Master in German Language and Literature

The M.A. Program in Translation has been offered to our students since the academic year 2013/2014. In addition to the acquisition of language and communication skills and the development of technical, thematic, professional, and intercultural competences, the program offers two courses devoted to literary translation: Literary Translation and Orality in the Written Medium. Since there is another course dealing with the theoretical aspects of translation studies, Literary Translation is meant as a practical course in which students translate short stories as well as excerpts from short stories, novels, plays, and short poetry from German into their mother tongue. While translating texts belonging to the German, Austrian and Swiss Literature of the 21^th, the 20^th, and, partly, the 19^th century, the students analyze, compare and evaluate their own translations as well as the translations done by professional translators. Students’ analysis and evaluations are based on the principles developed by translation scholars and theorists such as J. P. Vinay, J. Darbelnet, A. Chesterman, etc. In the course Orality in the Written Medium, students deal with the traits of spoken language in literary dialogues, e.g. with the usage of particles, idioms, evaluative, emotional and intensifying lexis, as well as translation techniques which need to be employed when translating a work of literature. Students do their own independent research of select problems in translating orality traits.

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