German-English Translation (Gr. A-B)

Course content

Translation is a skill that demands the highest awareness of equivalence between lan-guages. As a learning medium, it requires that the student give painstaking attention to de-tail and a careful interpretation of what is being said in the original language. Translation from German into English also allows students to develop their awareness for subtleties in the language such as collocations, style, tone and connotation. Furthermore, the course functions as an exercise in contrastive grammar: how are certain German constructions best rendered in English? In addition, through a combination of readings about translation, group work, and individual projects, students will learn to navigate some of the more detailed concerns of translation that go beyond grammatical features. Going beyond the contrastive features of grammar and syntax, we will also focus on not only understanding the subtleties of the German language, but also on how to reproduce those nuances in English. Finally, we will focus on specific areas of the source language that do not easily transfer to the target language. At the end of this course, successful students will be able to:

• explain the characteristics of the German tradition of translation
• translate German texts into English while taking cultural and historical considerations into account
• improve their translations with techniques involving voice, wordplay, symbolism, and genre