Translation Portuguese - English I

Code:

FLUP0822

Acronym:

TPI1

Instance: 2007/2008 - 1S

Active?	Yes
Web Page:	http://web.letras.up.pt/egalvao/translation_main_page.htm
Responsible unit:	Department of Anglo-American Studies
Course/CS Responsible:	Modern Languages and Literature - Portuguese and English Studies

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
EFI	3	Official Study Plan - LEFI	4	2,5	5	-
EIA	8	Official Study Plan - LEIA	4	2,5	5	-
EPI	30	Official Study Plan - LEPI	4	2,5	5	-

Teaching language

English

Objectives

•To practise deverbalisation through a variety of exercises (note-taking, oral and written summarising, etc.);
•To practice analysing source texts from a translator’s point of view;
•To introduce students to the various strategies used by professional translators to overcome difficulties at word, sentence and text level;
•To facilitate genre literacy by practising text production of specific text types in the target language;
•To familiarise students with the multiple translation resources available on the Internet and help students separate the wheat from the chaff;
•To familiarise students with writing conventions in the target language.

Program

We learn mainly by doing, so we learn to translate mainly by translating. We also learn by reading about translation, analysing other people’s translations, discussing the problems, difficulties, and solutions we encounter when we translate, and by sharing the joys and frustrations of our activity as future language mediation experts. This is why our course is best described as a TRANSLATION WORKSHOP.
We shall become familiar with various translation approaches and procedures and focus on different areas such as context and register, language functions and text types, as well as source text and target text objectives and audiences. We will also deal with specific terminology, as well as with collocations, false friends, idioms, and culture-bound terms. Keep in mind that this is a SKILLS COURSE, where we start to become acquainted with some of the multiple tools required of a translator today.
The underlying philosophy of our class can be best described as follows:
Our class is a learner-centred environment, so we have to work together to create that kind of environment.
This means that:
“The teacher is not the source of all knowledge, but a facilitator of students’ learning experiences, and a learner along with the students.
The students are not passive recipients of knowledge or know-how but its active generators, and thus teachers along with the teacher.
People learn best not by listening passively and memorizing what they hear but by doing things, actively participating in a process. This hands-on pedagogy lies behind the practical translation seminar: if you learn to translate best by translating, then the best way to teach students how to translate is to give them texts and have them translate them into another language. Theorizing translation is more important for the translation student than theories of translation as static objects to be studied and learned. Students should become increasingly comfortable thinking complexly about what they do, both in order to improve their problem-solving skills and in order to defend their translational decisions to agencies or clients or editors who criticize them. “
from: ROBINSON, Douglas. Becoming A Translator. London: Routledge, 1997 (pp. 265 and 275).

Mandatory literature

ROBINSON, Douglas.; Becoming A Translator: An Accelerated Course, London and New york: Routledge, 1997
BAKER, Mona; In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, London: Routledge, 1992

Teaching methods and learning activities

All the members of our small discourse community will take an active part in the joint process of enquiry, asking questions, giving and taking ideas, opinions, and reasons for translation choices. Remember that having an inquisitive mind is the first step to learning successfully and is a prerequisite for a life-long learning activity such as translating.

Don Kiraly’s position paper in the online symposium INNOVATION IN TRANSLATOR AND INTERPRETER TRAINING (ITIT), 17-25 January 2000, (available at http://www.fut.es/~apym/symp/kiraly.html) is a good illustration of how we hope to proceed in our class.
Here the classroom is seen as embedded in the real world, not cut off from it. Students might work on authentic translation assignments, interacting with authors, clients and potential readers, and drawing on the expertise of the teacher as well as other human resources to provide needed information or suggest possible modes of action. [. . .] (it is) a collaborative learning environment including not only interaction among students but also the extensive involvement of the students in every aspect of the teaching/learning process.

Software

MS Word, SDLX, MS Power Point, and various other applications

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation without final exam

Assessment Components

Description	Type	Time (hours)	Weight (%)	End date
Subject Classes	Participação presencial	56,00
Translation work at home	Teste	102,00		2007-12-20
Written tests	Exame	4,00		2007-12-20
	Total:	-	0,00

Eligibility for exams

Students doing continuous assessment are expected to attend 75% of classes and complete all homework and classwork. Students who do not comply with this rule will automatically have to opt for taking the final exam.

Calculation formula of final grade

To be announced at the beginning of the semester.

Examinations or Special Assignments

Not applicable.

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

Students wishing to improve their grade will have to take the final exam in the September exam session.

Classification improvement

Applicable to working students. To be announced at the beginning of the semester.

Observations

Language of instruction: English.