CAE438 : Comparative Linguistics and the Theory of Translation
Assignment

Select a recent short newspaper article, passage from a novel, or other material in your home language. (Make sure you say where it comes from.) Translate it into English, trying to ensure that the English you use sounds as natural as possible. Then comment on the following:

• who would the translation be suitable for? How literal/free is your translation?
• what lexical problems did you encounter? In which cases have you failed to capture the exact meaning of the original? Why do you think these problems arose? Could you have made other choices?
• what syntactic issues arose in the translation? In which cases were you forced to change the word order because of differences in the syntax of the two languages?
• how successful do you think your translation is?

It is not necessary to list all things that cause problems. It is much better to delve into some things in some depth than present a superficial analysis of too many items. Don't let your assignment become a list of items – a detailed discussion of a few issues is best.

References

In your assignment, you MUST make references to standard works on translation, on the grammar of your home language, and on the differences between the two languages. Only include in your references the items you actually refer to. Make sure you include all items you do refer to.

Sections

You should break your assignment into sections, so that the structure of the assignment is clear. There also must me an Introduction and a Conclusion.

Appendices

The source text and translated text should appear in the Appendix. But make sure that all aspects of the assignment are clear from the text itself. Although the source text must be provided, it should be possible for the reader to understand the assignment without needing to access the source text. When reading your assignment, I should not have to refer to the Appendix all the time.

Due date : 3 October 2006

Marks : 30% of the total

Have fun!