Bachelor’s Degree Lecture:Selected issues in the theory and practice of literary translation 3200-L3-0WL-WPL
The course is aimed at discussion of theoretical issues that are often overlooked by standard translation theory, as well as at analysis of concrete texts and basic techniques of their translation being selected in keeping with their genre, stylistic flavor, their main and subordinate message(s), compositional structure, etc. Students analyze the text and its translations, suggest their own one, make comments on various decisions at hand.
Workload of student:
30 hours of classes;
15 hours for preparation of homework;
10 hours for preparation of review
Sum total 55 hours
CONTENT OF THE COURSE:
THEORY:
- the notion of equivalence; dynamic equivalence; levels of equivalence – phonetic, lexical, syntactic, textual level; pragmatic level;
- the impact of additional factors favoring or disfavoring achievement of equivalence; linguistic conceptualization of the world;
- in-depth discussion of text types (genres), their functions and problems of their translation; poetic function and interpretation of poetry in works of R. Jakobson;
- analysis of the source text (its function, its reader/hearer, author’s intention);
- text composition, its influence on translation;
- choice of translation strategies and techniques;
ANALYSIS
- „Ann of Green Gables” by L. Montgomery; problems of lexical choices; syntactic transformations in the Polish version(s);
- the Polish translation of „Winnie the Pooh” made by I. Tuwim: reflection of individual speech style; problem of lexical choices; cohesion, coherence and their (partial)preservation in the Polish text;
- „The Stone” by Z. Herbert; words and syntactic constructions reflecting Polish view of the world; their translation into English;
- the poem „The Cat in Empty Apartment” by W. Szymborska; difficulties to be met by its English translator; agentivity of the character and its reflection in translation; problem of impersonal constructions;
- B. Leśmian’s poetry; its most salient peculiarities; its English translations.
FORMS OF WORK: Lecture, discussion, concise talks given by students
- analysis of already existant translations of texts;
- partial translation of literary texts and its discussion leading to attempt at finding the best solution.
Type of course
Mode
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge:
After completing the course student
- detects and assesses specific stylistic devices employed in relevant texts;
- knows relevant strategies and techniques of translation.
Skills:
- identifies successfully the type of the text;
- can analyze the text in terms of its style, its message(s), and the means used to convey them;
- can analyze the translation of text and decide to what extent it is true to salient features of the original;
Social competences:
- can work both individually and in cooperation;
- understands the requirements posed to translator of artistic literature.
Assessment criteria
The course concludes with exam.
Student’s work is assessed based on her/his review focused on a concrete issue belonging to theory or practice of artistic translation (about 12 pages)
Criteria of assessment are tied to topic coverage, they are as follows:
99%-100% - 5!
98%-91% - 5
90%-86% - 4,5
85%-76% - 4
75%-71% - 3,5
70%-60% - 3
below - 2
Attendance. Requirements are presented in the course of lectures
Bibliography
The course tackles a very wide variety of issues, hence no obligatory literature can be indicated. Student chooses literature according to the topic of the review.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON GENERAL PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION AND STRUCTURE OF ARTISTIC TEXT
- Balcerzan E. (red.) 1984 Wielojęzyczność literatury i problemy przekładu artystycznego Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich.
- Fast P. 1995 Klasyczność i awangardowość w przekładzie. Katowice: Śląsk.
- Fast P. (red.) 1993 Przekład artystyczny. Strategie translatorskie. Seria "Studia o Przekładzie". T. 5, Katowice: UŚ.
- Hejwowski K. 2005 Kulturowe i językowe źródła nieprzekładalności. Olecko: Wszechnica Mazurska.
- Hejwowski K. 2018 Kognitywno-komunikatywna teoria przekładu. Warszawa: PWN.
- Jacobson R. 1960 Linguistics
and
Poetics. T.
Sebeok (ed.). Style
in
Language.
Cambridge
MA:
MIT
Press. 350-377.
- Kubińska O. (red.), Kubiński W. (red.) 2004 Przekładając nieprzekładalne. Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego.
- Lipiński K. 2004 Mity przekładoznawstwa. Kraków: Egis.
- Maliszewski J. (red.) 2003 Wybrane Aspekty Przekładu Literackiego i Specjalistycznego. Tłumaczenie – Przekład – Komunikacja. Częstochowa: Wyd. WZ P. Cz.
- Soliński W. 1987 Przekład artystyczny a kultura literacka. Komunikacja i metakomunikacja literacka. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego.
- Urbanek D. 1996 Element kulturowy znaczenia wyrazu w aspekcie translatorycznym. Problemy komunikacji interkulturowej. Jedna Europa – wiele języków i wiele kultur (red. F. Grucza i K. Chomicz-Jung). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo UW.
- Галь Н. 2012. Слово живое и мертвое. Москва: Время.
- Комиссаров В. 1990. Теория перевода. Москва: Высшая школа.
- Любимов Н. 1988. Несгораемые слова. Москва: Художественная литература.
- Чуковский К. 2001. Высокое искусство. В: Собрание сочинений в 15 тт. Т. 3. Москва: Терра.
LITERATURE CONCERNING SOME LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF LITERARY TRANSLATION:
- Arnold J.E. Reference Form and Discourse Patterns. Dissertation. Stanford, 1998.
- Asher N., Denis P. Names and Pops and Discourse Structure // Sidner C., Harpur J., Benz A., Kühnlein P. (eds.). Constraints on Discourse. Maynooth, 2006. P. 11-18.
- Asher N., Lascarides A. Logics of Conversation. Cambridge, 2003.
- Bolinger D. Pronouns in discourse // Givón T. (ed.). Discourse and Syntax. Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 12. N.Y., etc., 1979. P. 289-309.
- Chafe W. Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Consciousness in Speaking and Writing. Chicago, 1994.
- Cohn D. Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in Fiction. Princeton, 1978.
- Erteschik-Shir N. Information Structure. Oxford, 2007.
- Fleischman S. Tense and Narrativity: From Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction. Austin, 1990.
- Hopper P. Aspect and foregrounding in discourse // Givón T. (ed.). Discourse and Syntax. Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 12. N.Y., etc., 1979. P. 213-241.
- Hopper P., Thompson S. Transitivity in grammar and discourse // Language. 1980. Vol. 56. № 2. P. 251-299.
- Hopper P., Thompson S. (eds.). Studies in Transitivity. Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 15. N.Y., etc., 1982.
- Jasinskaja E. Pragmatics and Prosody of Implicit Discourse Relations, Dissertation, Tübingen, 2009.
- Prince E. Toward a taxonomy of given-new information // Cole P. (ed.). Radical Pragmatics. N.Y., 1981. P. 223-256.
- Shen Y. On importance hierarchy and evaluation devices in narrative texts // Poetics Today. N 6/4. P. 681-698.
- Shen Y. Foregrounding in poetic discourse: between deviation and cognitive constraints // Language and Literature. 2007. Vol. 16, N 2. P. 169-181.
- Shen Y., Biberman E. A story told by a picture // Image & Narrative. 2010. Vol. 11. N 2. P. 177-197.
- Talmy L. Attention phenomena // Geeraerts D., Cuyckens H. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford, 2010. P. 264-293.
- Wolf F., Gibson E. Representing discourse coherence: A corpus-based analysis // Computational linguistics. 2005. Vol. 31. N. 2. P. 249-287.
- Yokoyama O. Discourse and word order. Amsterdam, 1986.
Additional information
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