Day 13
Tues. feb. 28
Discussion of retranslations of Bacheng tourism brochure
Discussion of Han Dong translations: Image, metaphor, ambiguity
Homework:
➤ WORK ON your final challenge
Instructions for final challenge
Your final challenge translation is due on Monday of exam week; your translator’s note is due on Wednesday. See attached instruction sheet for details and important reminders. Don’t forget, word limit for your final translator’s note is 1000 words.
If you haven’t yet, make sure that before next class you’ve done 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.)
➤ READ AND TRANSLATE “DARKNESS STARTS” BY CHRISTIAN WIMAN
Annotated version of “Darkness Starts” (click to download)
Read this very short English poem, along with my annotations. In my annotations I explain all the things the poem suggests to my mind—what images it evokes and what symbolic or metaphorical connotations they have. (If you can’t see my annotations, please let me know!)
Please note that this is just one’s person’s reading of the poem (mine) but I do attempt to give as many possible different perspectives on the poem’s layers of meaning as possible. Not only will different readers perceive different things in the poem, but the same reader may simultaneously perceive different meanings.
Then, translate the poem into Chinese. Try to translate it in such a way that a Chinese reader might imagine some of the same kinds of things as I describe in my annotations, while also not limiting the reader to a particular reading or single understanding of the poem. In other words, try to translate it such a way that leaves the reader as much room for imagination as possible.
Upload your translation to SharePoint, to the folder “Darkness Starts translations.” (Don’t look at your classmates’ versions till you’ve uploaded yours. I’m having you upload these to SharePoint for the sake of speed and convenience, but the idea is to do your own work, without reference to your classmates’.)
➤ Think up a metaphor for translation
We’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about images and metaphors. For our final piece of homework, I’d like you to come up with an interesting, original metaphor about translation. What is translation like? What does the process resemble (to you)? See if by means of this metaphor you can capture an interesting truth about the nature of translation—according to your own understanding.
Write your metaphor in both English and Chinese. (Express the same metaphor in both languages.) Upload your metaphor in a Word document to the folder on SharePoint called “Metaphors about translation.”
➤ Come to next class with a question
If we have time, next class I’ll host an open question-and-answer session — ask me any questions you have about translation! (We’ll do this part in English.) So come ready with a question to ask.
