This course introduces Translation as an academic discipline and as a practice in order to provide a basis for students to start translating texts in a professional manner. It draws on and deepens students’ linguistic and cultural competences and provides them with an understanding of translation theories, methods, and practical skills.
In our course practice, Spanish is one of the languages of the language pair as either the source or the target language. As such, this course also aims to develop knowledge of the Spanish language and the Spanish-speaking cultures, as well as students’ cross-cultural skills, through analyses of textual and audiovisual materials and especially through translation practice. While emphasis is given to the English/Spanish pair, the language diversity of the students in the class – including French and other languages – may be considered in students’ own translation practices and final project proposals where possible.
Students are presented with a theoretical basis on translation, as well as on language, language diversity and language variation and translate short texts from a variety of fields such as literature, marketing, journalism, and science. Although the focus of the course is on human-made translation of written texts, reflections on interpretation (simultaneous and consecutive), localization, adaptation and machine translation will also be drawn.
Students hand in an individual annotated translation at the end of the course which will reflect their practical and theoretical growth throughout the course. Other regular and/or scaffolded