Course Description:
§ Problems and Issues in Translation 449 ( Level 10, 3hrs):
Reference materials: A selection of articles and chapters from major translation reference works, in particular:
1. Translation: an Advanced Resource Book, Hatim, B and Jeremy Munday (2004).
2. Thinking Arabic Translation. A course in translation lation method: Arabic to English, Dickens, J., S. Hervey and I. Higgins (2002).
3. Developing Translation Competence, Schaffner, C. and B. Adab (eds.), 2000.
4. Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training, Gile, D. (1995),
5. In Other Words : A Course Book on Translation, Baker, M. (1992).
6. Translation and Translating. Theory and practice, R. Bell, (1991). London: Longman.
Course description:
The course is an introduction to the field of translation studies, dealing with different theories of translation (linguistic theory, interpretative theory and others), basic approaches to translation as a process and as a product, in addition to principles and techniques of translation, with special emphasis on the following aspects:
§ Translation as a process of secondary or interlingual communication carried out in three simultaneous steps which overlap one another: comprehension of the source text, extracting its meaning, and then re-expressing this meaning into the target language.
§ The requirements of this process, or what the translator should know in order to accomplish the task of translating, i.e. what translation competence is and what types of knowledge and skills it is composed of: knowledge of the languages (SL and TL), knowledge of the subject matter of the text, knowing how to translate, or transfer competence.
§ Translation methods and techniques: form-based vs. meaning-based methods, different levels and scales of style.
§ Translation assessment: adequacy in translation (accuracy, intelligibility and speed) and the different grades of quality: rough translation, working translation and publishable translation.
§ Major errors of translation (interference, loss of information, lack of readability and incorrect level of style), their causes and possible solutions.
§ Specific problems of translation: translation of metaphor, idioms, collocations, fixed expressions and proverbs.
Evaluation:
20% first in-term
20% second in-term
10% research paper in any area of translation studies.
Concerning this research paper, written in English, students have so far dealt with topics like:
· Translation in early Islamic eras: at the time of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), then in the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates.
· Major Muslim translation schools: Hunayn Ibn-Ishag school and Ibn Albatrig school.
· The views of Al-Jahiz on translation and translatability.
· Types of meaning.
· Methods of translation.
· Terminological research and how to prepare a glossary.
· Computer and internet terms in different Arab countries.
§ Legal translation (Level 9, 2hrs):
Course description:
This practical translation course focuses mainly on the legal text and its specific features of style (highest degree of formality, characteristic use of passive constructions and impersonal style, in addition to the use of fossilized terms and context-bound forms). Like the laws themselves, the legal language is very strict and static, it does not usually change over time. Because the legal field is extremely sensitive, having to do with people's rights and obligations, the wording of legal texts is very sensitive too: the words and expressions are chosen carefully to refer to a single direct meaning, leaving almost no room for alternative interpretations. The legal text is very much compartmentalized, students are trained to recognize the different "blocks" which constitute the "building" of the legal text in one language, and the corresponding blocks in the other. Students need to be familiarized with all these features so as to recognize them when they occur in source texts, and to be able to find their equivalents in the other language when drafting the target text. To this end, but also for promoting accuracy of expression and terminology, which is one of the requirements of legal translation, parallel target language texts are used so that students could find correct terms, appropriate manners of saying things, and even the right setting and format of the legal text in the target language. Exercises cover the translation of authentic texts representing major branches of the legal field: contracts and agreements, conventions, certificates, laws (acts and articles), decrees, etc., in addition to certain Islamic (Shari'a) texts on areas like marriage, divorce, inheritance, will and testament, etc.
Evaluation:
25% first in-term, mainly translation into Arabic.
25% second in-term, mainly the translation of legal expressions into English.
50% final exam.
§ Sight translation 313 (level 6, 2 hrs).
Course description:
Sight translation occupies a very important position in translator training: it lies in the grey area between translation and interpreting. Considered as a type of interpreting because its finished product is a spoken target text, sight translation, whose point of departure is a written source text, is also viewed as a kind of translation, though an advanced one. It requires the knowledge and skills sometimes of the one, and sometimes of the other.
In this course, students are trained to quickly read and understand a written source text, so as to spontaneously translate it into a spoken target one.
The skills highlighted are fast reading and comprehension of source texts, paraphrasing, focusing on the meaning and being able to quickly reformulate what is understood into the target language. Texts selected for exercises vary progressively as to their length and their degree of technicality: form short, easy-to-understand texts at the beginning of the course, to lengthier and slightly specialized ones towards the end. To help students acquire necessary skills, the technique of parallel texts is used: exercises usually start with an English text to be translated into Arabic, followed by an Arabic text dealing with the same subject to be rendered into English.
Also, to increase students general knowledge and to enhance their ability to read and understand English texts dealing with different topics and fields, students are required to read two English newspapers every week: from one they record a sight translation into Arabic of a text of their choice, from the second they orally summarize a text which they record on the "homework cassette". At the beginning of each class, the instructor listens to the "homework" which students play in their lab sets, discuss it with them, and sometimes makes the whole class listen to distinguished texts, whether translated or summarized. At the end of the term, however, each student presents a file containing the "homework" cassette, in addition to all the texts she has translated or summarized, each text bearing the name of the paper, its date and the number of the page form which it has been taken.
Evaluation:
20% first in-term.
20% second in-term.
10% (or more) for the weekly homework.