Translation Theory ZH-DE 2022
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General Course information
Monday 14:30-16:10 Translation Theory and Practice ZH-DE 2022 29 BA students (starts Aug 29, weeks 1-16) 汉德翻译理论与实践 #腾讯会议:345-3281-9241, fall term 2022, room 602, course no. 09163073.01, weekly hours: 2, credits: 2, class size: 25 (?)
Session 1, Aug 29
Look into running translation work: First 100 book pages = 300 word pages of the Dictionary of Chinese Culture (Here we look at the last 30 book pages or 90 word pages.)
--Zhaotong (talk) 07:19, 26 September 2022 (UTC)==Student Roll (please update your German names)==
- 曹淑娴 Cao Shuxian Saskia 女 Special:Contributions/Cao_Shuxian Homework: 0%, 95%,
- 陈衣卉 Chen Yihui Isabel 女 Special:Contributions/Chen_Yihui Homework: 100%, 90%, 98%,
- 丁浩然 Ding Haoran Leon 男 Special:Contributions/Ding_Haoran 0%, 90%,
- 傅晨 Fu Chen Tina 女 Special:Contributions/Fu_Chen Homework: 100%, 80%,
- 贺仁杰 He Renjie Renni 男 Special:Contributions/He_Renjie Homework: 100%, 90%,
- 贺扬凡 He Yangfan Jannick 男 Special:Contributions/He_Yangfan Homework: 100%,
- 黄静 Huang Jing Sirena 女 Special:Contributions/Huang_Jing Homework: 100%, 90%,
- 李德泽 Li deze Teddy 男 Special:Contributions/Li_deze please sign here to show your username,Li deze Homework: 0%, 100%,
- 李思 Li Si Lisa 女 Special:Contributions/Li_Si_2 Homework: 100%, 80%,
- 李馨 Li Xin Chanyeol 女 Special:Contributions/Li_Xin Homework: 100%,
- 廖平荣 Liao Pingrong Pia 女 Special:Contributions/Liao_Pingrong Homework: 100%, 90%,
- 刘诚熹 Liu Chengxi Taddäus 男 Special:Contributions/Liu_Chengxi Homework: 100%, 80%,
- 刘嘉玲 Liu Jialing Dalina 女 Special:Contributions/Liu_Jialing Homework: 0%, 95%,
- Liu Shuo Louisa Special:Contributions/Liu_Shuo Homework: 100%, 90%,
- 刘子威 Liu Ziwei Thilo 男 Special:Contributions/Liu_Ziwei Homework: 0%, 90%,
- 王晶 Wang Jing Gina 女 Special:Contributions/Wang_Jing Homework: 100%, 90%,
- 王敏 Wang Min Minna 女 Special:Contributions/Wang_Min Homework: 100%, 100%,
- 吴瑾如 Wu Jinru Giesburg 女 Special:Contributions/Wu_Jinru Homework: 100%, 100%,
- 向宇涵 Xiang Yuhan Undine 女 Special:Contributions/Xiang_Yuhan Homework: 100%,
- 肖家玉 Xiao Jiayu Tjara 女 Special:Contributions/Xiao_Jiaoyu please sign here to show your username, Homework: 0%, 95%,
- 肖玉 Xiao Yu Jenny 女 Special:Contributions/Xiao_Yu Homework: 100%,
- 谢芹芹 Xie Qinqin Linn 女 Special:Contributions/Xie_Qinqin Homework: 100%, 90%,
- 尹巧 Yin Qiao Frauke 女 Special:Contributions/Yin_Qiao please sign here to show your username, Homework: 0%, 100%,
- 张迅 Zhang Xun Gisela 女 Special:Contributions/Zhang_Xun Homework: 100%, 100%,
- 赵通 Zhao Tong Toni 男 Special:Contributions/Zhao_Tong please sign here to show your username,Zhaotong Homework: 0%,
Tasks
- 刘硕 Liu Shuo Louisa 女 defines sections, writes student names behind sections, distributes the word file, collects the word file in time until 9:00 pm, merges it and submits it until 9:30 pm to the teacher
- Every student works in his section on the following:
- Adjust the form to the earlier paragraphs (e.g. order Chinese title, Chinese text, German title, German text)
- Look for repititions (one sentence or half-sentence translated two times in a row)
- Change "Im Jahr 2010" or "Im Jahre 2010" to "2010".
- Check for book titles: They need to be in italics
- Check for English titles: They need to be in German
- Unification of and improvement of consistency in translation terms:
易经 Das Buch der Wandlungen
周易 Die Wandlungen der Zhou
佛教 Buddhismus
etc.
Please add further terms here.
Prepare for next week: Theorical basis
- Theories: Linguistic, Functional (Scopos (Vermeer), Functional Equivalency), Integrative (Mary Snell-Hornby, Appropriateness (Woesler))
- Translation Ideals: Xin, da, ya; Loyalty to the author; as free as possible, as close to the original as necessary
- Strategies: Localization-Foreignization
- Myths: Untranslatability
- Problems: Culture loaded words; distance between Chinese and German; decalage in both Chinese and German for interpretation
Session 2, Sep 5, 2022
Organizational things
My flight is on Oct 3. I would like to see the class with a classroom camera during the sessions until then.
I prepare reading material for the translation theories.
Today's Schedule
Today we are going to learn the following:
1. Understand a translation setting (here: Dictionary of Chinese culture for German readers).
2. Get assigned a task for today:
Please machine translate and post edit the section assigned to you today on the web page 20220905_translation_theory_and_practice.
3. Learn how to use deepL.com (or alternatively translate.google.com or fanyi.baidu.com or netease.com) to translate from Chinese into German.
3.1 Experience: The machine translation makes common mistakes, like
- repeating half sentences - this has to do with the line breaks - even if there are no paragraphs.
- making translation errors, like words translated into English first and then into German
- does not set book titles italic
- often does not know specific terms, which have to be translated always in the same way
- has weakness (less creativity) in culture loaded terms
4. Learn how to correct ("post edit") the machine translation.
Place original and translation above each other and compare. Sometimes whole sentences are skipped.
Always translate e.g. 易经 not with Yi Ging, but with Buch der Wandlungen.
In case you translate from your mother tongue Chinese into a foreign language like German, it helps to make a re-translation of the German into Chinese to discover some misunderstandings.
5. I will now show you in class how to do your task, then you have time to perform your task and then we go through the post edited texts together in the forum.
Homework for Sep 19, 2022
6. Homework for Sep 18, 2022 (the day before next session): Please inform yourself about the main translation theories. Please create 1 slide of a powerpoint, where you describe a translation problem, choose a translation theory/strategy, and show how you solve the problem by using the theory.
Homework for download: Media:20220919_Trans_Theories.pptx
Session 3, Sep 19, 2022
Today we meet online from Cologne and Changsha
Schedule for Session 3, Sep 19, 2022
Task 1: Present and discuss homework
Task 2: Afterword to Benjamin in German needs to be translated into English to be presented as a lecture at Hunan Normal University. Teacher shows how to scan, OCR, correct scan errors, format footnotes, translate with DeepL, set italic, then look up.
On this website Book_projects#Benjamin_Afterword, you find: pdf, German afterword, English afterword, German original texts by Benjamin, established English translation of Benjamin's texts
Task 2-1 for the students: Crowd work: Look if you find anything that needs to be put in italics and put it in italics.
Task 2-2 for the students: Look up the original quotes from Benjamin and find the existing translations by Jennings, correct the DeepL translation to the existing translations of the quotes.
Task 2-3 for the students: Look up the novel titles etc. translated by DeepL, compare them with the existing established translations and update them in the text.
Homework to be submitted until Sep 25, 2022
Homework 1: Please finish tasks 2-1 to 2-3. Task 2-2 is the most difficult. Please organize yourself how to distribute the work. Important is the team work approach. The work ethics should be: Everyone takes over the responsibility that the full task will be fulfilled in time. So if you find an error with a fellow student, please correct the error. If everybody except one falls ill, the remaining one needs to make sure that the task will be fulfilled.
Homework 2: Please look at the website Book_projects. Please choose one of the projects to work on during this term.
Session 4, Sep 26, 2022
Homework 1: Please inform yourself about the main translation theories. Please create 1 slide of a powerpoint, where you describe a translation problem, choose a translation theory/strategy (a different one from last time), and show how you solve the problem by using the theory.
Session -, Oct 3, 2022
Holiday in Varna (Bulgaria).