Literary Translation Practice (English-Portuguese)
Code
711121058
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Línguas, Culturas e Literaturas Modernas, Secção de Estudos Ingleses e Norte-Americanos
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Maria Conceição Castel-Branco
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
To understand the main concepts and problems of current translation studies in relation to literary texts so as to manage resources and methodologies of text analysis and interpretation in Literary Translation.
To develop translational competence through intensive practice of literary translation from English into Portuguese, considering different literary genres.
To apply analytical criteria and evaluation skills to both the process and product of literary translation from a critical and professional angle.
To identify and apply translation strategies according to text type and function(s), considering possible structural constraints of transference in the Portuguese-English language pair.
Prerequisites
Very good competence in Portuguese and English.
Subject matter
1. Terminology and main concepts: specificity of the literary text, equivalence, translational competence, (un)translatability, cultural context, adequacy and acceptability of translations. Discussion of notions of fidelity, fluency, transparency and coherence.
2. Handling the complexity of the literary translation process and its main problems and challenges; strategies to overcome translation problems.
3. Intensive practice in translating different literary genres and subgenres; close reading and discourse analysis, textual interpretation and reconstruction of the source language cultural context; adaptation to target language norms (linguistic, stylistic, pragmatic and cultural).
4. Contrastive evaluation of different translations of the same source text.
5. Production of critical appreciations of translations produced in class, in articulation with basic theories, and issues in literary translation: context, style and translation as cultural mediation.
Bibliography
- Baker, Mona and Gabriela Saldanha (eds.) (2011). Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 2nd ed. London/ New York: Routledge.
- Barrento, João (2002). O Poço de Babel. Para uma poética da tradução literária. Lisboa: Relógio dÁgua Editores Lda.
- Bassnett, Susan. Reflections on Translation (2011). Topics in Translation. Multilingual Matters.
- ECO, Umberto (2003). Dire Quasi La Stessa Cosa. Esperienze di Traduzione. Milano: Bompiani. Tradução portuguesa: (2005). Dizer Quase a Mesma Coisa. Sobre a Tradução. Tradução de José Colaço Barreiros. Miraflores: Difel.
- García, Consuelo Garcia y Yebra, Valentín Garcia (eds.) (2005) Manual de Documentación para la Traducción Literária. Madrid: Arco/Libros.
- Grossman, Edith (2011). Why Translation Matters. Why X Matters. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
- Landers, Clifford (2001). Literary Translation: A Practical Guide. Topics in Translation. Clevedon/Buffalo/Toronto/Sydney: Multilingual Matters.
Teaching method
Expository in the communication of theoretical notions; student and process-oriented in their application, with teacher supervision of group and/or individual projects. Discussion of literary translations, analysis of the translation process and comparison and review of available translations of the same original. Presentation of ways of approaching literary texts and strategies to overcome translation problems.
Evaluation method
- production of annotated translations, identifying the main linguistic, stylistic and cultural difficulties as well as literary textual features; attendance, active participation in classwork and contribution to groupwork (50%);
- two written tests (50%).