Day 10
thurs. Nov. 24
Discussion of “Feed”
Discussion of poetry translations into Chinese
Homework:
➤ Read 《我的妈妈是精灵》 excerpt and translation
Read the excerpt from this children’s book and your classmates’ English translation (once it’s been posted on Saturday). Come to next class ready to share your answers to these questions:
1) How would you describe the “voice” of the narrator in the Chinese original? What aspects of “voice” are important to get across in the English translation (do you think)? Come ready to share one sentence that gives you a strong sense of voice — of the narrator’s voice, or the voice of one of the characters.
2) Are there any images in the Chinese original that you think are particularly important? Are there any metaphors? If so, come ready to share a specific example or two.
3) Are there any cultural elements to this story that are significant? How important is it that this story is happening in Shanghai in the 21st century (and not someplace else, at some other time)?
➤ Retranslate a passage from “Feed”
Pick a short passage from Feed that you find interesting (a paragraph or two). Retranslate the passage in a way that makes the register of speech even lower (even more colloquial!) and incorporates slang. Try to imagine the kind of slang that Chinese teenagers might use thirty, forty, or fifty years in the future—write that kind of slang! (Don’t worry about whether the book ought to be translated this way; just treat this as a creative writing exercise. See if it’s possible to achieve an effect a little closer to the original in this regard.)
Submit your retranslation on Sakai. Don’t put your name on the document; I will share these anonymously.
➤ Translate a poem by Han Dong (韩东)
Please translate this poem into English. As you work, you can refer to my “bouquet of poems” for inspiration for the kind of style you might want to achieve in English. These poems are written in a style that would be considered “typically poetic” for contemporary English-language poetry, and that might be a good match for Han Dong’s style.
If you are interested in reading more of Han Dong’s poetry, I picked this (and the other two poems I included in the Challenge 2 options) from this 公众号 post.
Submit your translation on Sakai. Don’t put your name on the document; I will share them anonymously.
➤ Tell me your tentative plan for the final, write scenario (if necessary)
If you haven’t already, please message me on WeChat and tell me what you think you might like to do for your final challenge. You can do your final challenge individually or work with a classmate; if the latter, please tell me who you want to work with!
You have basically four options for the final challenge:
1) Retranslate a challenge that you think wasn’t attempted successfully;
2) Revise, and translate more of, a text that you think was translated fairly successfully;
3) Pick a challenge off of the menu for Challenge 2 that wasn’t attempted;
4) Translate a text of your own choosing.
If you pick option 4, please write me a brief paragraph (2-4 sentences) explaining a hypothetical situation in which your translation might be published (or otherwise circulated) and read. The goal here is to convey the purpose and potential readership you imagine for your translation. See the “scenarios” on the translation options menu for examples—basically what I’m doing is asking you to write your own “scenario".”