RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES AND DOCUMENTATION FOR TRANSLATION

The course Research Methodologies and Documentation for Translation is a core module common to the curricula of both the Specialised Translation and Media Accessibility and the LIS Interpreting and Multimedia Translation degree programmes. It provides the practical and methodological tools required to conduct terminological and content research in support of translation and interpreting within specialised, semi-specialised, and multimedia domains. Students will acquire the technical and methodological skills needed to consult existing terminological databases and independently develop glossaries and termbases for specific translation projects. Particular attention will be paid to retrieving information and content from authoritative and reliable sources, enabling students to refine their contrastive linguistic analysis and apply these insights directly to specialised, multimedia, and accessible translation practices.

By the end of the course students will be able to effectively use some of the main online and offline resources and technologies for information mining and terminology management, whether paper-based or digital. They will be able to handle several resources to acquire terminological knowledge of one or more sub-languages and specialised domains autonomously, as required for translation purpose. Students will be able to devise, manage and evaluate simple projects in the areas of terminology and information mining. Finally, they will be able to utilise the materials provided by the lecturer independently and self-assess the skills and competences acquired during the course.

Pre-requisites of this course are a level C1 of the QCER as for the English language and an excellent competence of the Italian language. International students will need at least a level B2 of the QCER as for the Italian language, especially in terms of written language. Any differences in language level will be dealt with as necessary.

The course deals with a few basic concepts of information mining and terminology management. A selection of online and offline tools such as dictionaries, terminological repositories, specialized corpora and archives will be introduced and some research methods to retrieve and process information both for specialised translation and revision tasks will be illustrated. Core concepts of terminology and terminology management will be provided: general vs. specialized language; the concept of term; conceptual relationships; concordances, collocations and clusters, colligations and word profiles, semantic associations; corpus tools and corpus analysis. Basic concepts and examples will allow students to carry out their terminological research project work for the exam including a brief translation from English into Italian.

Mandatory readings:

Slides of the lectures and templates provided by the professor on the course moodle page.

- Olohan, M. (2016) Scientific and Technical Translation. London and New York: Routledge - A selection of topics from chapters: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
- Zanettin, Federico (2014) Translation-Driven Corpora. London and New York: Routledge.

The final exam will consist of two parts, a written and an oral one, which will test the students’ competence on the topics explored during the course.
Written test: Students will be asked to complete a project work within two weeks time. They will be required to upload their project on the course moodle page according to shared guidelines and instructions. The project will consist in a short translation task of a (semi)-specialized text (from English into Italian) that students will need to carry out and hand in together with a small corpus of comparable texts, a glossary of specialised terms and a short translation commentary in English regarding the online and offline resources that were used to tackle terminological and cultural issues.
The oral test will assess the students' acquisition of the topics covered during the course. The students' competence of English at C1 level of the QCER will not be tested but is strongly recommended to pass the exam successfully. The oral part of the exam will test students’ ability to employ the metalanguage applied to information mining and terminology management. The two marks of the written project and the oral test will be calculated for the final result of the exam. Differences in language levels will be dealt with as necessary.

written and oral

The instructor is responsible for ensuring the authenticity and originality of all examinations and coursework. In cases of suspected academic misconduct, an additional on-site assessment may be required during the exams, which may differ from the standard format.

The glossary, the translation and the commentary will be marked in /30, and more specifically, the English-Italian glossary will be marked out of a maximum of 15 points, the translation into Italian out of a maximum of 10 points and the commentary in English out of a maximum of 5 points. The oral interview will also be marked in thirtieths according to the following criteria: 10 points for mastery of the theoretical content, 10 points for the ability to argue the choices made during the project work, 5 points for fleuncy and use of appropriate metalanguage and specialized terminology. The marks for the written project and the oral interview will be combined to form the final grade according to a mathematical average.

Lectures, practical exercises, workshop activities, small group works, self-assessment activities.

Lectures will be held in English. Most translation examples will deal with the English-Italian language combination.

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Natural capital and environmental quality" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development