A Project-directed Graduate Translation Course: Theory & Practice

1. A Project-directed Graduate Translation Course: Theory & Practice Wen Xiuying Sun Jiancheng （Nankai University, Tianjin 300071）

2. Introduction • The Nature of the Course: Compulsory • Teaching Object: Graduate Students of All Three Majors: Translation, Linguistics & Literature • The Goal of the Course: To train students to acquire strong competence in written translation and in translation evaluation. • Questions: 1. the make-up of the students 2. the choice of teaching materials 3. the relationship between theory and practice 4. teaching approach 5. teaching & learning evaluation, etc.

3. An Ontological Question: What is teaching? • Teaching is a behavior • Three elements of the behavior: Student, teacher and course. • Student—teaching object with subjectivity • Teacher—teaching implementer with subjectivity • Course—teaching process, through which the teaching implementer and teaching object interact with each other, constituting the inter-subjective feature of the teaching behavior. • Course design—a key to the solution of the above questions • A case study of course design of “Translation Theory and Practice” offered to the first year graduate students in Nankai University. Fall, 2006.

4. The make-up of the teaching objects • It has a great referential significance in determining teaching objectives, contents, approaches as well as the implementing of teaching process • The proportion of undergraduate students and graduate students in Nankai is nearly 1:1 • Students enrollment in 2006: 53, among which • 2006 graduates: 33 • university teachers: 5 • high school teachers: 2 • Other: 13

5. Key university graduates: 22 • Local university graduates: 31 • Youngest: 21 • Eldest: 29 • Translation major: 30 • Literature: 12 • Linguistics: 11 • Had both translation theory and practice before graduate study: 28 • Translation practice only: 17 • Never had translation course: 8

6. Different motives and expectations: more knowledge and more competitive in job hunting; better job and better life; more capable and qualified in present job, etc. • A good foundation in listening, speaking, reading and writing already. • A strong desire for ability of self-development and sustainable development.

7. Determining Teaching Objectives and Selecting Teaching Materials • Determining Teaching Objectives • (Based on a careful analysis of the teaching objects and their demands in learning. ) • Task/project-based objective • From knowledge education to ability training • Macro goal: To train students to acquire strong competence in written translation and in translation evaluation • Micro objective: To improve students’ linguistic competence, cultural awareness and theoretical level.

8. Selecting Teaching Materials • A few contradictions: • Students from different majors • Individual needs vs. collective needs • Learning ability vs. teaching ability • The proportion between theory and practice • Less class hour vs. heavy task • These are factors affecting the scope of material selecting, including text types, difficulty and quantity. • Principle of teaching material selecting: “Practice prior to theory；Literary texts prior to other texts；Classic texts equal to modern texts”, under which we had the following selection:

9. Materials for Translation Practice • Project 1 Spring Rain；Lives of Quiet Desperation by H. D. Thoreau • Project 2《童稚可嘉》（转引自陈文伯《教你如何掌握 汉译英技巧》P121，作者不详） • Project 3 Farmhouse by Thomas R. Vale & Geraldine R. Vale • Project 4《恋家》（转引自陈文伯《教你如何掌握汉译英技巧》P150，作者不详） • Project 5 Earth’s Green Mantle by Rachel Carson • Project 6 《夜间来客――“名人”被访实录》，楼适夷 • Project 7 Of Grand Hotels and Grown-ups by Catherine Calvert • Project 8《胡二茄子》，钟灵 • Project 9 My Big Fat Green Wedding, Mark Tran • Project 10《雷雨的诞生》，曹禺 • Project 11 A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner • Project 12 《我所见到的司徒乔先生》，沈从文

10. Materials for Translation Theory • 支谦， 法句经序，《翻译论集》，罗新璋，商务印书馆，1984：22 • 彦琮， 辩证论，《翻译论集》，罗新璋，商务印书馆，1984：44－47 • 严复， 天演论译例言，《翻译论集》，罗新璋，商务印书馆，1984：136－137 • 傅雷， 高老头重译本序，《翻译论集》，罗新璋，商务印书馆，1984：558－559 • 钱锺书， 林纾的翻译，《翻译论集》，罗新璋，商务印书馆，1984：696－725 • 罗新璋， 我国自成体系的翻译理论，《翻译论集》，罗新璋，商务印书馆，1984：1-19 • A Brief Introduction of Nida, Newmark, Functional School and Cultural Turn in Translation Studies.

11. Note: • Chinese materials are medium and super difficult prose, while English materials include prose, short story, travel notes, popular science, etc. , with the consideration of the discipline’s general goal as well as the students’ linguistic knowledge, linguistic competence, learning ability and the teachers’ teaching ability. • Translation theory materials are mainly Chinese traditional ones with a brief introduction to a few western schools for the purpose of translation evaluating needs. The reason to do so is that, besides the limits of class hours, it’s a course for three majors, not just for translation.

12. Teaching Approach • Project/task-directed Approach • Based on a full analysis of the make-up and demands and learning ability of the teaching objects • Project/task-directed approach is an approach in which teacher assign tasks to students and students learn by finishing the tasks. • Note: • According to the requirement of project-directed approach, tasks teacher assigned should be a bit more difficult compared with the students current ability. Besides, the teacher also need to give some guidance, for example, to make some requirements that students need to exert greater efforts to meet, or briefly introduce a theory and require students to apply, understand and criticize in their practice with an ultimate goal of internalizing what they have learned

13. A Case Study of Farmhouse • Task Assignment. • Translate Farmhouse into Chinese in 3 days and do it independently. • The third group turn in the homework through email. And then have a group discussion to prepare for the class presentation. The presentation must include a criticism of your own and other members’ versions from a perspective of “Faithfulness, Expressiveness and Elegance”

14. FARMHOUSE • Thomas R. Vale & Geraldine R. Vale • West of the pine barrens, the sandy soils give way to finer-textured loams, and the empty forests yield to fields of alfalfa and corn, of tomatoes and asparagus. The stretch of highway in this view is crossing the gently rolling country just east of Woodstown, New Jersey, a landscape which reminded us of the upper Midwest; crops of field corn and hay, pastures with milk cows, and farms with silos. • The farmhouse, which Stewart described simply as "a good early American house," is home for a dairy farmer who pastures his herd to the right of the picture and who may harvest the alfalfa field across the highway from his home. The maple tree in the front yard has grown so large that our view of the house is blocked. The willow in the backyard is gone but a small tree has grown up on the fence line east of the garden plot of corn. Additional tree growth on the horizon near the highway gives testimony to the ease with which woody plants grow in this moist mild climate and these fertile soils. The hedge fronting the house is as perfectly trimmed in 1980 as in 1950, although it has grown sufficiently to provide privacy for the farming family and perhaps to block traffic noise. The pointed and conical "top knots" adorn the hedge as more recent curious embellishments. The barn has been painted white since Stewart's time, but its generally poor condition is not revealed by the photograph. With broken windows, sagging doors, and peeling paint, the barn is now being used to store field machinery and hay. The farm's small silo is behind the barn, hidden from our view, although other outbuildings are visible in the backyard; these probably provide interior space for milking and shelter for the cows. The house itself is in good repair, but the window shutters and front porch, both noted by Stewart, are gone. The mowed grass on the slope between the hedge and the highway suggests that the family takes pride in its modest farmstead. • Reflecting a kind of permanence appropriate for this farming landscape, the utility lines occupy the same alignments they did in 1950. The electricity line continues on the right side and the telephone line now with cables instead of individual wires, is on the left. The poles are new, however, and seem to be set in different locations. • The highway here shows signs of its secondary status. When Stewart passed through, the pavement was new and unblemished, with sharply defined regular edges. Today, the highway's appearance implies only minimal maintenance, as does the jostling ride produced by the rough surface. Tar and gravel have been used to resurface the eastbound lane and, in places, the shoulder. The weedy bank with blooming dandelions rising above the left side of the road is in contrast to the mowed condition revealed in the earlier photo.

15. Three objectives of the task： • Make students realize the importance of pre-translation preparation, esp. the importance of background knowledge; • Make the students pay attention to utilizing internet as assistance in their translation; • Make students learn to apply “Faithfulness, Expressiveness and Elegance” in their evaluation of translation and understand their connotations as important criticism index of ideal translations.

16. Pre-translation Guidance • Do some research on the author • Study the genre, style, subject matter, the background of creation, cultural elements of the original work • Use your imagination when you translate and pay attention to the transfer of both meaning and feeling of the original.

17. Marking students’ translations • Most followed the guidance. Made research on background information and stylistic features of travel notes as well as the cultural factors in the text. • Better in “faithfulness” and “expressiveness” • Some not followed the guidance. Errors can be seen everywhere. Lack of accuracy, not mention “expressiveness” and “elegance”

18. E.g. • 1. West of the pine barrens, the sandy soils give way to finer-textured loams… • 松林荒地西面，沙地逐渐为肥沃的土地所替代… • 松林荒地西面，原来的沙地如今已变成良田… • 2. The farmhouse, which Stewart described simply as "a good early American house," is home for a dairy farmer… • 斯图亚特(王朝)时期 • 在斯图尔特笔下，照片中的农舍不过是“美国早期的一栋漂亮的房子”，而如今它成了一个奶农的家…… • 3. silo, barn, top knots (adorning the hedge), outbuildings, utility lines, weedy bank • 译文要么不准确，要么没有考虑读者的接受 • 4. The maple tree in the front yard has grown so large that our view of the house is blocked; Additional tree growth on the horizon near the highway… • 译文十分死板，缺乏想像力

19. Class Presentation • Heated discussion when preparing the class presentation; • Problems are found; learn from each other—using internet • Those who didn’t follow the guidance realized the importance of pre-translation work; • Class presentation and class discussion—answer questions and self-criticism • Achieved the purpose of the task

20. Evaluation of Teaching Effect • An important link between the proceeding and the following—sum-up of the previous teaching activities and also a guide to the future ones • What to evaluate: teaching objectives; teaching materials; teaching approach; teaching activities; teaching achievements, etc. • How to evaluate: oral; written; classroom; extra-class; on-going; end; student; teacher, etc. • Classroom oral evaluation and end of course evaluation; teacher’s evaluation and students’ evaluation • End of course evaluation: term paper and test • On-going evaluation: Farmhouse

21. Reasonability of the three objectives? • Misunderstanding of translation — translation is a static language activity • Problems: linguistic operation only, negligence of the other factors such as author, the original text, social, cultural and historical context, reader, etc. • Reasonable • Effectiveness? • Find problems and solve problems; self-cognition; team work spirit; • Effective • Difficulty？ • The first draft reveals that it is a bit difficult, not linguistically but extra-linguistically. • Conform to the principle that task should be a bit challenge to the students current ability. • Moderate

22. Conclusion • Task-directed Approach is proved successful and effective in the graduate course of “Translation Theory and practice”. It has the following advantages: • Task-based—repetition and overlapping of knowledge, good for students to solidify their learned knowledge and skills; • Students-oriented—conforming to the psychological needs of graduate students to achieve self-recognition, self-development and self-perfection; • Group unit—good to foster students’ cooperative spirit, team consciousness, and overall vision, laying a good humanistic foundation for future career; • Personal involvement—good to find one’s gap, and to feel one’s progress, fostering their ability of finding and solving problems, promoting one’s stronger learning motivation; • Effectiveness evaluation—helpful in cultivating students’ ability in analyzing, judging, deducing, inducing, etc. • In one word, the course design of “Graduate Translation Theory and Practice” based on “Project-directed Approach” has been proved practical in training students to master professional skills, discover their potentials, and develop their cooperative ability, etc. Therefore, it is effective in achieving the course objectives and discipline goals, worth popularizing.