Translating Literature I

BA English–Hungarian Translation specialization

BTAN20110BA

Thu8.00-9.40 Room 119

Bényei Tamás

The first in a series of three, this seminar is intended to introduce students to some of the basic skills of translating literature (in this case, fiction). The course, conducted mainly in Hungarian, will focus on the most frequent difficulties facing translators – it goes without saying that most of these difficulties crop up also in the translation of non-literary texts –, suggesting time-tested techniques of overcoming many of these difficulties.

Issues to be addressed include the translation of personal pronouns (mainly third person), the translation of „she said”, verbal vs. nominal structures, the translation of „is” and „was/were”, what we call in Hungarian „névszói állítmány”, the translation of complements, gerundial structures and other basic issues. In the course of the seminar, we shall also briefly address the basic strategies of translating culture-specific material. Although, since this is an introductory seminar, the emphasis will be on local issues and problems, we shall also look at some longer texts (no longer than one or two pages), in order to address the issue of th the ‘unitary voice’ (crucial especially in the case of first-person narratives). Also, we shall discuss at least one published translation and an unpublished one (a page from Iris Murdoch’s The Unicorn).

Seminar work will frequently be based on discussing home assignments, which will always be kept at a reasonable level. The assignments (whether longer extracts of work-sheets) will be distributed as well as made electronically available the week before.

Participants will be expected to send me their completed translations every week not later than 16.00 pm Wednesday – this is important as, on several occasions, your home translations will be discussed in class, and this arrangement will leave me some time to look at your translations. Failure to send me your translationby 8.00 Thu will count as absence.

Participants are expected to bring the completed thome translations (whether electronically or as hard copies) to the class at all times.

Evaluation will be based on the assessment of

home assigments (30%)

the end-term test (30%)

classroom work (10%)

as well as on that of a major final assignment (30%)

The fnal home assigment is the translation of a literary text of 500 words. This text will be chosen by each student, in consultation with the seminar instructor. It is no problem is a published Hungarian translation of the selected text already exists. Also, there are no restrictions in terms of genre or literary quality. There are only two conditions:

-the chosen text has to be (imaginative) literature, that is, fiction (rather than, say,journalism or (auto)biography)

-the original language of the text must be English (rather than Russian [Glukhovsky], Polish [Sapkowski] orPortuguese [Coelho])

You are expected to consult me about the selected text (simply to avoid your choosing texts that might prove to betoo difficult at this stage)

The deadline for this assigment is 17 May.

Schedule

Week / Date / Topic
1 / 15 Febr. / Bevezetés
2 / 22Febr / Julian Barnes: Talking It Over
3 / 1 March / az alany azonosítása; he,she, it; általános alany
Andrew Cowan: Pig; A. S. Byatt: “The Stone Woman”
4 / 8 March / Párbeszédek; a said konkretizálása; tegezés/magázás
Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty
David Lodge: Paradise News(reptéri beszélgetés
5 / 15 March / NO CLASS
(Bank Holiday)
6 / 22 March / Gerund és participle: elbeszélés, egymásutániság: ing-szerkezetek
David Lodge: Nice Work
(Esther Freud: Gaglow - az eredeti és a magyar fordítás összevetése)
7 / 29 April / Névszói állítmányok (was, were) fordítása, a létige „lecserélése”
Hf. Was-were passages (Boyd and Murdoch)
8 / 5 April / CONSULTATION WEEK
9 / 12 April / Bővítmények/1 - a with használata és más prepozíciós szerkezetek fordítása
HF: feladatlap
Feladatlap
10 / 19 April / NO CLASS (instructor officially absent)
11 / 26 May / Antonim fordítás
12 / 2May / Kulturális fordítás (reáliák)
13 / 10 May / Fordításelemzés (Iris Murdoch: The Unicorn) regényrészlet eredetijének és magyar fordításának összevetése
14 / 17 May / Make-up class:
End-term test -deadline for home assigments