Languages and Cultures in Translation

Successful students:

- acquire knowledge about languages, cultures and literatures that are different from those in their majors;

- are able to insightfully share the knowledge about the languages, cultures and literatures from their majors;

- are able to analyze differences and similarities between languages, cultures and literatures, using digital humanities techniques where relevant;

- are able to define the specificity of the language, culture and literature of their major;

- are able to relate differences and similarities between languages, cultures and literatures to core issues in the field of Translation Studies;

- are able to communicate with their peers in a supervised collaborative research project and coordinate small writing assignments in English;

- are able to reflect on their language and academic skill sets.

Translation Studies is an interdisciplinary field that brings together – among others – culture and literature studies as well as linguistics. With a focus on literary translation, the course invites students to exploit their language-, culture- and literature-specific knowledge and skills to contribute to a collaborative research project probing the nature of translation. The overarching question of the course is where we see the influence of translators as mediators between the source and target languages, cultures and literatures.

We delve into the intricacies of multiple translations of the same texts, each brought to life by different translators and tailored to distinct readerships within their respective linguistic, cultural, and literary contexts. From a linguistic perspective, we investigate the special status of translated language as mediating between the author of the source text and the reader of the target text. From a cultural and literary perspective, we study the differences between translations in the light of differences between translators, editorial houses, target cultures and literatures.

Digital Humanities techniques receive special attention in the linguistic part of the course, where we use Translation Mining, a software suite for the analysis of translation corpora developed in Utrecht.