116-454 Translation Theory and Practice

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth year honours in French.

Translation is studied from historical, practical (methodological) and theoretical standpoints. We begin an overview of the field of translation studies (theory and history), then move on to a principal focus of the subject, namely a comparative study of the different structural and stylistic features or tendencies that are characteristic of French and English. These differences are initially studied in the context of various translations of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, as well as other literary and non-literary texts. We then devote several sessions to translating short extracts of literary and non-literary works (in both directions), applying the methodological principles studied in the first part of the subject. These translations are then discussed in the seminar. This is followed by analyses of the French translation of Robert Hughes' study of the settlement of Australia, The Fatal Shore, and various English translations of Baudelaire's Les fleurs du mal, where the focus is on the ways translational strategies bridge (or efface) cultural, historical and linguistic distances. The final part of the subject covers recent trends in translation theory, with a focus on the status of the translator and the ethics of translation.

• a good knowledge of the process of translating and of the various approaches to the problems of translation;

• a good competence for the translation of complex texts of various registers.

A seminar paper subsequently written up, comprising a translation plus analytical commentary, and a final paper totalling 5000 words 100.