Translation Practice (English/Portuguese)

Objectives

- Being able to work with the resources available to the translator;
- Knowing the ethics of translation (the tension between faithfulness and re-creation);
- Understanding the linguistic and cultural system of English and being able to turn it into the Portuguese;
- Identifying the cultural context of the text in the source language and knowing how to negotiate it with the cultural
context of the target language;
- Knowing how to make a critical analysis of a translation;
- Being able, as a translator, to work autonomously in different registers of discourse.

Program

I – Introduction — some theoretical and practical problems
- The resources available to the translator
- The problems of the translator: Can we translate everything? The question of worldviews; the issue of faithfulness
versus re-creation; in search of dynamic equivalence; the translator as reader and re-creator
- Translating a translation back to the source language
II – Translation Workshop
- Working texts: administrative texts; technical and scientific texts; essays; journalistic writings; non-literary and
literary (and para-literary) texts
- Translating songs — their peculiarities
- Critical analysis of a set of translations

Teaching Methodologies

This CU is designed for classroom sessions and b-learning activities (for students outside of S. Miguel). It is
focused on the practical application of the theoretical knowledge acquired in other CUs. The activities depend partly
on individual work and partly on collaborative work. For individual work, we expect the student to explore materials
made available by the lecturer and use them with a critical perspective, so as to produce texts reflecting his/her own
options as a translator. Collaborative work will be carried out in the classroom and in e-forums, for discussion and
feedback on difficulties presented by the texts.
Self-assessment: participation in class and in e-forums; translation of a business letter; critical analysis of a
translation

Bibliography

Vários dicionários monolingues (de inglês e de português) e bilingues.
Vários dicionários de sinónimos.
Barrento, João. O Poço de Babel — Para uma Poética da Tradução Literária.
Blake, N. F. A History of the English Language.
Coseriu, Eugenio. "Alcances y límites de la traduccíon".
Cunha, Celso, e Cintra, Lindley. Nova Gramática do Português Contemporâneo.
Eco, Umberto. Dizer Quase a Mesma Coisa. Sobre a Tradução.
Fraser, G. S. Metre, Rhyme and Free Verse.
Nabokov, Vladimir. "The art of translation".

Newmark, Peter. Approaches to Translation.
Seely, John. Oxford A–Z of Grammar & Punctuation.
Steiner, George. After Babel: Aspects of Language & Translation.
Strunk, Jr., William, and White, E. B. The Elements of Style.
Ventura, Carlos M. Cravo. Recensão crítica de Fogo Pálido (Pale Fire), de Vladimir Nabokov, tradução portuguesa
de Telma Costa.
----------."Traduzir Canções (Com Sucesso): Aparentes Infidelidades".