L3 translations : thème anglais
METHOD : This year, particularly, we will be working mainly F2F (but maybe some classes online, if necessary) so here is my method for the thème classes. I would like to carry on a method which has worked well in the past and I think can still work either in class or at a distance; this is a little throwback, but a positive one, from Covid : a kind of workshop atmosphere, where students participate actively in the organisation of the translation, setting it up, working on it, constructively critiquing it with me acting as a chair person rather than a class which is led from the front, i.e; by me alone. Both L3 & Masters’ students have liked this in the past, so I thought we might try and carry on with it. It goes like this :
Step One : I put up a text per week on my Google Drive to which you will all have access via a message sent to your UHA email address for which I have a group address access. You will need to set up a personal Gmail account to access it, though. Select something simple like your name and family name pascale.dupont@gmail.com (if you have a French sounding name, it will usually work as most of the Gmail clients are American). Do not do anything odd like funnybunny69@….. that is not professional!! and my Google Drive will probably dump it. Your UHA email will disappear a few months after you leave the University, so it’s a good idea to prepare for that.
Step Two : The whole group translates the suggested text individually at home and brings it to class … in whichever form they prefer. This is a crucial step, don’t miss it. This is the first stage of your work.
Step Three : I designate in advance a couple of people (or three maximum), whom I call the “Alpha dogs”, leaders of the pack, (I am a dog-lover and have one of our 3 dogs here at present) to lead the translation work in each TD. They put up their “work in progress” translation, complete with mistakes, different versions, suggestions, questions etc at the end of the week on the Google Drive in the L3 folder. This will be the canvas for the rest of the class to work upon.
Step Three : Then we have our translation class. The rest of the class posts up their translation up too in the folder. (The ‘Alpha dogs’ couple has already done their work, then it’s up to the rest of the class to contrast and compare). The Alpha Dogs lead the class and we look at them all online in the Drive folder in class (if you follow me).
Step Four : The text is posted up on my Google Drive as a Google doc as it appears from the Alpha dogs couple, and ask the rest of the class for comments, suggestions, modifications, ideas, questions, alterations in the spirit of putting together a ‘Master’ text which fulfils the highest number of criteria. You will all be able to amend/comment on/add to the text on my Google Drive or in class. You will need your Google mail (Gmail) account to be able to access it. The Alpha couple can, of course, comment on this too, and say why they chose, to translate the way they did. (No disparaging remarks please, I will delete them!) All constructive ideas are welcome, in British or American English to help the translation along to its final version that everyone is (more or less) happy with.
Step Five : This is where I step in more forcefully, in class, checking the grammar, assessing the syntax and vocabulary and hopefully justifying why certain choices are acceptable, some are less appropriate, others are overblown or underdone. I will then ask you to amend the Google doc ‘Master’ text making it available to all the group, including your good suggestions and deleting the ‘less good’ ones so that everyone will possess a ‘Masterised’ version of the translation in the end.
Step Six : You compare your personal translation with the L3 ‘Master’ translation, put together by the group, working on that canvas, that is published and see where your version differs. Did you have better ideas? Other ideas? Did you confront them with the group’s ideas? That’s how you test your translation. If you didn’t translate the text beforehand, you will not be able to complete this step. And it all falls through for you. You get left behind. Don’t get left behind!
DANGER : Please don’t think that you can get away with not translating the text (even if it’s not your ‘turn’..). You will then learn nothing from this class. You will have a nice collection of pretty translations but they will not be your work, your effort, and your progress. They will be somebody else’s. Don’t let yourself stand on the edge of the class. I want you to be in the middle. Right in the middle. In this way you will have, by the end of the semester, worked on 10 texts, either leading them or using them to check over your own personal translation. By doing this, you will be able to see whether you are working correctly or incorrectly. And you will improve if you put in the work. Attitude is everything.
I tend to say that in most situations, you only get out of a job, a text, a piece of work, a relationship or whatever, what you put into it. If you put in zero then…you get…. zero. If you put in a lot, then you will get a lot more. A young friend of mind went to work for Bosch on a placement in England for which he got paid 900€; not really a generous stipend for a qualified engineering student with a Masters’ degree. He replied that he had got much more from his placement than 900€ because he had worked a great deal and learnt much more. He came back to France and with his CV immediately got a very good job with Siemens designing top line state of the art engines for racing cars by FIAT etc….that taught me a lesson.
TIPS for TRANSLATION: The analysis of the text is incontrovertible, a must, in other words, for a good translation.
WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, HOW…
WHO : who are the main characters in the text, male or female? Young or old? This will help you avoid a ‘Boris’ who becomes ‘Doris’…it can and does happen. Contre-sens! Massive mistake. Don’t forget the narrator; where is he or she or it (the transparent mind..??) ? Going towards the character? Going away from them? Looking in or out of the window? Coming in or going out of the door?
WHAT : what is the subject here? Childhood? Nostalgia ? Description? Factual? Oniric? Fantastic? This will help with the style you choose, tenses, aspects etc. If we have a text about childhood, for example, you might expect to see the use of ‘would, used to’, in certain circumstances to relay the feeling of nostalgic longing. A fantastic text might need some superlatives …. a descriptive text will be rich in adjectives, for example.
WHERE : where are we? France? Europe? GB? Can we leave the words in French? Names? Titles? Films? so you will choose the right words to fit with the right culture and milieu. How would you translate the advertisement “Un Ricard sinon rien”? A Ricard or nothing? It’s got to be Ricard? I thought about this for months, not finding the right translation….. then I realised…Of course. The Brits don’t know about Ricard, they think the French drink Pernod…..that’s the problem. So ‘It’s got to be Pernod’ or ‘Pernod is the right one’ probably would be the best translation. See the joke about the ‘Alsatian’ next to the picture of my Alpha Dog below…it’s a question of culture. Everything is a question of culture.
WHEN : when does the text date from? When does the action in the text happen? This will help you avoid ultra modern vocabulary if your text dates from the 50’s…the action in the text is all important; remember a text can predate the period (Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale written in 1985 about the 21st century; Orwell’s 1984 written in 1948) or deal with past events (the case of most fiction). ‘Répondeur’ will not be ‘voicemail’ if you have a 20th century text. It’s an answerphone….don’t forget to tailor your vocabulary to the era of the action in the text.
HOW : how is the text organised? Dialogue? Monologue? Description? Action? this will help you choose the punctuation, style, register. Is it literary? Familiar? Chatty? Vulgar? You will choose your vocabulary accordingly. Films and series will help you with a dialogue, but not alway with the vocabulary needed for a literary text. That comes from reading. I usually have one French book and one English book on the go, depending on where I am in the house. At present I am reading a biography of Virginia Woolf in English, and the latest Leila Slimane (such a good writer!) in French. This will help you in ‘version’ and in ‘thème’.
IMPROVEMENT : how can you improve your translation, how do you measure your progress? By comparison with the L3 Master version from the whole group, myself included. By the analysis of your mistakes; have you got problems with your tenses or aspects, or modals? Go back to your grammar books and check them. Problems with vocabulary? Read more both in French and in English. Understanding the ideas? Perhaps re-reading the text several times might help to understand the message in a cultural context. Translating is a matter of doing, “c’est en forgeant qu’on devient forgeron..” so the more you do, the better you will get, but only if you analyse your ‘mistakes’ and can improve on them. This class is destined to help you do just that. Remember, there is never a perfect translation of a given text, “traduire, c’est trahir..” So it’s always imperfect. The only one who owns the text is the author. Voilà. That lets us all off the hook! Which is rather nice, really….
Translationitis : a technical term for an illness that I hope we will all suffer from, that of playing with language and finding the equivalent phrase in other languages. Don’t forget that translation can be fun, (yes, yes, it can be) certainly if you work in twos or threes. Do your own translation first, then compare with your friends. Make and compile your own lists of set phrases, for which you can find an equivalent in English “chacun voit midi à sa porte”, “avoir une araignée dans le plafond” “C’est l’homme à abattre” etc. etc. It’s not quite as fun as Facebook, but then…it might improve your intelligence! And help you get your degree….and perhaps even a job….by improving not only your level of translation, but understanding another culture. That is why we are here, to help you to get that job by increasing your set of cultural and linguistic skills.
List of texts (from me) and Alpha dogs’ names (you) : Use the link I sent you for Google Drive L3 Thème. Come forward and volunteer for the weeks before and after November holidays!! Thanks.
This is our Alpha Dog in a photo taken by my son, last summer on a walk down by the canal. Her name is Giulietta (Jules for short) and she is a Belgian shepherd/German shepherd dog cross, commonly called an ‘Alsatian’ in English! So be careful when you introduce yourselves…..you are from Alsace, (or elsewhere) but only she is an Alsatian or a German Shepherd Dog, all known as a GSD. She came to us as a very small puppy, almost 13 years ago, on Christmas Eve; a friend’s dog had given birth to 8 puppies and could not feed them all. She was so small, she could fit into my shoe…..we had to feed her warm milk which we still call do(g)(c)offee because she was only just weaned from her mother. She is our rescue dog, our watchdog and house alarm, herds all of us like sheep (as a sheepdog should and will always do) and is a territorial little madam, barking vociferously at a bird flying across HER sky, and cries like baby when my husband leaves the house. She’s getting a little white around the face, now, but hey, aren’t we all??!!
L3 anglais Alpha Dogs for thème in Semester 5 2023 : see below :
Week One : TD1/TD2 : Alpha Dog : Ellen :
Setting up and dates for translations; aides and methodology for our classes. Establishing Alpha Dogs for the future weeks. I’m a little unsure of the dates but you will know from ADE
Week Two : Text One
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TD2 :
Week Three : Text Two
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Week Four : Text Three
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Week Five : Text Four
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Week Six : Text Five
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Holidays 30th October-5th November 2023.
Week Seven : Text Six
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Week Eight : Text Seven
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Week Nine : Text Eight
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Week Ten : Text Nine
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Week Eleven : Text Ten
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Week Twelve : Text Eleven
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Christmas Holidays : 16th December 2023 to 15th January 2024….A Happy and Prosperous New Year to you all!!
Liste of Alpha Dogs for Semester 6 2024 :
Week One : 2024 :
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Week Two : 2024 :
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Holidays : 26th February-10th March 2024.
Week Seven : 2024 :
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Week Eight : 2024 :
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Week Nine : 2024 :
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Week Ten : 2024 :
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