CHIN7996 Capstone Experience: Translation Project 2024-25

The  following  are  some  guidelines  of  the  Translation  Project.  Please  read  the information carefully before you start working on your project.

Source text and the translator’s preface

1.   The word limit of your chosen text is about 7000 characters (for Chinese source text) and about 4500 words* (for English source text).

2.   The first 6000 characters (for Chinese source text) and 3500 words (for English source text) will be translated under supervision. You are required to translate the last 1000 words/characters of the source text unsupervised.

3.   In addition to the translation, you also need to write a translator’s preface (please refer to more detailed information on p. 4). The length of the preface should range from 3200-4000 characters (for a Chinese preface), or 2000-2500 words (for an English preface).

4.   The language of your preface should be the same as the target language of your project, i.e. in English if you translate from Chinese to English, and in Chinese if you translate from English to Chinese.

* The ratio of English words to Chinese characters, according to corpus studies, is 1:1.6, so

4,500 English words will equal to around 7,000 Chinese characters.

Supervision of your project

1.   Each of you will be assigned a supervisor.

2.   You will be notified of who your supervisor is at the end of August 2024.

3.   Please contact your supervisor within the first week of the semester (Sept 2 to Sept

9 2024) by email to arrange for your first meeting.

4.   You should take the initiative to contact your supervisor instead of waiting for him/her to contact you.

5.   In the first meeting, please bring your source text to your supervisor and ask him/her whether the text is suitable for translation – your source text would have been approved by then, and usually your supervisor will not have any objection if it is approved, but they will have the final say on the choice of your source text. Please notify me if the final choice of your source text is different from what has been approved.

6.   In the  first meeting, your  supervisor will  draw up  a meeting  schedule  for the academic year with you. The meetings might be rescheduled due to unexpected events, but drawing up a schedule in advance and adhering to it helps to ensure your workload will be spread evenly throughout your period of study.

7.   Please note that not only the quality of the final project, but also your learning attitude during the supervision will be counted towards the final grade.

8.   It is recommended that you meet your supervisor four times to discuss the paper. However, depending on your progress and provided your supervisor agrees, you may meet him/her less than four times. On the other hand, when the need arises, the number of meetings can be increased to five times or above. However, because your supervisor has a busy schedule, please try to be sensible and do not demand too much of their time.

9.   Each meeting should last for about an hour, but it can be lengthened or shortened depending on how much time is needed for a substantial discussion.

10. Since many of you have a full-time job, it might not be possible that you meet your supervisor face-to-face every time. Subject to the agreement of your supervisor, the supervisory meetings may be conducted online via Zoom.

Suggested work schedule (based upon an arrangement of more than 4 supervisory meetings)

Submission of your project

1.   Please make sure you submit your work by the deadline. All late submissions will be downgraded.

2.   Other details on project submission will be sent to you at the end of the academic year (May 2025).

Project content and format

1.   Every time you submit your draft, please present your translation along with the source text in the following format:

2.   You may add an additional column for the presentation of notes – the notes may help you write the translator’s preface, but you do not need to include them in your final submission:

3.   The preface should consist of the following parts:

a.   An introduction of the background of the author (briefly);

b.   The target readership of the book (the general public, or a specific group of readers such as legal professionals, male readers, and female readers);

c.   The reason for choosing the book to translate (briefly);

d.   The content and theme of the source text (briefly);

e.   The diction, sentence structure, and other stylistic and cultural elements of the source text;

f.   Difficulties of translation and justification of your approaches (the focus of the preface)

4.   Where possible, you should discuss the difficulties and approaches with reference to some sources to substantiate your argument. Please adopt a proper citation style. when referring to these sources. You also need to compile a reference list to be put at the end of the preface which consists of (and only of) the sources you have cited in the preface.

Some  commonly  used  citation  styles  are  the  APA  (American  Psychological Association) style, MLA (Modern Language Association) style, and Chicago style.

It does not matter which style. you use so long as you are consistent.

The following is a sample reference list adopting the APA style.

Bassnett, S. (2013). Translation Studies. London: Routledge.

Hatim, B., & Munday, J. (2019). Translation: An Advanced Resource Book for

Students. London: Routledge.

Mathews, J. (2013). Third thoughts on translating poetry. In On Translation (pp.

67-77). Harvard University Press.

Van den Broeck, R. (1981). The limits of translatability exemplified by metaphor translation. Poetics Today, 2(4), 73-87.

Even if you write your preface in English, you may cite not only English sources, but also Chinese sources. There are citation rules on how to cite Chinese sources in English writing. Examples of such rules can be found in the following links:

Hong Kong Baptist University Library. Citing Chinese-Language Sources:

https://hkbu.libguides.com/citation/chinese

Duke University Libraries. Chinese Studies:

https://guides.library.duke.edu/c.php?g=289252&p=6550670

Please consult your supervisor if you have any specific questions about citation and referencing.

5.    Please always typewrite your work for submission. For better presentation of the table (see pt. 1 and 2 above), the landscape/horizontal orientation is preferred.

6.   The Capstone Project submitted shall be presented with a margin of not less than

38 mm (about 1.5 inches) on the left-hand edge of each page. As for the top, bottom and right margins, it is recommended that they should be 25 mm (about 1 inch).

7.   The line-spacing should be 1.5. Please use font size point 12 for the body text.

8.   You can use any font type so long as your work is clearly presented (though you may wish to know the most commonly used fonts are Times New Roman and Arial).

Assessment

1.   The weight assigned to each category of your Long Translation Project is as follows:

Preface: 30%

Translation: 70%

2.   Please also refer to the document on the assessment criteria of the Long Translation Project.