Day 1
Tues. Mar. 21
Self-introductions: What have you translated or might you translate?
Advertising slogans: intro to “genre”
What is this course about?
Vote on whether to hold Thursday discussions in Chinese
Homework:
➤ (Before Midnight) Vote on whether our Thursday discussions should be in Chinese!
My original vision for this class was that our discussions would be bilingual — on Tuesdays we’d speak English, on Thursdays we’d speak Chinese. The main reason for this vision was that international students can be enrolled in this course as a Chinese course. However, no international students are currently enrolled, so I am happy to conduct the course entirely in English if you prefer. I’ll decide this by majority vote — so if you haven’t yet, please fill out the survey: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b8IqizBhhmamUXI
➤ Read Syllabus and Course Handbook
The syllabus describes what this course is about; the course handbook explains how class works. I suggest you skim through the syllabus to get an idea of what we’ll be doing, and read the course handbook more carefully to understand my class policies in detail.
➤ TRANSLATE SOME ADVERTISING SLOGANS
In class, we looked at examples of English advertising slogans on posters in the New York subway and made some observations about the style that is typical of this genre — the conventional types of language used in them.
Pick three of the Chinese advertising slogans on this handout and write English “translations” of them that fit the conventional style of English advertising slogans, unlike the “literal” translations in the handout.
Please also pick three of the English advertising slogans from New York subway posters and write Chinese “translations” of them that fit the conventional style of Chinese advertising slogans.
(Note that in reality, if these companies/institutions actually wanted to translate these slogans, they would hire marketing professionals to write new slogans in English to capture the brand image they want to project. This service is called “localization.” What we’re doing is a little different — writing English slogans based on these Chinese slogans that actually sound like advertising slogans in English.)
Put your new slogans (six total: three Chinese and three English) in a Word document and upload them to our SharePoint folder, to the subfolder called “Ad slogan translations.”
➤ Observe English-language museum placards
Next week I’ll also ask you to translate the text of the museum placard pictured here into English. (This is from an artifact at a recent exhibition at the Suzhou Museum.)
灯作卧羊形。羊首微扬，双角卷曲，身躯浑圆。羊尊背部与身躯分铸，于羊颈后置活纽，臀上安提纽，可将羊背向上翻开，平放于羊头上作为灯盘。羊尊腹腔中空，当灯放置不同时，可将灯盘内燃余灯油由小流嘴倾入腹腔。出土时腹腔内残留有白色沉淀物，经化验有油脂成分，当为燃料。汉代以羊为母题的文物很多，如羊头金饰、塑像画像、含“羊”字的铭文铜镜，主要取其和美吉祥之意。汉代诗歌中更有 “金羊载耀，作明以续” 的称颂。
To prepare to translate this placard, please look at the examples of English museum placards I’ve included here. Ask yourself: What are the conventions of this genre? Write five observations (five sentences that begin with the words “I noticed…”) about the style of the language you see here. What types of words are often used or not used? What sentence patterns are often used or not used? etc.
Write your five sentences on a Word document and upload them to SharePoint, to the folder “Observations on English museum placards.”
➤ Read “Ad” poem and Prepare questions
Read Kenneth Fearing’s poem “Ad,” written in 1938. This is a poem written in the style of a want advertisement (an advertisement for a job opening in a newspaper), using some of the conventional language that we associate with the genre of advertising. (Click here to see some examples of old English-language want advertisements in newspapers—this is what the poem is parodying.)
Later, I’ll ask you to translate this poem into Chinese. For next class, please just read it and ask yourself: What do I need to understand better about this poem in order to translate this well? Come up with at least three questions you have about this poem and write them on a Word document; upload this document to SharePoint, to the folder called “Questions about Ad poem.” Come to next class ready to share your questions.
