TRANSLATION ANALYSIS I (ENGLISH TO CHINESE) - 2024/5

Module Overview

This module offers a learning-conducive environment where students self-analyse their own translations, identifying problems for improvement and resolving underlying issues that cause mistranslation in the English-into-Chinese language direction. Tutors with long-established professional activity in the field provide guidance that helps students uncover translation issues and challenges and resolve problems. All translation documents used in class are culled from authentic translation assignments and realistic scenarios.
Students apply the skills and techniques gained in their practical translation module in the programme and work on weekly assignments followed by self-analysis and tutor feedback. Through a range of exercise and simulations, students engage with regular, practical translation tasks in which they are encouraged to both translate different types of texts as well as reflect critically on the principles and challenges of English-Chinese translation.

Module provider

Literature & Languages

Module Leader

WANG Fang (Lit & Langs)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Uniquely designed, this module mainly adopts the form of students’ self-analysis of their own translations to identify and resolve underlying problems that cause mistranslation. Translation documents used include government reports, technical manuals, corporate flyers, news articles, legal texts, etc.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

None

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate:
The ability to critically reflect their own translations to identify problems in relation to either the translation of words, expressions and sentences from English to Chinese, or translation of particular types of texts according to diverse communicative goals.
The ability to employ relevant problem-solving strategies, make informed translation decisions and justify the choices.
Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• Weekly translation assignments, 40%, students’ self-analysis on translations of 500 words from English to Chinese. (addressing learning outcomes 1, 2, 3).

Students are allocated weekly assignments consisting of documents for translation including instructions and required to submit the completed translations within 2-hour of a pre-set time. Students will receive a master copy of the translation for self-analysis answering a set of questions. The self-analysis will be required to be submitted by a pre-set deadline for marking.

• End-of-Semester assignment, 60%, translation of around 500 words and a self-analysis. (addressing learning outcomes of 4, 5).

Students are required to translate a text circa 500 words from English to Chinese and provide a self-analysis report based on their translations.

Formative assessment
Students will receive regular translation and translation-related tasks to practice and learn during the semester.
Feedback
Students will receive individual and group feedback during tutorial sessions and seminars throughout the semester.

Module aims

• Prepare for professional translation tasks through a range of simulations and exercises.
• Resolve the underlying issues that cause mistranslation.
• Employ relevant problem-solving strategies and solutions, and knowledgeably discuss and justify translation decisions in accordance with the best practices in the industry.
• Assess the suitability and reliability of information sources consulted in the process of translation tasks and use them efficiently and effectively for domain-specific thematic, terminological and phraseological research; use AI-powered machine translation output in a responsible way to increase human productivity.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:
Encourage a critical approach to translation solutions through students’ self-analysis of their own translations and tutors’ feedback to the entire class, as well as feedback conveyed through a more individualized, in-depth approach for each student.
Promote the best practices in the profession by providing the example translation of each briefed task, stimulating students’ reflective analyses of the problems in their translation, as well as facilitating students’ translation skills acquisition.
The learning and teaching methods include:
Before each class - Each week, students will be allocated a translation task consisting of a document for English-Chinese translation including instructions. Students are required to complete and submit to tight deadlines. Following students’ submissions, a master copy of the translation will be provided for students’ self-analysis, whereby they will answer specific questions on similarity to and divergence from the master copy. This self-analysis will be submitted by a pre-set deadline to be marked.
During class - Seminars: the tutor provides feedback on students’ self-analysis reports to the whole class.

• Tutorials: following from the above, dedicated sessions which are interspersed with opportunities for tutors to give students individual feedback based on their translation self-analysis; this is an opportunity for tutors and students to deepdive on answers to questions posed at preparation, pre-class stage.


• These processes of teaching and learning are specifically designed to help students internalize quality control procedures and to be alert to the causes for mistranslation.

Self-study: students are expected to read English-Chinese translation-related sources outside classes in order to broaden their views and enrich their understanding of important concepts and issues in English-Chinese translations. This will also contribute to their meaning discussions of their own work in the tutorials.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: TRAM507

Other information

Surrey's Curriculum Framework is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills and capabilities in the following areas:
Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is one of the compulsory modules for the taught part of the programme MA Translation Chinese Pathway in Semester 1. It enables students to gain an in-depth understanding of challenges of translating English into Chinese through students’ self-evaluation on their translations and through tutor’s feedback. The focus of this module is to enable students to conduct critical analyses of their own translation work and identify how to cope with each type of challenge in translation with detailed methodological steps and provide students with scaffolding learning when needed. The module is closely linked to other practical translation modules on the programme where students are trained to gain basic skills and abilities to identify challenges and learn coping-strategies for translating in this specific language pair.
Digital capabilities. Practical work in this module explores the efficient use of digital skills in research and information processing tasks.  Specialist digital resources and how to use such resources will be explained with sufficient examples.
Employability. Students develop resilience and adaptation skills by working on translation challenges that prepare them for a sustainable career in a fast-evolving language industry, where translating in multiple directions, including English into Chinese, is a desirable skill. At the end of the module, students will be able to apply specific strategies and techniques to solve translation problems and to produce documents to professional specifications.
Sustainability. The topics of environmental and economic sustainability are addressed in practical translation exercises, where students are asked to work with specialised texts (scientific, technical) or less specialised (popular science, media) which overtly address these thematic areas.
Global and Cultural Capabilities. Communication skills, editing skills and client- and audience responsibility developed in the module are directly linked to the role of translators as enablers or global communication across communities and cultures. Thus, the module offers useful generalisations after conducting comparative analysis in language usage, culture, translation practice between English and Chinese and norm-supported professional behaviour.

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2024/5 academic year.