Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Modern Cultures

– The current translation market places growing emphasis on technological tools that assist or even replace the translator in quickly producing adequate target texts. As a person involved in cultural processes that affect public discourse and society at large, both as a literary translator and as a teacher of translation, I feel that academia should not only pursue market-oriented translation skills, such as procedural knowledge of computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools and machine translation (MT), but also aim at strengthening would-be translators' processes of interpretation and making them autonomous language experts, aware of both the effects generated by language and their responsibility in using it. To support my position, I will draw on cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis (CDA). Adopting a constructivist approach, I will then refer to works by Kiraly (2000), Venuti (2013) and Laviosa (2014), and add some methodological proposals. Students will initially work individually and in groups, focusing on source texts, their translations and comparable texts in order to identify key language items and work toward meaning. By deploying CDA analytical tools, they will discuss the role played by individual items as well as the overall effect of both STs and TTs. New source texts will then be analysed in preparation for translation. The actual translation, effect analysis and final editing, carried out as team work, will complete a cycle aimed at 1) helping students to build knowledge through experience; 2) sensitising them to the complexity of the translation process and the paramount value of meaning-making within every single context.

Approaching Translation is designed as a tool for university students specializing in Modern Foreign Languages who are beginning to explore translation for the language pair English-Italian. Section 1 provides an overview of the main translation theories, highlighting both linguistic angles – such as semantics, equivalence and functionalism – and cultural ones, like deconstruction, postcolonialism and the current debate on ideology and ethics. Section 2 focusses on the preparatory steps by presenting aspects of text analysis, listing some useful tools and discussing a few examples of translation briefs. It also includes samples of analyzed texts and reflections on potential translation problems. Finally, Section 3 provides opportunities for practice through a selection of texts drawn from various sources, including tourist promotional material, academic articles, EU minutes and reports, mission statements, political speeches and literature. The route laid out in Approaching Translation aids students in acquiring basic translation skills while enhancing their language and culture awareness. Paola Brusasco has taught English Language and Translation at the University of Torino for several years. After her PhD in English Studies, she has carried out research in Translation Studies and written articles both on teaching and on issues of power and identity in language, as well as the monograph Writing Within/Without/About Sri Lanka. Discourses of Cartography, History and Translation in Selected Works by Michael Ondaatje and Carl Muller. She has translated reports for the EU and literary texts, ranging from classics (e.g. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Robert Louis Stevenson's Olalla) to works by contemporary writers such as Craig Davidson, Russell Banks and Colson Whitehead. Approaching Translation costituisce un avviamento alla traduzione nell'ambito inglese-italiano rivolto a studenti universitari di Lingue e Letterature Straniere. La prima parte fornisce un panorama delle principali teorie relative alla traduzione, evidenziando sia aspetti linguistici inerenti la semantica, la questione dell'equivalenza e il funzionalismo, sia prospettive culturali quali il decostruzionismo, gli studi postcoloniali e l'attuale dibat-tito su ideologia ed etica. La seconda parte esplora le fasi preparatorie alla traduzione presentando aspetti di analisi testuale, strumenti informatici utili ai traduttori ed esempi di indicazioni fornite dal committente; contiene inoltre analisi svolte e considerazioni circa le difficoltà emerse a livello di traduzione. Infine, la terza parte presenta una selezione di testi da utilizzare a fini di esercitazione tratti da materiale turistico, articoli accademici, re-lazioni e processi verbali dell'UE, mission di aziende o enti, discorsi politici e testi letterari. Il percorso presentato in Approaching Translation mira all'acquisizione dei fondamenti della traduzione, potenziando al tempo stesso la consapevolezza linguistica e culturale degli studenti. Paola Brusasco è docente a contratto di Lingua e traduzione inglese presso l'Università degli Studi di Torino. Dopo il dottorato di ricerca in Anglistica, si è occupata di Translation Studies e ha pubblicato articoli sulla didattica della traduzione e su questioni di potere e identità nella lingua, nonché la monografia

In this article, I am introducing some basic theoretical concepts regarding the translation of humour in creolised text (i.e. in comics), with particular attention to the interrelation between written and iconic elements. Starting from these bases, I will then provide some examples from my unpublished Italian translation of Vladimir Sakov’s graphic novel Priklyucheniya kapitana Donki, pointing out some passages that posed specific translation problems and their possible solutions.
Keywords: humour in translation, comics in translation, creolised texts, paragraphics, wordplays, singplays, translation theory and practice.

In David Malouf's works natural landscape often plays a crucial role: rather than being a simple narrative background, it becomes the main protagonist in his exploration of the relationship between man and nature. In my analysis of " Jacko's Reach " , the shortest story in the Dream Stuff collection, I will focus on two different environmental concerns that emerge from a close reading of this work: the question of space and identity (and the passage from the physical landscape to the 'dimension of the symbolic') and the issue of territorial deprivation as a neo-colonial policy with its possible solutions.

The aim of the present paper is to analyse the use of dialectal tanwīn in the Arabic dialect of Qatar. Section (1) provides a brief description of the linguistic situation in Qatar and attempts a definition for the general label “Qatari Arabic”. Section (2) examines the function and contexts of use of the tanwīn in other dialects of the area: dialects are taken into account for which material is available in the current literature, and that can be related to Qatari Arabic in terms of either common origin or geographical proximity. Section (3) describes the use of dialectal tanwīn in Qatari Arabic by presenting original examples drawn from oral interviews gathered on the field with Qatari natives: these examples cover a variety of syntactic contexts, all involving an indefinite nominal (namely a noun or an active participle) followed by some modifying element (an adjective, an adverb, a direct object or a prepositional phrase). Some examples are also provided concerning the use of dialectal tanwīn in set phrases and idiomatic expressions. Finally, section (4) tries to assess the position of Qatari Arabic within the frame of the other peninsular dialects with regard to the use of tanwīn, and gives some insight on the evolution of this phenomenon over time.

The aim of the present paper is to analyze certain phenomena of variation which occur in the language used by
the characters of the popular Omani cartoon yōm u-yōm. This language is of particular interest since it represents one of the
first attempts made by the official Omani media at linguistic self-representation. Until recently, the more prestigious variety
commonly referred to as “Gulf Arabic” was often preferred to actual Omani Arabic in the context of the media. In order to
assess the nature of this variation, the language of the main characters of the show has been analyzed: five different morphosyntactical features have been examined, namely: the third person masculine singular suffix pronoun, the relative pronoun,
the interrogative pronoun, the characteristic endings of the second person feminine singular and of the second and third
person masculine plural of the imperfect verb, and the negative particles. Our analysis shows that whenever variation occurs,
it does so in the speech of the characters from the southern region of Dhofar or from the northern region of ad-Dakhiliya. The
speech of the characters from the area of the Bāṭinah Coast appears more stable. Possible explanation for this phenomenon
are discussed in the concluding paragraph