Day 4
Thurs. Jan. 19
Intro to translation challenges
Share observations about the language of journalism
Homework:
➤ Watch supplementary lesson on museum placard translation
We ended up having a very fruitful discussion after class working through bronze ram museum placard translation. For those of you who weren’t present, I’d like you to watch the recording (click here). There are lots of detailed tips and tricks here for translating on a line-by-line level; I think you will find it useful!
➤ (Due Sun. Jan. 29) Read my comments on “Ad” and make your own translation
By Sunday Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. (China time) please make your own translation of “Ad” and upload it on Sakai.
Before you do this, please read your classmates’ comments and my responses to them on the annotated version of the poem. I hope this will help give you a more nuanced understanding of the text when you attempt to translate it.
➤ Begin Challenge 1
Arthur and Hong Tu: translation of Option A (老红书 article) due 8 p.m. Sun. Jan. 29 China time (upload to SharePoint)
Xinyi and Yifan: translation of Option B (“Suburban Texas Men”) due next class (Tues. Jan. 31) (upload to SharePoint)
Notes and reminders:
If you’re doing an L2 translation (translating out of your native language) if possible I would suggest budgeting time to show your draft to a native speaker and have them read it and identify any problems with English expression
If you’re doing an L1 translation (translating into your native language) I would suggest you use a native speaker as an “informant” to help answer questions about the meaning of the original text, and hear how they react to the text
Formatting: please present your text bilingually (English and Chinese side by side). You can do this by copying the file in the folder “Challenge 1 texts” and inputting your translation directly into the righthand column.
➤ Before next class: Read Classmates’ translations
On Sunday Jan. 29 after I’ve received your “Ad” poem translations and Arthur and Hong Tu’s English translation of “老年人困住「老红书」”， please read these translations and come to next class ready to discuss them.
For the “Ad” translation, please respond by filling out this Qualtrics survey: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_264u89qJoFo07Ou
For the translation of “老年人困住「老红书」”, I would like you to come with a question about a specific place in the translation — a place where you think there might be a reason to translate it different. Come ready to share your question.
➤ Consult rubrics and grading scheme
Please read the document “WOC207 Grading Rubrics.” This will hopefully address any questions you might have about how I plan to grade your work. If you have any questions about the grading scheme, please ask me!
The key thing I want you to know about this grading scheme is that scoring highly on challenges 1 and 2 might help you get an A in the course, but scoring poorly on those challenges will not prevent you from getting an A in the course. I hope that this will take some of the pressure off the initial challenges, because when learning to write we need to make mistakes in order to learn. Hopefully this approach to grading will free you to do so.
➤ Supplementary rEading
The essay “译事三难”的迷思 in 《 翻译之镜》discusses the origins of the idea of 信、达、雅 which is often used to discuss translation in Chinese. I’d recommend reading this essay now as it will be relevant to the question of how we assess translations—how do we judge how successful they are?
To see how David Bellos thinks about genre and style, check out “Do You Have a Fish in Your Ear” Chapter 7 (pp. 77-81 in the English edition) and Chapter 26 (pp. 281-285 in the English edition).
