Duration
Law : 30h Th
Politics and diplomacy : 30h Th
Number of credits
Lecturer
Law : Yves Counasse
Politics and diplomacy : Laura Charlier
Coordinator
Language(s) of instruction
Spanish language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
Law
Written Translation The course content is based on a wide variety of legal texts.
Politics and diplomacy
In this course, you'll be facing the universe of specialized translation. You'll discover a large range of fields, topics and text shapes. Those texts will match different levels of difficulty. This learning process will allow you to understand better what a professional translator is.
This course is divided in 2 parts:
Written translation: Translation of texts dealing with political and/or diplomatic matters. Specialized texts dealing with different topics and written in different printing format (editorials, press releases, reports, records, etc.) The level of difficulty will be flexible (grammar, loan translation, vocabulary adapted to style and text level, etc.).
Sight Translation: Oral translation exercise without any external resource: translation in French of a text dealing with the domains mentioned above, intermediate level. Flow, language level and quality are critical (vocabulary, tense sequence, grammar, natural speech in French, etc.)
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
Law
Through a perfect understanding of the source language (a prerequisite unrelated to this course), the sudent is expected to learn and master a range of techniques designed to overcome difficulties when conveying a message from a source to a target language in the legal field.
Politics and diplomacy
At the end of the course, you'll be able to translate political or diplomatic texts, in written or oral way.
In written translation, you'll be able to analyze, understand, relay and reformulate in French the meaning of the specialized text. You'll also be able to comment the translation difficulties and justify your translation choices.
You will be able to translate a specialized text in the political or diplomatic fields at sight too. You'll translate without any external resource, you'll translate the meaning, the nuances, extract the logical links and reformulate the text in French in a natural, flowing and high-quality way.
You'll be able to use basic translation tools (unilingual and bilingual dictionaries) and the Internet.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
Law
Very good knowledge of the Spanish language, and perfect command of the mother tongue.
Politics and diplomacy
High knowledge of Spanish language.
Excellent knowledge of French
Curiosity for the different topics seen in class
Superficial understanding of the big fields seen in class
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Law
Weekly translation ; interactive teaching
Politics and diplomacy
To improve your level in written translation, you'll read the texts, make your research and prepare a written translation at home. In class, you'll compare your translation to your fellow students' own translation and you'll analyze the solutions found to solve translation problems (phrase construction and structures, vocabulary and language level have to be adapted to the text). You'll also learn how to justify your translation choices.
To improve your level in sight translation, you'll prepare the text during a set time, without dictionaries or other resources, you'll learn to detect the logical connectors, you'll translate in French, then we'll be listening to an audio recording and will correct it as a group and then you'll be able to listen to your own recording as many times as necessary. This way, you'll be able to detect your own translating defaults and you'll be using the group correction to improve your own performance. By comparing your translation to your fellow students' you'll improve your skills in sight translation and you'll develop some automatic reflexes which will be very useful in your future career.
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
Law
Face-to-face
Politics and diplomacy
Face-to-face, 2-hour class per week during Q1.
Recommended or required readings
Law
Students are expected to keep track of all text analyzes and translations (black list, stock-phrases, miscellaneous "recipes", etc.).
Politics and diplomacy
Spanish unilingual dictionary
French unilingual dictionary
Following and reading of current affairs (online newspapers for example) in Spanish and French
Assessment methods and criteria
Law
Written Translation
Final exam is based on a 450/500-word text to be translated in two hours and a half. One French and one Spanish monolingual dictionary allowed.
Written test (questionnaire) on legal concepts taught in class.
Politics and diplomacy
Final exam at the end of Q1
Final note will be divided in 2 parts:
45% on a sight translation, done without any external resource, recorded in an audio format. Assessment standards: General vocabulary, specialized vocabulary, grammar, meaning, phrase constructions and speed.
55% on a written exam. Duration: 3.30 hours. 2 texts to translate, between 1000 and 1200 words for the 2 texts. Each text will receive a different note. Final note is the average between the 2. All resources available can be used. Assessment standards: Orthography, grammar, phrase constructions, style, general vocabulary, specialized vocabulary, typography, punctuation, meaning and omissions
Work placement(s)
Law
n/a
Organizational remarks
Law
n/a
Politics and diplomacy
Premises for this course is not decided yet. If computer premises is not available, please come with your laptop and please download and install "Audacity" (free software, to download it, please clink here http://audacity.portalux.com/)
Coming to class during the year is highly recommended to be able to improve your level. Please don't send any translation by email, no marking
Contacts
Law
For any further information, please click this link(yves.counasse@ulg.ac.be.)
Politics and diplomacy
Email: Lauracharlier@gmail.com
lcharlier@ulg.ac.be