argument being made. A special session for MATTS students on the “translation with commentary” dissertation will form part of the Introduction to Research Methods seminar series in Term 1. How to write a translation commentary Choosing the text for translation Choose the text for translation wisely, i.e. not at random. Your text should serve to illustrate a particular argument: in other words, there must be a reason for using the text in question to say whatever you want to say in the dissertation, and that reason must be clear. The basics Why are you translating or re-translating this text? The answer to this question should be informed by the answers to the following questions, and should be less subjective than “I liked it” … Where does the text come from and where is it going? Who are you addressing? Do you, as Spivak argues should be the case, have “a tough sense of the specific terrain of the original” (1993:188)? In other words, do you have sense of where this text slots into its source culture? Of its position in the home literature? Have you, as Venuti argues should be the case, engaged with “the cultural conditions of the translating” (2011:247)? Have you thought about what it means to transplant this text at this moment? Or what it means to this text at this particular time? Who will its audience be? How will it shape the target culture’s perception of the source culture and its literature? When addressing the reader, please bear in mind that your readers may include people with and without knowledge of your source language. You should have a sense of how this will affect your approach.
argument being made. A special session for MATTS students on the “translation with commentary” dissertation will form part of the Introduction to Research Methods seminar series in Term 1. How to write a translation commentary Choosing the text for translation Choose the text for translation wisely, i.e. not at random. Your text should serve to illustrate a particular argument: in other words, there must be a reason for using the text in question to say whatever you want to say in the dissertation, and that reason must be clear. The basics Why are you translating or re-translating this text? The answer to this question should be informed by the answers to the following questions, and should be less subjective than “I liked it” … Where does the text come from and where is it going? Who are you addressing? Do you, as Spivak argues should be the case, have “a tough sense of the specific terrain of the original” (1993:188)? In other words, do you have sense of where this text slots into its source culture? Of its position in the home literature? Have you, as Venuti argues should be the case, engaged with “the cultural conditions of the translating” (2011:247)? Have you thought about what it means to transplant this text at this moment? Or what it means to this text at this particular time? Who will its audience be? How will it shape the target culture’s perception of the source culture and its literature? When addressing the reader, please bear in mind that your readers may include people with and without knowledge of your source language. You should have a sense of how this will affect your approach.
how_to_write_a_translation_commentary.docx