82031 - Specialized Translation from Italian into English (CL2)

Academic Year 2018/2019

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Forli
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Specialized translation (cod. 9174)

Learning outcomes

The student - knows the strategies, techniques, traditional and state-of-the-art tools and methods used in specialized translation tasks - is able to apply them to the translation of technical and scientific texts from different genres and text types, from Italian into English, meeting specific translation briefs and respecting the communicative functions of the source texts - knows the basic techniques required for information mining, drafting, editing and revising texts, including the overall quality evaluation of the translated text

Course contents

The course takes the graduate student to a higher level of translation and focuses on the specific translation and revision of Italian texts taken from the economic, financial, and legal fields.

Students will be asked to apply the linguistic, practical and translation knowledge acquired during their undergraduate program when translating and revising these texts. Special attention will be paid to the key steps of translation practice in the specialized field: identification and analysis of context, genre and discourse features of the source text, collection of reliable reference documents, selection of relevant terminology and build ad-hoc translation resources.

Particular importance will also be placed on translation speed.

Course duration: 40 hours

Readings/Bibliography

Balboni, P. 2000. Le microlingue scientifico-professionali. Natura e insegnamento. Torino: UTET.
Bhatia, V. 1993. Analysing genre: language use in professional settings. Harlow: Longman.
Byrne, J. 2006. Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation. Dordrecht: Springer.
Cortelazzo, M. 1994. Lingue speciali. La dimensione verticale. Padova: Unipress.
Cortese, G. (ed.) 1996. Tradurre i linguaggi settoriali. Torino: Cortina.
Cosmai, D. 2007. Tradurre per l'Unione Europea (2 ed.). Milano: Hoepli.
Mossop, B. 2007. Revising and Editing for Translators (2 ed.). Manchester: St. Jerome.
Musacchio, M. 1995. La traduzione della lingua dell’economia. Dall’inglese in italiano. Trieste: Lint.
Scarpa, F. 2008. La Traduzione Specializzata (2 ed.). Milano: Hoepli.
Tosi, A. 2007. Un italiano per l’Europa. La traduzione come prova di vitalità. Roma: Carocci.
Tosi, A. (ed.) 2013. The EU multilingual translation in an ecology of language perspective. International Journal of Applied Linguistics (Special Edition), 23:1.
Zanettin, F. 2012. Translation driven-corpora: corpus resources for descriptive and applied translation studies. Manchester: St. Jerome.

Teaching methods

Lessons will have informative introductions and short presentations to discuss the context of the source text.

A significant amount of class time will be devoted to translation and correction, revision and discussion of translation options. Students will receive feedback to aid their revision tasks, and will carry out peer review exercises as well. Guidance from the teacher will aim to encourage students’ critical thinking, as will examples taken from  translations published on institutional websites.

Students will take a mid-term exam; an in-class mock final exam, and an in-class final exam 

Classes are held at a computer lab – where PCs with Internet access and CAT tools are available to students – for substantial hands-on practice of translation (individually, in pairs and small groups).

A 70% attendance is mandatory to be admitted to the exam.

Assessment methods

In-class final written translation exam (70%): students will be asked to translate a specialized text of about 300-400 words; the topic and the genre of the text will be chosen among those dealt with during the entire course. Students will be able to use CAT tools and any resources that have been collected and built during the course, as well as dictionaries, glossaries and documents available on the Internet.

Mid-term written translation exam (30%): students will be asked to translate a specialized text of about 300-350 words; the topic and the genre of the text will be chosen among those dealt with during the course up to that point. Students will be able to use CAT tools and any resources that have been collected and built up to that point in the course, as well as dictionaries, glossaries and documents available on the Internet.   

The final grade for Specialized Translation will be an average of the mark obtained in Specialized Translation from English into Italian (50%) and the mark obtained in Specialized Translation from Italian into English (50%).

Teaching tools

Networked PCs with Internet access, CAT and corpus tools, online dictionaries and databases. Support materials (texts, slides, relevant links etc.) are made available on AlmaDL-AMS Campus.

Office hours

See the website of Catherine Farwell