Italian to English
Content for 2016/17 - 2017/18 will be updated in due course
Tutor: Dr Joanne Lee, room H4.16, email: jo dot lee at warwick dot ac dot uk
The class is run as a workshop, normally focused on a piece of translation that has been prepared during the previous week. In some weeks, we will work on unseen translations or on different forms of translation. Students will work both individually and in groups and will translate from Italian into English. Passages selected for translation will belong to different registers and genre, although particular emphasis will be placed on the analysis and discussion of literary texts.
Schedule for Term 1
Week 3:
in-class activities on nursery rhymes.
Homework: extract to translate from Alessandro Dal Lago and Emilio Quadrelli, La città e le ombre.
Please hand in by midday on Wednesday of week 4 to the tray outside H4.16.
Week 5:
Work on Dal Lago and Quadrelli translation: breaking down complex periods; register; specialist vocabulary.
Homework: extract to translate from Primo Levi, L'altrui mestiere.
Please hand in by midday on Wednesday of week 7 to the tray outside H4.16.
Week 8:
Work on Primo Levi translation: register; specialist vocabulary; 'vi' and 'ci'; how to translate 'uomo'. Evaluation of published translation.
Homework: extract to translate from Stefano Allevi on religion in Italy.
Please hand in by midday on Wednesday of week 9 to the tray outside H4.16.
Week 10:
Work on Allievi translation: complex syntax and how to decide whether and how to re-work it; specialist vocabulary; dealing with culture-specific terms, nuance and word-play (campanilismo).
Discussion of unseen article from Repubblica on the referendum on the Italian constitution; journalistic style. Please bring this article to classes in term 2 so that we can return to the translation in class.
Homework: extract to translate from Calvino's Marcovaldo.
Please hand in by midday on Wednesday of week 1 to the tray outside H4.16.
Week 2:
Work on Calvino translation: identifying, interpreting and translating elements of literary style; (re)creating a tone/mood; idiomatic phrases.
Discussion of style and register: the demands of different kinds of register and of evaluating cultural context (in terms of both source and target texts). Techniques for unseen translations.
Homework: extract to translate from Alberto Maria Banti, Il Risorgimento italiano.
Please hand in by midday on Wednesday of week 3 to the tray outside H4.16.
Week 4:
Work on Banti translation: interpreting and translating tenses (and when to alter those of the source text); recognizing and translating 'non...che', and 'ne'; decision-making in questions of style and register.
Initial discussion of extract from Carlo Levi (below). First approaches to unseen translation: using bibliographical information supplied; identifying voice and perspective; techniques for interpreting unfamiliar vocabulary (using context, breaking the term into component parts).
Homework: complete individually the extract from Carlo Levi, L'orologio.
Please hand in by LATEST midday on Wednesday of week 6 (reading week) to the tray outside H4.16.
Week 7:
Work on Carlo Levi translation: recognizing and translating the pluperfect tense; lexical choices.
Initial approaches to unseen extract from Antonio Scurati (below). Strategies in unseen translation: establishing context; using bibliographical information supplied; reading and re-reading to capture sense and register; identifying and following grammatical structures accurately; translating rhetorical language.
Homework: complete individually the extract from Antonio Scurati, Gli anni che non stiamo vivendo. *You can also translate and hand in the first Italian to English translation from the 2016 exam paper, which is in the same file, if you would like extra practice.*
Please hand in the Scurati translation by LATEST midday on Wednesday of week 8 to the tray outside H4.16.
Next class: week 9.
Week 9:
Review of Scurati translation: translating context-specific terms; making sense of rhetoric.
Work on extract by Ennio Flaiano (see below): identifying and translating tenses, especially in hypothetical sentences; archaisms in terms of lexis and phrasing; strategies for deciphering unfamiliar and/or specialist vocabulary; translation decisions guided by register and style.
Homework: translate individually the extract from Ennio Flaiano, Tempo di uccidere. Please hand in by Wednesday of week 10 in order to have the translation marked before the end of term.
Exam preparation during the vacation:
If you would like to practice translations from past exams over the vacation and early in term three, please hand them in in the usual way and I will mark and return them as soon as I am able to. I strongly recommend that you do these translations in mock exam conditions, i.e. timed and without dictionaries of any sort.
Past papers can be found in the university's online archive (use the search term IT4011). If you would like other examples, please email me.