SN2012 – Principles & Practice of Translation (English to Spanish)

Course convenor: Alba Chaparro

Assessment:

This course is assessed 100% via an end of year exam.

There will be weekly course work and set formative pieces of work throughout the year.

Overview:

The course is seminar based and will focus as much on the process of translation as on the final product of that process. It will deal with the following aspects:

 Translation methodology and the use of dictionaries.

 The question of register and context.

 Some observations on punctuation and other stylistic conventions.

 Specific translation problems: Lexical and grammatical.

 Analysis of the structures of Spanish (compared with English)

 Close study of selected stylistic differences between English and Spanish.

 Translation of a variety of fictional and non-fictional texts.

 Reflection and commentary on main translation problems.

Key Bibliography:

Set texts: The course does not require set texts.

Other useful bibliography:

The Collins or Oxford Spanish-English dictionary, or any up-do-date bilingual dictionary

*Moliner, María, Diccionario de uso del español, (Madrid: Gredos, 1988) – Students do not have to purchase this dictionary but must check it when preparing all their work (available in the library).

John Butt and Carmen Benjamín, A New reference of Modern Spanish, (Fifth Edition, 2011), Hodder Education. ISBN 978-1-444-13769-9

Baker, Mona, In Other Words, A Coursebook on Translation, (London and New York, Routledge, 1992).

Batchelor R. E. & Pountain, C. J., Using Spanish: A Guide to Contemporary Usage, (Cambridge, 1992).

Eco, Umberto, Mouse or Rat. Translation as Negociation, (London: Weidenfield & Nicholson, 2004)

Hervey, Sandor & Haywood, Louise M., Thinking Spanish Translation, (London, Routledge, 1995). Note that this is mostly about Spanish to English translation.

Steiner, George, After Babel. Aspects of Language and Translation, (Oxford: Oxford paperback OUP, 1998)