MA Translation Reflections

A number of people have asked why, with over 20 years experience in the translation industry, I decided to apply to do the MA in translation. It wasn’t going to progress my career – I am already a company director, and studying part time was a major challenge on top of a demanding full time …

A reflection on being an MA in Chinese/English Translation and Interpreting student at the University of Nottingham

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ― Maya Angelou Being a current MA CETI student in the University of Nottingham, life here makes me feel reenergized, refreshed and revitalized. Not only because the University of Nottingham …

Building Images: AHRC funds a new project to study relations between China and Africa from the perspective of cultural exchange and translation

The intensification of China’s involvement in Africa over the last fifteen years has prompted much debate in media reports worldwide, as well as in academic circles, and interpretations of what China is ‘doing’ in Africa vary widely. The Independent’s choice of words in a 2009 article, in which China’s involvement in Africa is referred to …

Blessed are the Translators: An Evening of Slovene Poetry

Final-year students Katie Harrison (English and Russian) and Christopher O’Rourke (Russian and Serbian/Croatian) were part of a translation workshop in Russian and Slavonic Studies this semester. Here are their thoughts on translating works by the award-winning Slovene poet Katja Perat. Anyone who has ever been faced with the task of translating a piece of writing …

Anthems of Slovenia (Part Two): A Toast to Translation – Janez Janša’s Okopi

In his second post in this series, Dr David Denton of the Department of Russian & Slavonic Studies introduces us to a new translation – produced with CLAS involvement – of the book Okopi by the former Slovene Prime Minister Janez Janša. The Slovene Publishing House Nova obzorja is set to publish an English translation …

Writer in Residence 2014: Sudabeh Mohafez visits Nottingham

A special guest is about to visit the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies. DAAD-Sprachassistentin Anke Bohm from the Department of German tells us more… The Department of German is delighted to welcome our Writer in Residence 2014 Sudabeh Mohafez. She will be staying with us from 24 February for two weeks. The German-Iranian …

Subtitling for Beginners in the Department of French and Francophone Studies

Earlier in December, the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies (CLAS) welcomed a group of burgeoning local Year 11/12 language students for a taste of academic life here at the University of Nottingham. During their half-day ‘taster’ visit, the students attended a French-English subtitling mini-lecture and workshop led by Drs Pierre-Alexis Mével and Dalida …

The Mysterious Constance Farrington

When people talk about translations, they usually do one of two things: either, they treat the translation as if it wasn’t a translation, talking about it as if it were a carbon copy of the original, or else they criticise the translation, bemoaning what is ‘lost’. This has certainly been the case for Constance Farrington’s …

Translating the heroines of Latin American Independence

On Thursday 25 April 2013 a group of budding linguists from Bluecoat School and Bilborough College attended a translation workshop in the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies. The aim of the session was to translate a number of biographies from English into Spanish that would be included on the Genderlatam database (this forms …

On subtitles and subtitling software

As the notion of accessibility has become one of the dominant shibboleths of a growing tribe of media specialists, film subtitles – whose single primary function is to provide access to what would otherwise be inaccessible – are still often facing criticism coming from all corners. And it’s true, subtitles really are a funny old …