31304 - Portuguese and Brazilian Linguistics and Language 3

Learning outcomes

At the end of this module, students should be able to reach Level C1 of the Portuguese language proficiency levels described in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Course contents

In the wake of the language teaching approaches, considering translation the fifth skill to be added to the four traditional ones (listening, speaking, reading and writing), this course – The role of translation in didactics of Portuguese – presents translation from Portuguese to Italian as an exercise of contrastive analysis, which not only will provide student with some tools of the translator's blackbox (techniques and strategies), but also will enhance his awareness of the semantic and stylistic features peculiar to the two languages.

Readings/Bibliography

- Mário Vilela, Tradução e Análise Contrastiva. Teoria e Aplicação, Lisboa, Editorial Caminho, 1992;

- Umberto Eco, Quase a mesma coisa: experiências de tradução, São Paulo, Record, 2007;

- Paulo Henriques Britto, A tradução literária, Rio de Janeiro, Civilização Brasileira, 2012.

 

Teaching methods

Course of lectures (20 hours) and seminars (10 hours), including translation exercises. This course provides participants with ample opportunities to apply techniques and skills through a series of translation assignments which form the basis for class discussion.

 

Students are also expected to attend language practice classes given by a native-speaker lector.

Assessment methods

The final exam will be articulated in different parts. As concerns the linguistic part taught by the coordinator of the course, students will have to do a two hour literary translation from Portuguese to Italian. This will be scheduled immediately after the end of the course. Students can use a bilingual dictionary. The oral exam that follows will be a discussion of the written exam; students are expected to lead a discussion that shows that they are able to connect theory and practice of translation beyond the mechanical application of rules. The second part of the oral exam is a discussion of a five-page essay that the student has to hand in a week before the oral exam. This is a critical analysis of a translation written in Portuguese. The final mark is an average of the marks for each component. This mark will be integrated with the ones obtained in the "esercitazioni" component of the course.

The "esercitazioni" exam is made up of a written and an oral that test all the four abilities. The written exam is four hour long and includes interpreting and translation; the oral part is a conversation on linguistic and cultural issues.

Teaching tools

Electronic corpora and dictionaries.

Office hours

See the website of Roberto Mulinacci