There is a large presence of translators without formal education in the Slovene market, partly because until the 1990s there were no independent translation programs, but also because of the popular notion that anybody who speaks a foreign language well, or has a degree in it, can translate. In this paper we present a comparison of four B.A. programs at the University of Ljubljana (in three foreign language departments and one department of translation) to shed light on what knowledge and competences are expected at the end of the B.A. studies, and to find out whether these departments actually train people to be translators. The paper also reports the results of a translation quality assessment of third- year students of those departments, who were given the task of translating a text into their L1. The students approached the task in different ways and produced very different results, which indicates that language competences alone are not enough for translation, and that specific additional instruction can give them a considerable advantage at the beginning of their careers. The study also showed that mother-tongue competence influences foreign-language competences. Therefore, it is very important to improve mother-tongue competence in young professionals, not only translators and language teachers, so that they are able to receive new ideas as well as present their own in any language.
F.02 Acquisition of new scientific knowledge
COBISS.SI-ID: 57806946The elective course will be dedicated to (South) Slavic interlinguistic differences and similarities in terminology semantically connected (literally or by a process of transfer) with the concepts state and nation. Course participants will consider examples from different social and functional varieties, improving above all their competences in relation to the source and target languages and cultures, with Slovene occupying both these roles.
F.18 Transfer of new know-how to direct users (seminars, fora, conferences)
COBISS.SI-ID: 57964642This book is the result of the three-year European project TransStar Europa. Its centre was the Slavistic Seminar at the University in Tübingen, and the participants were universities and cultural institutions from Germany, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, the Ukraine, and Slovenia. It offered participants their first contact with the world of literary translation in ten language pairs, various different combinations of German and other participating languages. The translations in the book are thus the result not only of the source texts, but also of meetings, conversations, travels, and tales of those experiences. One of the project’s goals, namely, was to bring different cultures and their dimensions together, and this is possible only when one is able to develop empathy and sensitivity to cultural differences – which are both important competences for a good literary translator and (inter)cultural mediator.
D.01 Chairing over/coordinating (international and national) projects
COBISS.SI-ID: 281483520International Conference: Universality of Literature and Universals in Literature: Love (Ljubljana, 26th in 27th November 2015) The conference on universality of literature and universals in literature was a continuation of the discourse on literature and literary studies, started at the 2013 conference in Maribor, organized by ass. prof. Dejan Kos. This time that questions were more specific: whether the thematization of love is one of the literary universals, and whether the literary discourse on love bears witness to the universal potentials of literature. The paper and discussions showed that there is no easy answer to these questions and that further research is necessary.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
COBISS.SI-ID: 282251776Igor Maver collaborates on the preparation of thematic issues and prepares short reviews of articles for publication, especially in the field of Australian and Canadian literatures
C.06 Editorial board membership