TS HUB.jpeg

Image description: "Unterwegs / On the Way" by Ella Ponizovsky Bergelson (2019, wall paint on concrete, Neukölln, Berlin). Part of a series of wall-writings created by Ella Ponizovsky Bergelson in 2018 and 2019 in many public places in Berlin. The multilingual text reads in German: 'Immer noch unterwegs', in Yiddish: 'נאך אונטערוועגן', and in Arabic: 'مازلت في الطريق', which translates into English: 'still on the way'. Read about the artist’s work here.

ENGL 569: Theory and Practice of Translation: A Critical Introduction

Professor: Nancy Bou Ayash

Email: nbayash@uw.edu

Meeting Time: Th 11:30-1:20 pm

Virtual Office Hours: By appointment

Personal Zoom Link: https://washington.zoom.us/my/bouayash

Welcome to our growing community of translators and interpreters at UW!

This seminar does not require any prior training in translation and interpretation studies. Its primary goal is to introduce you to current theoretical and practical issues pertaining to translation and discuss basic concepts, techniques, and strategies using concrete examples from a variety of languages, literatures, cultures, geographic locations, and genres. One of the main ideas that we will emphasize in this seminar is that translation can be studied and practiced in a plurality of ways and approaches.

To some of you, the seminar might even jumpstart language and translation work in fulfillment of the graduate program’s new PhD language requirement. One of the far-reaching goals of this seminar is to create a strong intellectual community in the English graduate program and across the UW campus that coalesces around diverse translation-related matters.

Overall, the seminar will bring together multiple perspectives and methodologies, challenging traditional views on translation and encouraging original thinking about what translation is, its place in the print and digital publishing industry, and role in fostering language and social justice. As we work toward these goals, we will be exploring how professional translators actively negotiate and navigate their unique relationship to different language and cultural worlds in various textual productions, which vary profoundly in conventions, structure, linguistic choices, stylistic patterns, and ideological positions.

Towards the end of the quarter, our meetings will be dedicated to workshopping individual translations with the understanding that each of you will be at different stages in your progress, so some of you will have more or less accomplished drafts than others.

Guiding Discussion Questions:

In our individual and collective deliberations, we will address the
following questions, and I strongly encourage you to constantly reflect
on, revise, modify, and rework these questions (and possibly add
others):

How do new ways of thinking about and understanding language
and translation allow us to rethink the notions of authorship, originality, agency, equivalence, and (inter)textuality?
What can we learn from translation theory and practice? Is translation fundamentally different from other forms of writing?

What models of translation and theories of the trafficking of language(s) and meaning(s) have the works presented and discussed in class tapped into?
How do translators/interpreters show awareness of a cross-cultural audience amid historical, political, ideological, cultural, and linguistic differences? How do they draw on ‘insider/outsider’ discourses and global/local roles in their translations/interpretations? How do they represent movement in time and space and across eastern and western ideologies? How do/can they effectively advance the voice of peoples and cultures historically othered by Western-centric viewpoints without romanticizing, or rendering exotic, these voices?
How are such translation choices and decisions approached similarly or
differently in multimodal texts (e.g. graphic memoirs, subtitling, audiovisuals, etc.)?

What gets lost in translation? What compromises are inevitable? What is gained? And at what cost?
What is the potential role and place of translation practice in our teaching of literature, writing, language and/or rhetoric?
What are the challenges and possibilities for teachers, scholars, and students interested in enacting “responsible” readings/teachings of translated texts?

Local Translation Communities and Resources

1. UW Translation Studies HUB

UW Translation Studies Website: https://uwtranslationhub.wixsite.com/uwtranslation

UW TS Hub Blog https://uwtranslation.home.blog

UW TS Hub on Twitter: https://twitter.com/uw_translation

UW TS Hub on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uwtranslation

UW TS Hub on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UW-Translation-Studies-Hub-109756710449413

2. Northwest Translators & Interpreters Society (NOTIS)

https://www.notisnet.org

WEEKLY PLAN

WEEK 1

Tuesday 4/1

Copy of the course syllabus provided here as pdf file and word document.
In-class Translation Journey Freewrite.
Assign collaborative notetakers.

Thursday 4/3

Finalize assignment of Discussion Leaders.
Collaborate on the class Critical Translation Glossary.
Corrected Version of Bassnett's select essays from Reflections on Translation.

WEEK 3

Tuesday 4/15

Discussion Leader #1 (Bassnett and Trivedi, “Introduction: Of Colonies, Cannibals and Vernaculars")
Work in groups on Public Perceptions of Translation Activity.

Thursday 4/17

WEEK 4

Tuesday 4/22

Thursday 4/24

Discussion Leader #4 (Matsuda et al., "Machine Translation as Form of Feedback on L2 Writing")
Revisit Collaborative Critical Glossary

WEEK 5

Tuesday 4/29

Discussion Leader #5 (Guix, “The Translator in Aliceland”)
Discussion Leader #6 (Schwartz and de Lange, “A Dialogue: On a Translator’s Interventions”)

Thursday 5/1

Discussion Leader # 7 (Rutherford, “Translating Fun: Don Quixote”)
Discussion Leader #8 (Fan, “Han Kang and the Complexity of Translation”)
Work individually or in pairs on Translation Activity #2: Translators’ Commentary.

WEEK 6

Tuesday 5/6

Discussion Leader #9 and #10 (Price, “Introduction: Translation and Epistemicide” and “La Joteria: Stereoscopic Readings Against Epistemicide”)
Mid-quarter Feedback Form

Thursday 5/8

Class meets at 11:30 in CMU 202 for Sawad Hussein's seminar "Selling Literature: What's a Translator Got to Do with it?"
Brief post-workshop reflections (1:00-1:20 pm)
REMINDER: If you haven't already, please make sure you fill out the Mid-quarter Feedback Form

WEEK 7

Tuesday 5/13

Discussion Leader #11 (Cooperson, "Introduction" (2020) and "Note on the Translation" (available as pdf)
Podcast: Michael Cooperson in dialogue with Shin Yu Pai (here). What additional insights are gleaned from the podcast?
Discuss mid-quarter feedback

Thursday 5/15

Discussion Leader #12
Read Impostures #1, #17, #36, and #37

WEEK 8

Tuesday 5/20

Discussion Leader #13 (Rivera, Introduction and Chapter 5: “Synthesizing Needs and Issues”)

Thursday 5/22

Discussion Leader #14 (Rivera, Chapter 6: “Ideating and Redesigning” and Conclusion)
Discuss and Collaboratively Design Final Project Assessment Rubric.

WEEK 9

Tuesday 5/27

Discussion Leader #15 (Hrach, “Translation and the Future of Early World Literature.” )
Continue collaborating on the class Critical Translation Glossary.
Discuss collaboratively designed Translation Writing Workshop Agreement.

Thursday 5/29

Discussion Leader #16 (Isabel Gomez, “Building Language Justice: Translation Pedagogy and Spanish Heritage Learners)
and #17 (Julia Kiernan, Joyce Meier, and Xiqiao Wang, “Negotiating Languages and Cultures: Enacting Translingualism through a Translation Assignment”)

Bring copies of teaching materials (e.g. course syllabi, lesson plans, assignment or project prompts, handouts, class activities, assessment tools, etc.) to explore possible spaces in your own praxis for some aspect of translation pedagogy.
Discuss expectations for Translation Writing Workshops.
Potluck Sign-up Sheet and and Workshop Partners/Group Assignments.

WEEK 10

Remember to upload drafts of your final project under "Translation Writing Workshops" on Discussion Boards by 5:00 pm on Monday June 2nd, 2025.

Tuesday 6/3

Come prepared to share/discuss the work you produced in response to translation activity #2 and #3.
Potluck (complete sign-up sheet) and Workshops Round I (Make sure you have read the Guidelines for best practices throughout these workshops).
If you haven't already, please take a few minutes toward the end of our class session to complete the end of quarter course evals.

Thursday 6/5

Potluck and Workshops Round II
Final course reflections!

Final Translation Project due on Monday 6/9 at 11:59 p.m. (upload revised drafts and if applicable, copies of your source texts under Assignments)