Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Slavic 468S, 2001-2002. Aspects of Literary Translation of Ukrainian

Course Description:

SLA 468 (this course is also cross-listed as a graduate course, SLA 1407) introduces the problems of written translation of literary works from Ukrainian into English: evaluation and comparison of existing translations, practical exercises; treatment of common difficulties in translating, various literary genres and styles, dialectal, social, generational and other subvarieties of language, as well as idiomatic and figurative language.

Graded course requirements:

This course will be graded on the student's participation in class on a weekly basis (including submission of weekly assignments) and on the student's final project.

Final project:

Each student must choose a previously untranslated work (or works) of Ukrainian literature and submit a finished translation for the last class meeting. The length of the completed translation should correspond to the genre of the work and its difficulty as an object of translation. As a general guide, the final translation (measured in double-spaced pages of 12 point proportional type on standard pages with one-inch margins) should be up to: 60 pages of conventional prose (novel or short stories); 25 pages of poetry; 35 pages of drama. Assignments should be submitted in electronic form. Translations of superior quality will be considerd for publication.

Weekly assignments:

Students must prepare for each week's class. Classes will consist of both a theoretical and a practical component. The theoretical component will involve a discussion of a particular topic in Translation theory. Reading assignments for this topic must be prepared for each class by each student. The practical component of each class will consist of a presentation and discussion of particular issues or problems in specific translations. These discussions will include both English translations and Ukrainian translations (of English texts). The discussion will focus on both the individual translations that each student prepares as part of their final project (10% per week starting on Jan 28) and on sample texts provided by the instructors for discussion Weekly written assignments should be submitted electronically and in class. Instructors will prepare and circulate the material to the class for discussion on the week following their submission.