Day 6
Fri. Apr. 7
Discuss of Eng-Ch translation challenge - news journalism
Share parallel texts for op-ed
Upcoming individual deadlines:
Yunen, Wenxin, Yaxin: Challenge 1B translator’s note due Sun 8pm China time
Mengyao, Jiayin, Molly: Challenge 1C translation due Sun 8pm China time
Ruoxian, Zhixian: Challenge 1D translation due before class on Tuesday
Homework due next class (TUES)
➤ Read and prepare Challenge 1A worksheet, be ready to conclude our discussion of the style of journalism
Read the Challenge 1A worksheet and try to figure out your own answers to the questions I’ve posed in it. Come to Tuesday class ready to share your answers.
In addition, please be ready to continue our discussion of the conventional style of news journalism in English. I’d us to distill out a short list of the key features that define journalistic style in English, similar to what we did for advertising slogans in our first class (see attached picture). If you were to contribute one important bullet point to our list of the key features of journalistic style, what would it be?
➤ Read excerpts from the Phantom Tollbooth, come ready to share observations
Next week we will look at a few classmates’ translation of several excerpts from Zheng Yuanjie’s 《皮皮鲁外传》. For the translators to handle this text effectively, they will need to adopt an appropriate style in English, which means they’ll have to understand the conventions of the genre of literary prose (novels / fiction) in English.
To prepare for this, please read pages 22-26 and pages 45-49 of The Phantom Tollbooth, a well-known English-language children’s book that is quite similar to 皮皮鲁 in many respects, and therefore can serve as a useful parallel text for us — an example of a similar text in the same genre in the target language. Please come to Tuesday’s class ready to share some observations about the conventional language used in the genre of literary English. Here are a few things to pay attention to:
1) Dialogue: When characters are speaking, what kinds of words are used to introduce their speech? (Be ready to give a few examples.) Where do those words go in relation to the words being spoken by the characters?
2) Action: What kind of words are used to convey action? Can you make generalizations about these words or phrases? Be ready to give a few examples.
3) Description: What kinds of words are used to describe scenes (paint pictures in the reader’s mind)? Can you make any generalizations about these words or phrases? Be ready to give a few examples.
4) Register (formality vs. colloquialism): How formal or informal is the language? Where is it more formal and where is it more colloquial? How do you know it when the register shifts (i.e. become more formal or less formal?）
➤ Read Challenge 1C
Once it’s been posted on Sunday, please read the translation of the excerpt from 《皮皮鲁外传》along with its Chinese original. As you read, please ask yourself these questions and come ready to share your answers:
What genres are included in this text? (Hint: It’s not just literary narrative; there are other genres of speech and writing embedded within the story.)
How would you describe the original Chinese in terms of register? (In other words, how formal or colloquial are different parts of the text?)
Read the scenario for this translation challenge, which you can find on the instruction sheet for Challenge 1. Ask yourself: Generally speaking, do you think the translators ought to be adopting a more nativizing approach or a more foreignizing approach, given the purpose of this translation?
➤ Be ready to sign up for Challenge 2!
At 8pm on Monday (China time) I will post the sign-up sheet for Challenge 2. After I’ve posted it, please sign up for your next challenge.
(Note that you’ll be translating in the opposite direction as you did in Challenge 1. If there’s a specific classmate you want to work with, you might want to reach out to them in advance. As before, I’ll ask you to form 2 groups of 3 and and 2 groups of 2. )
Homework due before class on THURSDAY next week
➤ MAke edits to Challenge 1B
Please pick one place (a sentence or two) in the translation of Challenge 1B where you think the translation could be more readable — a place that tripped you up as you read or that you had to think about too hard about to understand. Rewrite the sentence(s) so it is more readable.
Please pick one place (a sentence or two) where you think register isn’t quite correct — where you think the word choice is either too formal or two colloquial. If it’s too formal, rewrite it so it’s more colloquial. If it’s too colloquial, rewrite it so it’s more formal.
Upload your edits to the folder “Edits to Challenge 1B.” Please use the template file I’ve provided in the folder to format your document.
