General Electives and Immersion Courses
(Note: Students are required to gain a minimum 12AUs from Specialised Electives category and they can choose a maximum of 18AUs from this category to fulfill the remaining 30AUs.)
Electives
This course introduces students to the theories and practice of an emerging discipline—audiovisual translation, which can be further divided into three main subjects: Subtitling, Translating for Voiceover and Dubbing, and Accessibility to the Media. Through a series of lectures and seminars, students will develop relevant professional skills and broaden their awareness of the idiomatic and syntactic features specific to the languages at work as well as the knowledge and perception of socio-cultural referents. Practical exercises will allow students to translate texts and audiovisual programmes chosen from a variety of sources including films, documentaries, animation, corporate videos, etc. In addition, students will learn how to produce their own translated subtitles with appropriate subtitling equipment.
Localisation can be broadly defined as a process of adapting business products to best meet the expectations of end-users in a locale. The process involves handling important linguistic, cultural and technical issues. Often, project management abilities are required in handling these issues that are normally packaged as a translation project. This course will provide students an opportunity to learn how to handle localisation issues both at the level of solving specific issues, such as how to take a product and make it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale where it will be used and sold, and at the level of handling various types of issues involved as a translation project and managing it as a project manager. Case studies will be introduced and illustrated for skill learning purposes.
(New!) TI6214 Interpreting in Practice (2 AUs)
Interpreting is a “live” practice which is executed in real-time, there and then. In the course of executing this service, interpreters often encounter all sorts of surprises and difficulties which emerge suddenly. This course is designed with a strong focus on introducing some practical skills to handle such situations.
(New!) TI6401 Literary Translation in the Singapore/Malaysian Context (3 AUs)
This module provides an introduction to the field of literary translation with especial focus on prose, poetry, and drama arising from the Singapore/Malaysia (S-M) context. It aims to help MTI students develop stronger competencies in literary translation, and also to strengthen their creative writing skills (in consideration of its ongoing synergies with translation praxis). Through seminar, workshop engagement (groupwork), and assignment exercises, students will learn and experiment with various translation strategies pertinent to S-M literature. Among other things, students will explore and debate issues of linguistic purism/ prescriptivism and its alternatives. They will develop linguistic, historical, cultural, and critical/aesthetic frameworks pertinent to understanding and analysing S-M literature. They will engage some paradigms and schools of thought within translation studies while being encouraged to develop an approach that best suits their own praxis. More generally, they will learn how to make S-M writing more accessible to the public (through translation work) while respecting the quotidian multiculturalism & established translanguaging lifeways of the region.
(New!) TI6402 Translation & Mainland Chinese Literature (3 AUs)
This course is opened to MTI students, dealing with the context of understanding and literary translation activities related to the social, cultural, historical and political development and issues in Mainland China since 1949. The focus is on the relationship between translation and Mainland Chinese literature. Topics include major historical events that have influenced translation activities, the most prominent translator, the literary journals that translate foreign literature, and the historical relevance and impact of the translated texts. The aims and objectives of this courses include: 1) to simulate students’ critical awareness of the operation of translation in a specific context such as Mainland China after 1949; 2) to enable students to discuss in-depth the relation between translation and its background.
(New!) TI6503 Translation: Journalism and News Media (3AUs)
This course aims to give you an overview of translation in journalism and media monitoring. You will acquire hands-on experience and theoretical knowledge in trans-editing and integrating news content from multiple sources. This course also aims to allow you to advance your translation skills and look at translation beyond the textual level.
(New!) TI6801 Translation, Cultural Heritage and Museum (3AUs)
This course aims to provide the contemporary perspectives of museology and translation of museum texts. As organisations in the service of society, museums are platforms where cultural heritage is valued and where cross-cultural understanding (or misunderstanding) takes place. Museum translation, more specifically translating museum text, is a specialised and highly relevant inter-cultural mediation activity (Sonaglio, 2016). In the changing cultural landscape in recent decades, museums have evolved from places of prestige and awe into “contact points” with functions such as public entertainment and education. To access wider audiences, multilingualism and multimodality are increasingly common features in the 21st century museums. The course aims to identify translation strategies and assess appropriateness based on functions of museum text types. This not only hones students’ translation skills but also cultivates their interest in bilingual curatorship or docentship.