New Workshop: Processing Translation and Revision Work Critically

Learn how to process your translation and revision work critically and constructively. To be delivered in class or online, using adapted pedagogies.

Summary

Have you ever wondered why you translate terms, phrases or texts intuitively, without knowing how you arrive at those decisions? Have you struggled to comment in an elaborate way on your revision tasks, or on terminology and translation choices, in front of colleagues or peers? Clients, and in-house employers when you work for them, may ask you to justify your choices on grounds other than intuition. Objectivising the subjective, the hidden and the intuitive is the purpose of this course.

Description

Experienced translators translate more intuitively and more quickly than novices or student translators. Yet translators rarely find the right jargon to justify their choices or to write conscious, justified comments in their revised or translated assignments, even though a professional translator or reviser may be asked to do exactly that by clients or colleagues. Critical thinking therefore deserves a place in translator competence. It also enhances professional status and earns respect: you become a thinker, a negotiator and a test engineer. This course takes you to that stage and guides you to think critically as you process your translation, post-editing or revision work.

Target Audience

Novices, translation students, and experienced translators seeking personal development.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• identify and critically judge text typologies in English and Arabic, and the problems that may arise in translation from the conventions of those texts and other contextual factors in both languages;
• write in the proper genre and style of the target text;
• justify their translation choices, for themselves and for others when asked. Every choice remains relative, since nothing is absolute in the real world: there are always many answers to the same problem;
• revise consciously and constructively the translations or assignments they are given, drawing on insights from both theory and practice.

Prerequisites

Sound knowledge of English and Arabic. Minimal experience in translation practice is required; translation students and soon-to-be translation students are welcome.

Programme

• Introduction to the field of translation practice and theory
• The importance of critical text analysis for translators and revisers alike
• Becoming an empowered translator through critical judgement of translations and revisions
• Owning the metalanguage to discuss translation problems with colleagues at work or peers in forums
• Operating beyond intuition and amateurism when facing clients, peers, or your teacher if you are still at university

Comments on this course outline are very welcome: fouadelkarnichi@gmail.com