Day 12
Thurs. Feb. 23
Discussion of last two challenges (Ways of Seeing and Bacheng tourism brochure)
Homework:
➤ due sunday: Translate a poem by Han Dong (韩东)
By midnight on Sunday (China time) Please translate this poem, by 韩东, 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.
As you’re translating, pay attention to images and metaphors. (Often the images are metaphors, and the metaphors contain images—it ends up being the same thing.) How do you visualize and understand the logic of the metaphors? Try to write English that creates a similar set of images in the reader’s mind as the Chinese original creates in your mind.
Submit your translation on Sakai. Don’t put your name on the document; I will share them anonymously.
(Note: If you are interested in reading more of Han Dong’s poetry, I picked this poem from this 公众号 post.)
➤ WORK ON FINDING A TEXT FOR YOUR FINAL PROJECT
Instructions for final challenge
Keep doing the research you need to do to figure out what text you want to work on for your final project. If you’re uncertain and need help, please message me so we can talk about it!
Once you’re pretty sure you know what you want to do for your final challenge, please do the following:
1) Write a 3-5 sentence scenario for yourself similar to the ones I’ve written for all of our translation challenges so far. Make sure you outline clearly what you imagine the purpose of your translation to be — who might want to read it, why they might want to read it, and in what context it might be read. Paste your scenario into the Word document Final challenge scenarios (all students) on SharePoint.
2) Upload the text you plan to translate to the folder “Final challenge - texts and scenarios” on SharePoint. (If your text is audiovisual — e.g. a video — upload the mp4 if possible; if not, you can just post a link to it on the Internet.)
Also, if you haven’t yet, make sure to review my handout of reminders and tips about the final project!
➤ Use parallel texts to Re-translate two passages from Bacheng tourism pamphlet
Pick two of the passages from 《微游巴城》 on this handout and retranslate them, with more attention to style.
Before you do so, please study the parallel texts I’ve provided here and observe the kinds of conventional language (word choice, sentence patterns, etc.) typical of the style of this genre of writing in English. (Most of these examples are from the websites of tourism departments of major cities. You can click on the links and browse the websites to read even more examples.)
I would also encourage you to go back and study my “bouquet of poems” for examples of conventionally poetic-sounding language in modern English—these may provide inspiration for the more poetic, imagistic passages in 《微游巴城》. And you might also want to revisit the advertising slogans we looked at at the beginning of the session—notice particularly the kind of language used when the advertisement addresses the reader.
Upload your retranslations to the folder “Retranslations of Bacheng tourism pamphlet” on SharePoint.
➤ Read classmates’ translations of han dong poem
Read your classmates’ translations of the poem 致某人或一个时代 by Han Dong, which you can find on SharePoint in the folder “Han Dong poem translations.” Come to class ready to share two versions that translate a particular image or metaphor differently, and explain how the translators’ understanding of that image or metaphor are different.
