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

This course (Teaching translation from Portuguese to Italian) briefly outlines the main schools and approaches that make up the current landscape of Translation Studies. Although intended partly as a general introduction to translation theory for students who are beginners in this field, the course will focus on a particular set of topics concerning the translation from Portuguese into Italian, such as the contrastive semantics between the two languages. Special attention will be paid to the ideological implications of translation as cultural transfer and therefore to the relationship between translation and the post-colonial Portuguese-speaking world. Part of this course will be devoted to a critical comparative analysis of famous translations in order to reflect on the strategies adopted in each text and problems connected with the Italian transposition. At the end of this course, students will be required to undergo a translation of different varieties of text (burocratic, journalistic, literary etc.) from different parts of the Portuguese speaking world. Students will attain in this way a good knowledge of the main linguistic varieties of Portuguese including European, Brazilian and African Portuguese.

 

Readings/Bibliography

- Douglas Robinson, Construindo o tradutor, São Paulo, EDUSC, 2008

- Araújo Ferreira - Pereira de Sousa - Gorovitz (orgs.), A tradução na sala de aula. Ensaios de teoria e prática de tradução, Brasília, Editora UNB, 2014

 

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