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TRA5313 Seminar 1: Home

Course Description

This course will be conducted in a “round-table” fashion, using audio and video recordings of a variety of speeches and texts of different types. Students will work collectively on tailored reading assignments and exercises They will be engaged critically in discussions and learn to address topics essential to their understanding of the theories, principles and techniques they have learned from other courses. These will reinforce their mastery of the general issues about the nature and process of translation and interpreting, and enhance their understanding of translation and interpretation as complementary pursuits. 

Recommended Books

Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account

This book provides an interesting view on the relationship between translation and conflict from the perspective of narrative theory. While Chapter 1 gives an overview of the connotations of translation, conflict, and narrative, Chapter 2 introduces what the definition of narrative is. Chapter 3 displays four types of narratives based on Somers’ and Gibson’s works. Chapter 4 & 5 explain how narratives function. Chapter 6 draws on Goffman’s notion of frame and the key strategies translators and interpreters uses to speak their own voices in narratives. Chapter 7 discusses the feasibility of analyzing individual narratives. The author stresses that translation is part of the process of social and political developments.

In Other Words: A Coursebook On Translation

Assuming no knowledge of foreign languages, this book is a key text for students in Translation Studies. It progressively looks at the meaning of single words and expressions, combination of words and phrases, grammatical categories, word order and cohesion, texts use in communicative situations, interplay between verbal and visual elements, and reflections on ethics and morality. Rather than adopting the “top-down” approach of textual analysis, this book is organized bottom-up, starting with simple words and phrases, in hopes of benefiting those who are not trained linguists and in awareness that students need to understand how the lower levels control and shape the overall meaning of the text.

Note-Taking for Consecutive Interpreting-A Short Course

This book serves for student interpreters to study the system for note-taking in consecutive interpreting. Part I spreads out the stages through which the note-taking system is built with. Chapters 1-3 present the basic elements of the note-taking system. Chapter 4 starts to discuss how to link these basic elements together. Chapters 5-7 discusses the differing levels of values coming from the speaker, the use of symbols, and memory prompts respectively. Part II provides tips and ideas used within the note-taking system from the perspectives of clauses, rules of abbreviation, verbs, etc. Part III is exercise-oriented, providing sample speeches, their notes and commentaries on these notes, etc.

Conference Interpreting: A Student’s Practice Book

This book is loosely based on an earlier publication, Conference Interpreting – A Students’ Companion published in 2001 in Poland. It offers some guidelines for effective practice and a compilation of practice exercises drawn from conference interpreting literature and teachers. The book consists of four parts. Part 1 offers general principles for effective practice drawn from the author’s own extensive experience as an interpreter and interpreter-trainer. Part 2 covers language enhancement at very high level. Part 3 and Part 4 cover the key sub-skills needed to effectively handle the two components of conference interpreting- simultaneous and consecutive interpreting.

Conference Interpreting Explained

This book unravels the process of conference interpreting in a descriptive manner. There are 5 chapters in this book. Chapter 1 gives answers of some basic questions such as what is an interpreter, what is conference interpreting, what is consecutive interpreting, and what is simultaneous interpreting, etc. Chapter 2 presents the basic principles of consecutive interpreting- understanding, analyzing, and re-expressing. Chapter 3 expands on note-taking in consecutive interpreting. Chapter 4 mainly focus on simultaneous interpreting, especially the technique of simultaneous interpreting. In Chapter 5, Jones expresses his pleasure with interpreting.

The Interpreting Studies Reader

This book is an anthology of texts in the discipline of Interpreting Studies. Part 1 collects works before 1975 that opened the era of conference interpreting. Part 2 collects more works that build up the foundations of conference interpreting during the 1970s. Part 3 focus on works that presents efforts to construct models of the interpreting process in the 1990s. Part 4 covers works from the sociological and situational perspectives as well as the semiotic dimension. Part 5 addresses the discourse studies and pragmatics. Part 6 explores underlying patterns of interpreter performance and its reception by the user. Part 7 focus on non-conference settings of interpreting.

Audiovisual Translation: Theories, Methods and Issues

This book offers theoretical orientation and methodological direction to design new research projects in the field of audiovisual translation. The book consists of eight chapters divided into three parts. Chapter 1 begins with a brief overview of existing research practices in audiovisual translation studies. Chapter 2 explores the history of film industry. Chapter 3 delves into forms of amateur translation. Chapters 4 and 5 focus, respectively, on research models and research methods in audiovisual translation. Chapter 6 examines multimodality as an emerging theoretical framework, and Chapter 7 focuses on new directions in forms of amateur translation. Chapter 8 offers advice on designing audiovisual translation research projects.

The Interpreting Studies Reader

This book is an anthology of texts in the discipline of Interpreting Studies. Part 1 collects works before 1975 that opened the era of conference interpreting. Part 2 collects more works that build up the foundations of conference interpreting during the 1970s. Part 3 focus on works that presents efforts to construct models of the interpreting process in the 1990s. Part 4 covers works from the sociological and situational perspectives as well as the semiotic dimension. Part 5 addresses the discourse studies and pragmatics. Part 6 explores underlying patterns of interpreter performance and its reception by the user. Part 7 focus on non-conference settings of interpreting.

Introducing Interpreting Studies

This textbook is designed to provide students, instructors, researchers, and practitioners with an overview of interpreting studies. This book consists of ten chapters organized into three parts. Chapters 1 to 5 make up the synthetic representation of interpreting studies in terms of concepts, developments, approaches, paradigms and models. Chapters 6 to 9 are devoted to an analytical presentation of the state of the art. Chapter 10, the only chapter that constitutes Part 3, reviews the major trends and future perspectives of interpreting studies as a field of research, and offers further suggestions for individual researchers.

Recommended Databases