69427 - Translation from English into Italian I (Second Language)

Learning outcomes

The student knows the basic tools (grammar books, dictionaries and corpora) and basic translation strategies (analysis of a source text and its transposition into a target text)). He/she is able to apply these tools and strategies to the task of translating a variety of texts from English (as a second language) into Italian. He/she is able to identify and use the most adequate translation strategies, depending on the communicative functions of the texts to be translated.

Course contents

Students will be introduced to a variety of textual genres and will be presented with a wide range of translation problems. They will also be introduced to different resources (mainly dictionaries, search engines and parallel texts) and translation techniques and will be asked to consider and discuss the most adequate strategies to be applied to each problem. All texts will be thoroughly analysed from a linguistic and stylistic point of view as well as with reference to their genre and function.

Special attention will be paid to the activities of revision and self-revision.

The course will deal with the translation of: journalistic texts, touristic texts, reviews, semi-specialised scientific texts, literary texts

Readings/Bibliography

- Eco, U. (2008), Dire quasi la stessa cosa, Bompiani

- Morini, M., (2016), Tradurre l'inglese, Il Mulino

- Mossop, B. (2007) Revising and Editing for Translators(second edition). Manchester: St. Jerome

- Scarpa, F. (2008) La traduzione specializzata: Un approccio didattico professionale. Milano: Hoepli

Teaching methods

Lessons will be in the form of workshops/seminars, and active participation of students is expected; during these lessons, activities will include group discussion of translations prepared by students at home, as well as translation/revision activities in class

Students will also be required to hand in one/two assignments, on which the lecturer will provide both individual and collective feedback.

Students are expected to attend at least 70% of the module classes.

Assessment methods

The exam will consist of a written translation test taken in the computer lab; students will be asked to translate a text extract  about 300 words from English into Italian belonging to one the text types presented in class. Students will be allowed to use all the resources presented during the module (online and/or paper dictionaries, search engines).

Students will also take a mock exam, whose result will not be considered in the computation of the final course mark.

The final mark of the course will result from the arithmetic mean of the marks obtained in the modules of translation from English into Italian and from Italian into English.

Teaching tools

• Computers with Internet connection (students) and with beamer (lecturer)
• Monolingual and bilingual dictionaries (paper and/or online)
• Online translation resources (search engines, terminological databases)
• Moodle e-learning platform to share texts to be translated and other useful materials (see link)

Office hours

See the website of Annalisa Crea