go, though all schedules are subject to change depending on the
needs of the class.
Monday, January 28
Course Introduction
What does it mean to translate?
Thursday, January 31
Digication training: class meets in 1001E North
Monday, February 4
Do we still need translators?
*Preliminary versions of the “Welcome” and “About Me”
sections of your e-Portfolio are due today.
Thursday, February 7
Why does translation matter?
Begin first translation unit: newspaper article
As you can see, we will begin our written work for the semester by translating a newspaper article—
that is, a text written for a general audience, for a general purpose, within a generally familiar context.
From there we will turn to texts written for a more specialized audience and purpose, within a
particular context. This specialization raises new issues with respect to vocabulary, text structure, and
text type—issues of which translators must be aware. Our first such text will come from the field of
tourism, and will be followed by a text from the field of business and industry.
Our final two translations of the semester will be literary in nature, moving us into more artistic
uses of German, which call for a heightened attunement to language on the part of the translator. After
we translate a piece of literary prose, we will try our hand at a poem, a genre that raises even further
issues for the translator.
For each of these assignments, the idea is not that you will necessarily craft a perfect and
complete translation, but rather that in the exercise of translating, you will learn about German, English,
and the way language functions within a particular context and text type to communicate a particular
message to a particular audience. Another way to say this is that we will focus more on the process of
translation than on one translation as a “correct” or final product.