ABSTRACT

The texts selected for translation are representative samples of various pragmatic text types, ranging from recipes to instruction manuals and museum guides. The introductory Russian-English workshop course is taught in conjunction with an introductory course on translation theory for all the first-year students, taught in English across the language groups. The classroom and at-home activities related to the translation of the text types are designed to spiral upward, that is, to encourage students to move from a consideration of translation choices at the level of word and phrase to the level of the text as a whole and even beyond the text to the overall cultural context of the text's reception. The activities are divided into three categories: pre-translation, translation, and post-translation. The translations themselves are assessed using a holistic rubric that includes four categories: content; register, vocabulary, terminology. Reflection is also an important part of the learning process.