Developing Long-Term Non-Associative Memory
Course content: exercises and techniques for training non-associative memory; ways to expand and strengthen long-term memory with the help of phraseological collocations, clichés and intertextualisms.
Topic and language of the material: nature (including Tian Shan terminology), materials offered in the Russian language.
Duration: 6 sessions of 1.5 hours each + homework.
Topic and language of the material: nature (including Tian Shan terminology), materials offered in the Russian language.
Duration: 6 sessions of 1.5 hours each + homework.
Gloss and Gloom of a Brilliant Text: the Basics of Literary Translation from German
We welcome you to Irina Alekseeva's workshops on translating fiction and historical literature.
Fiction is loved by everyone. Few people know how it works, and still fewer know how it is translated, that is, how to transform the beauty of a foreign text into the beauty of a Russian text.
Using four texts as examples, we will look in detail at the basic techniques of conveying the authors' style. We will allocate four hours for each text, which will include comparative analysis of the available translations and then a collective attempt to translate a small fragment.
Heinrich Böll's war diary is both a real diary from the front and a poetic recitative by the young Böll, constructed as a prayer and addressed to the woman he loves.
Fiction is loved by everyone. Few people know how it works, and still fewer know how it is translated, that is, how to transform the beauty of a foreign text into the beauty of a Russian text.
Using four texts as examples, we will look in detail at the basic techniques of conveying the authors' style. We will allocate four hours for each text, which will include comparative analysis of the available translations and then a collective attempt to translate a small fragment.
Heinrich Böll's war diary is both a real diary from the front and a poetic recitative by the young Böll, constructed as a prayer and addressed to the woman he loves.
Format: 8 sessions of 2 hours each
Material:
1. Annals (Year Papers) of Goethe, J. W.
2. Heinrich Böll's war diary.
3. Peter Weiss's structuralist micro-novel The Shadow of the Coachman's Body.
- 4. Robert Walzer's Fritz Kocher's Essays.
A specific challenge is the translation of Robert Walzer's early novel Fritz
Kocher’s Essays, where the literary primitive is juxtaposed with a very traditional neo-romantic style. Whether this is a deliberate contrast, or already a facet of clinical literature, we will determine through a comparative analysis of the translation and the original.
Finally, using the example of Goethe's Annales, drafted by the head of the workshop Irina Alexeeva, we will look at the palette of major errors in realities, historical events, names, etc., which the scientific editor has identified, and consider ways of achieving informational completeness in the translation of this text. We will compare the time period (the turn of the 18th and 19th century) with Böll's wartime signs and build up a progression of some sort.
The texts are a pleasure to read and allow the translator and the reader to quench their thirst for beauty and their desire to explore the world through metaphors and images.
Kocher’s Essays, where the literary primitive is juxtaposed with a very traditional neo-romantic style. Whether this is a deliberate contrast, or already a facet of clinical literature, we will determine through a comparative analysis of the translation and the original.
Finally, using the example of Goethe's Annales, drafted by the head of the workshop Irina Alexeeva, we will look at the palette of major errors in realities, historical events, names, etc., which the scientific editor has identified, and consider ways of achieving informational completeness in the translation of this text. We will compare the time period (the turn of the 18th and 19th century) with Böll's wartime signs and build up a progression of some sort.
The texts are a pleasure to read and allow the translator and the reader to quench their thirst for beauty and their desire to explore the world through metaphors and images.
Repetition, name-calling, proper nouns and punctuation take on a special role here. We shall have a look at the virtuoso work with this historical and artistic material of the young translator and poet Yegor Zaitsev.
A unique place in our summer selection is occupied by Peter Weiss's structuralist micro-novel, The Shadow of the Coachman's Body, which is only 60 pages long. Titled with a quotation from Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, the text is a landmark phenomenon: it has been followed by an avalanche of literary imitations of the author's "carnal" style. It is unique in its aesthetics of arranging space into plans, and creating a world of hyper-reality. Complex syntactic periods, the rhythm of prose, sound writing, the imitation of a distorted recitative – for all this the excellent German translator Alexander Filippov-Chekhov has found adequate means. Our ultimate task here will be to determine what measure of liberty the translator can afford.
A unique place in our summer selection is occupied by Peter Weiss's structuralist micro-novel, The Shadow of the Coachman's Body, which is only 60 pages long. Titled with a quotation from Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, the text is a landmark phenomenon: it has been followed by an avalanche of literary imitations of the author's "carnal" style. It is unique in its aesthetics of arranging space into plans, and creating a world of hyper-reality. Complex syntactic periods, the rhythm of prose, sound writing, the imitation of a distorted recitative – for all this the excellent German translator Alexander Filippov-Chekhov has found adequate means. Our ultimate task here will be to determine what measure of liberty the translator can afford.
Irina Alexeeva
Engaged in translation when a student. Wrote her graduation paper (“Demon” by Mikhail Yu. Lermontov in German translations”) and PhD thesis dedicated to bilingualism in the works by Carolina Pavlova under the supervision of a well-known theorist and practician of translation and interpretation Andrey V. Fyodorov.
At the end of the 70s worked as a translator in the Patent bureau of the Leningrad State University. Teaching at the Leningrad State University (now St Petersburg State University) since 1980.
In the 80s and 90s specialized in the legal, economic, memoir and literary translation. Among translations published in the 80s, 90s and the beginning of the XXI c. there are works of J. L. Tieck, E.-T.-A. Hoffmann, G.Keller, G.Hauptmann, G.Trakl, H.Hesse, H.Broch, R.Musil, H.Böll, R.Menasse, I.Tielsch, P.Nison, E.Jelinek and many others. In 2006 published “A Complete Collection of Letters by W. A. Mozart” (together with her former student A. V. Boyarkina) and translated most of the letters.
Since mid-90s also engaged in consecutive and simultaneous interpretation (in particular, at conferences and forums: Petersburg Dialogue – 2003, Christain Service in Hospitals – 1999, Modern Legal Protection of Information Sources – 2004, etc.). Since 1980 has been teaching practice and theory of translation and interpretation. Since the end of the 90s has published a number of books on the theory of translation and interpretation and methods of translators and interpreters training, including: «Теория перевода» ("Theory of Translation") 1998; «Профессиональный тренинг переводчика» ("Professional Training of Interpreters/Translators") 2000, «Устный перевод. Немецкий язык» ("Interpretation. The German Language") 2002, «Введение в переводоведение» 2004 ("Introduction into Translation Studies"), «Устный перевод речей» ("Interpretation of Speeches") 2005, «Письменный перевод. Немецкий язык» ("Translation. The German Language") 2006, «Текст и перевод» ("The Text and Its Traslation/Interpretation") 2008 – all in Russian. Author of more than a hundred research papers.
Since 2000 has been conducting workshops on organisation of education in the field of interpretation/translation and the methods of interpreters/translators training in Russia and other countries. In 2004 was awarded an Honorary Diploma of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation.
At the end of the 70s worked as a translator in the Patent bureau of the Leningrad State University. Teaching at the Leningrad State University (now St Petersburg State University) since 1980.
In the 80s and 90s specialized in the legal, economic, memoir and literary translation. Among translations published in the 80s, 90s and the beginning of the XXI c. there are works of J. L. Tieck, E.-T.-A. Hoffmann, G.Keller, G.Hauptmann, G.Trakl, H.Hesse, H.Broch, R.Musil, H.Böll, R.Menasse, I.Tielsch, P.Nison, E.Jelinek and many others. In 2006 published “A Complete Collection of Letters by W. A. Mozart” (together with her former student A. V. Boyarkina) and translated most of the letters.
Since mid-90s also engaged in consecutive and simultaneous interpretation (in particular, at conferences and forums: Petersburg Dialogue – 2003, Christain Service in Hospitals – 1999, Modern Legal Protection of Information Sources – 2004, etc.). Since 1980 has been teaching practice and theory of translation and interpretation. Since the end of the 90s has published a number of books on the theory of translation and interpretation and methods of translators and interpreters training, including: «Теория перевода» ("Theory of Translation") 1998; «Профессиональный тренинг переводчика» ("Professional Training of Interpreters/Translators") 2000, «Устный перевод. Немецкий язык» ("Interpretation. The German Language") 2002, «Введение в переводоведение» 2004 ("Introduction into Translation Studies"), «Устный перевод речей» ("Interpretation of Speeches") 2005, «Письменный перевод. Немецкий язык» ("Translation. The German Language") 2006, «Текст и перевод» ("The Text and Its Traslation/Interpretation") 2008 – all in Russian. Author of more than a hundred research papers.
Since 2000 has been conducting workshops on organisation of education in the field of interpretation/translation and the methods of interpreters/translators training in Russia and other countries. In 2004 was awarded an Honorary Diploma of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation.
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Gloss and Gloom of a Brilliant Text: the Basics of Literary Translation from German
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