+ Non-Literary Translation First Week

+ Introductions Marla Epp What kind of translation experience do you have?

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+ Assessment / Expectations 1 exam – in class March 28 Based on material covered in class No dictionaries 1 final translation – at home Due Friday April 15 by 4pm in the lecteurs mailbox (piegeonhole 116 Olympe de Gouges 4 th floor) Dictionaries and other resources welcome There is a zero tolerance policy for infringements of academic integrity, including the use of online translators (e.g. Google Translate) All late assignments will be penalized.

+ Assessment / Expectations Students are expected to come to class having done the short translation passage set for the week. Cell phones are only permitted during group work sessions, and only as a dictionary resource. Other use of cellphones in class is prohibited. April 4 and April 11 will be ateliers de traduction sessions. Students are encouraged to bring their laptops to class to follow along with the powerpoints. Powerpoints will be posted Monday morning on Didel for students to print off if they want.

+ Les conseilleurs ne sont pas les payeurs. En amour comme à la guerre, tous les coups sont permis. La pomme du matin tue le médecin. Œil pour œil, dent pour dent. La beauté n’est pas tout.

+ Qui se ressemble s’assemble. Il faut appeler un chat un chat. Aux grands maux les grands remèdes. Il ne faut pas vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué. Il ne faut pas mettre la charrue avant les bœufs.

+ Key Translation Concepts Source Language (SL): Language from which one translates, langue de départ Target language (TL): Language into which one translates, langue d’arrivée Sign vs concept: a linguistic sign is formed of an acoustic sound (in speech) or a visual image (in writing) representing a concept. E.g. arbre and tree are two signs and one concept. Translation unit (TU, unité de traduction, UT) is a unit of thought in the language, the smallest portion of a message whose elements cannot be translated separately without resulting in mistranslation or even nonsense. Eg. Faire un clin d’oeil (to wink) or to put on weight (grossir).

+ Mistranslation: erroneous or incorrect translation which may or may not make sense in the TL and results from a lack of sufficient knowledge or a misinterpretation of the SL; can occur in one word or a whole sentence. Barbarism: the use of words or expressions not in accordance with the classical standard of a language, especially such as are of foreign origin. A mistake made in translation by inventing or deforming a word, or using a word to mean something it does not. An example of barbarism would be to say Romantism after the French Romantisme instead of Romanticism. Inventing a grammatical structure, often by copying the SL, is also considered a barbarism. E.g. the use of the definite article for general terms and concepts being the rule in French, but not in English, a barbarism in English would be incurred by saying, The beauty is fleeting to translate La beauté est éphémère. Solecism: a specific type of barbarism involving a violation of the rules of grammar and syntax. Overtranslation: occurs when the translator sees several translation units when only one exits. Elements absent from the source text are added and the translation is longer than it should be; i.e. petits pois constitutes one translation unit rendered as peas, rather than small peas, which would be the equivalent of petits pois extra fins. Undertranslation: occurs when the translator sees fewer translation units than actually exist by overlooking one or several of the elements of the original message and failing to translate them. Retranslation: is a checking device in translation. The translator retraces his steps from the TL back to the SL and then compares this retranslation with the original text to verify translation accuracy.

+ Deficiency versus compensation: a deficiency occurs when a particular semantic or grammatical concept does not exist in either the SL or the TL. A compensation, on the other hand, is an attempt to make up for that deficiency through some other means; i.e. the lack of the tu form of address in English can be compensated with the use of the person’s nickname to indicate familiarity; or the lack of phonetic emphasis in French can be compensated by stylistic emphasis: I told you, not he may be rendered as c’est moi quui te l’ai dit, ce n’est pas lui. Loss versus gain: a loss in translation occurs when a semantic or structural deficiency in the TL cannot be compensated for; whereas a gain occurs when an element which did not exist in the SL is added whenever the TL is semantically richer. E.g. When the sentence Le taux de chômage est passé à 5,8 pour cent en avril de 5,5 pourcent en mars is translated as The unemployment rate jumped to 5.8 percent in April from 5.5 percent in March, we have a gain in English with the verb jumped indicating a sudden upward trend absent from the SL word est passé.

+ Saving versus padding: saving is when the SL message can be translated in fewer words, and padding when it has to be expressed in more words. An example of saving in English: Il a pris sa retraite, he retired. An example of padding: Tu es insortable, You are not fit to be taken out. Language levels: they determine the type of language to be used in translation: poetic vs prosaic, literary vs colloquial, refined vs vulgar, ancient vs modern, aesthetical vs. functional, philosophical vs technical, etc. The translator has to adopt the tone of the SL as well as its register, whether formal or informal, and target the audience targeted by the SL. One does not translate Je vous prie de bien quitter ces lieux (I ask you to please leave these premises) and Foutez-moi le camp! (Get the hell out!) quite in the same language register. Literal versus figurative sense: many words have both a concrete meaning and an abstract one. Eg. ivresse literal sense, drunkenness, figurative sense, rapture. False cognates (faux amis): Words with the same linguistic origin in the SL and TL, whose meanings have evolved differently over the years. Eg. Actuellement, at present and English, Actually. En réalité.

+ Translation techniques: these are the various strategies at the disposal of a translator when confronted with structural, semantic or metalinguistic obstacles. There are three literal translation techniques: borrowing, calque, and word for word translation, and four non literal ones: transposition, modulation, equivalence, and adaptation. Borrowing: when a concept first exists in the SL but not in the TL, it is often borrowed in its original form by the TL without any form of translation: Example of English borrowing from French, mayonnaise, French from English, steak. Calque: occurs when instead of being borrowed in its original form a new concept from the SL is translated literally, copied by the TL Eg. the cold war, la guerre froide. Literal translation: when there are no structural or semantic obstacles for doing so, the words in the SL and in the TL can be translated word for word and in the same order. Eg. Où est le chat? Where is the cat?

+ Transposition: is a change in grammatical categories between SL and TL so as to surmount a structural obstacle and remain idiomatic, i.e. Maison à vendre, house for sale (in this case the change is from a verb to a noun) Modulation: occurs when the SL and the TL see the same concept from different angles. There can be word modulations. Eg. Un logiciel (abstract viewpoint), software (concrete), preposition modulations, J’ai vu une émission intéressante à la télé, I saw an interesting show on TV, or message modulations, on m’a appris la nouvelle, I was told the news.

+ Equivalence: when the translation unit is an idiomatic expression, a cliché, a reflex formula, a greeting formula, slang, a proverb or saying, a cultural reference, the translator must first understand the situation from the context and then give the appropriate equivalent expression used in a similar situation in the TL. For instance, in the situation of a child asking another child about what has been going on during his absence: Quoi de neuf? What’s up? Adaptation: when there are obstacles to translation resulting from cultural differences, i.e. different institutions, customs or traditions that the readers in the TL cannot well comprehend for lack of a ready equivalent, the translator must resort to adaptation. One form of adaptation is compensation, another might be an explanatory periphrasis, yet another, some similar concept in the TL. For example, le musée se trouve à 200 mètres d’ici. The museum is about 200 yards away.

+ Some differences in the way French and English look at the world. At a semantic level – different vocabulary and idioms Un poisson rouge Un pompier Un trou de serrure Un tapis roulant Un double v Elle a 20 ans Un rez-de-chaussée At a grammatical level Whereas English favors the passive voice in certain constructions, French favors the active voice. On m’a dit qu’il va mieux.

+ Devoirs