NEGOTIATION ENGLISH-ITALIAN 1

This is a characterising course unit in the Linguistic and Cultural Mediation Course. It aims at providing students with the theoretical and practical knowledge to act as liaison or dialogue interpreters. The course is integrated by the esercitazioni (practice in liaison interpreting) sharing the same goals and didactic approach.
Goals of this course unit are: learning about all modes of interpreting and the fundamental concepts related to that, honing techniques and strategies of EN-IT liason interpreting, with a focus on international and business relationships, knowing the basics of translation and interpreting, the professional aspects related to interpreting, learning about IT, terminological and research tools to be able to interpret and translate, knowing to recognise different translation solutions in different contexts.

At the end of the course the students will know the fundamental concepts of equivalence and terminological research. They will know how the difference between the main modes of interpreting: liaison, consecutive and simultaneous. They will learn the useful techniques to be applied on the job: sight translation, memorisation, note-taking, whispered interpreting. They will know the terminology of some sectors related to the territory (in particular, international relationships and business, tourism and migration). And they will acquire the ability to look for and find the right terminological material on any given field and perform a liaison and consecutive interpreting. They will be able to apply this knowledge to liaison interpreting by listening to and memorising texts in English and Italian and subsequently translating them into the target language. They will be able to translate short written texts into English and Italian. The student will be able to convey an oral message with the correct grammar, style and register. While translating the student will be able to identify and use the most adequate equivalents recognising the context, the interlocutors, the channel and the level of formality, by applying the acquired knowledge, demonstrating to master the fundamental theoretical and practical aspects of translation and interpreting. They will know the ethical and professional aspects involved in this job, they will demonstrate that they can apply them during the lessons: coming on time, doing the assignments as foreseen (just as a way of example, glossaries and text preparation), they will be able to recognise and try to manage stressful situations and work under pressure. They will be able to use the main terminological databases used by interpreters and translators, they will be able to look words up in digital and paper dictionaries, in texts, and recognise authoritative sources of information. They will be able to act as interpreters in an oral interaction between English and Italian. They will be able to identify translation problems and issues related to interpreting: terminological difficulties and others (pronunciation, speed, technicality, stress and anxiety management) learning how to apply coping techniques. The social and cultural skills acquired will enable them to recognise strategies to create a contact with people from other cultures and use their language and cultural knowledge to solve interpreting problems.

Prerequisites: good mastery of the English language (at least B2 plus) and an excellent knowledge of Italian, good cultural background and knowledge of current affairs. Being open minded and ready to deepen the knowledge of the topics and techniques dealt with is of advantage.

The course will comprise some basic theoretical notions (role and competencies of an interpreter, work situations, qualities and skills required, modes of interpreting) focusing on practice. Exercises will be proposed to foster the required abilities (listening and understanding, translating, memorizing and speaking). English and Italian texts will be used, displaying different kinds of texts and real audio-visual material. Terminology and terminological research of the topics dealt with in class will also be an integral part of the lessons. Students will be asked to prepare texts developing fruitful peer and individual work to exchange practice and skills among peers. Events and exercises will realistically simulate real-life working situations with the students.

Testi consigliati (non obbligatori)

Falbo C., Russo M. e Straniero Sergio F., Interpretazione simultanea e consecutiva. Problemi teorici e metodologie didattiche, Milano, Hoepli, 1999.
Russo M., Mack G., Interpretazione di Trattativa, Milano, Hoepli, 2005.
Cecco S., Appunti di consecutiva, Manuale di interpretazione consecutiva dall'inglese all'italiano con esercitazioni pratiche, Milano, Viator, 2016.
Machetti S., Siebetcheu R., Che cos'è la mediazione linguistico-culturale, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Valle G., Italiano Urgente, Trento, Reverdito, 2016.
Noseda P.M., La voce degli altri, Sperling & Kupfer, 2012.
Ennis M. & Petrei G., Teaching English for tourism, Routledge, 2020
Cirillo L. & Niemants N., Teaching Dialogue Interpreting, Benjamins, 2017

Students will have to listen to, understand and memorise an English oral text of about 3 minutes on a given topic, subsequently, they will have to deliver it in Italian, clearly, by conveying the main concepts and the structure and respecting the main message. Then the students will have to confidently and fluently sight translate a written texts from Italian into English on a given topic with the correct grammar, register and terminology.

Lecture and seminar: students will work on ad hoc (both oral and written) texts in different contexts and on different topics that will be made available in Moodle. They will practice text analysis, sight translation, public speaking and memorisation. They will be invited to create material for practice and encouraged to study independently by giving advice on how to improve and integrate the acquired skills which will be assessed in class: platforms and websites, repositories, audio-visual material (Italian and English newspapers and magazines, videos an daudios). They will work in groups to carry out terminological research and prepare texts to be used in class and for personal practice.

English

oral