Introduction to Translation Studies



INTRODUCTION TO TRANSLATION STUDIES

01:013:304

Course description: This course will introduce students to the main themes and issues in contemporary Translation Studies. The course will begin with a brief survey of the role of translation in world history and the various ways in which translation has been theorized in the modern western tradition. Readings and discussion will then turn to current major topics in TS: the role or ‘positionality’ of the translator/interpreter, the relationship between translation and ideology/power (including the role that translation has played and continues to play in the history of empire, war and global media), the ethics of literary translation and practical interpreting and the impact of technologies like subtitling and machine translation.

Course objectives: The course will familiarize students with the main issues in the field of TS and encourage them to think critically about translation as a highly complex, culturally and socially determined practice with significant implications for our everyday interactions with the world in which we live. More broadly, it will teach them to think critically about wider textual and reading practices and forms of reception - in literature, the media and institutionalized forms of communication - as a way of exploring what it means to be an educated and responsible citizen in a globalized and yet increasingly polarized and conflict-ridden world. The course will emphasize close reading and intensive discussion of all assigned articles and these will generally be kept to a minimum of two per week. Impromptu student presentations and an in-class midterm will encourage students to think on their feet and to bring a measure of spontaneity and creativity to their analyses of texts and trends.

Students taking the AMESALL Certificate in Translation will additionally benefit from an introduction to issues in interpreting, subtitling and machine-translating that will complement required courses in the practical component of the Certificate. They will also be encouraged to explore translation-related professional and activist websites for both networking and pedagogical purposes. Certificate students may also substitute a practical final project for the paper in conjunction with one of the required practicum courses (with instructors’ permission).

Course requirements: This is a reading and discussion intensive course. Attendance and participation are obligatory and will be a central component of the final grade. Students are required to read and prepare each article for class discussion, and will be called upon at random to give a five to ten minute presentation of a selected reading, based upon questions that will be circulated to the class as a whole in advance. An in-class midterm and a 10-15 page final paper will count for 25% and 35% of the final grade respectively.

Required texts:

Critical Readings in Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker, London & New York: Routledge, 2010.

The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies, ed. Jeremy Munday, London & New York: Routledge, 2009.

All other articles will be available on electronic reserve.

Weeks 1 & 2

What is translation?

Readings:

Peter Newmark, “The linguistic and communicative states in translation theory” in The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies, ed. Jeremy Munday, pp. 20-35.

Basil Hatem, “Translating text in context” [in Munday] pp.36-53.

David Katan, “Translation as intercultural communication” [in Munday] pp.74-92.

Susan Bassnett, “When is a translation not a translation?” in Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation, eds. Susan Bassnett & Andre Lefevere, pp. 25-40.

Weeks 3, 4 & 5

The position of the translator and the ethics of translation

Readings:

Maria Tymoscko, “Ideology and the position of the translator: in what sense is a translator ‘in-between’?” in Critical Readings in Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker, pp. 213-228.

Theo Hermans, “Translation, politics, ethics” [in Munday] pp.93-105; “The Translator’s voice in translated narrative” [in Baker] pp. 195-212.

Lawrence Venuti, “Invisibility” in The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation, pp. 1-42; “Heterogeneity” in The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference, pp. 8-30.

Brad Davidson, “The Interpreter as institutional gatekeeper: the social-linguistic role of interpreters in Spanish-English medical discourse” [in Baker] pp. 152-173.

Weeks 6 & 7

Translation and empire

Readings:

Susan Bassnett & Harish Trivedi, “Introduction: Of colonies, cannibals and vernaculars” in Postcolonial Translation: Theory and Practice, eds. Bassnett and Trivedi, pp. 1-18.

Andre Lefevere, “Composing the other” [in Bassnett & Trivedi] pp. 75-94.

Vicente Rafael, “The Politics of translation” in Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under early Spanish Rule, pp. 23-54.

Weeks 8, 9 & 10

Translation and ideology

Readings:

Mohja Kahf, “Packaging ‘Huda’: Sha’rawi’s memoirs in the United States reception environment” [in Baker] pp. 30-46.

Mona Baker, “Reframing conflict in translation” [in Baker] pp. 115-130.

Esperanca Bielsa and Susan Bassnett, “Translation in global news agencies” and “Journalism and translation” in Translation in Global News, pp. 56-94.

Richard Jacquemond, “Translation policies in the Arab world” in The Translator, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 15-35.

Sehnaz Tahir Gulcaglar, “Translation, presumed innocent” in The Translator, vol. 15, no.1, pp. 37-64.

Weeks 11 & 12

Translation and war

Readings:

Vicente Rafael, “Translation in wartime” [in Baker] pp. 385-390.

Zrinka Stahuljac, “War, translation, transnationalism: interpreters in and of the war (Croatia 1991-92)” [in Baker] pp. 393-414.

Lisa Hajjar, “Speaking the conflict, or how the Druze became bilingual: a study of Druze translators in the Israeli military courts in the West Bank and Gaza” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 299-328.

Weeks 13 & 14

Translation and technology

Readings:

Tony Hartley, “Technology and translation” [in Munday] pp. 106-127.

Delia Chiaro, “Issues in audiovisual translation” [in Munday] pp.141-165.

Rita Raley, “Machine translation and global English” [in Baker] pp.419-434.

Eric Cazdyn, “A new line in the geometry” [in Baker] pp. 451-460.

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