This course offers students the possibility of continuing practical work in the field of language production. The course builds on the skills you have practiced in the first two semesters' classes in academic writing and language production. We shall tackle the translation and transformation aspects of the field now, working contrastively with the two languages involved, Danish and English. You will also begin work in genre and register transposition, getting an opportunity to exercise rewriting texts, designed for specific purposes and audiences.

During the 8 weeks of instruction the emphasis will be on work with texts that approach authentic translation/transposition tasks as much as possible. You will be asked to work with difficult texts from several text genres, predominantly non-fiction texts from the cultural, social and socio-political, commercial and political discourse spheres.

The course also includes work with take-home assignments that you may hand-in and have marked by the course teacher and discussed in class. 4 such assignments may be handed in by each student. All take-home assignments and other course tasks must be solved in electronic form, preferably via Word documents or compatible formats. This allows the solutions to be shared more easily both via projector in class and via portfolios on the intranet. This semester all assignments will be marked by Henrik Kasch. Assignments should be sent directly to him and cc'ed to me.

E-mail to Henrik Kasch:

E-mail to me:

For this class it is essential that you have access to the following resources:

1. A good bilingual dictionary, English-Danish as well as Danish-English: Kjærulff-Nielsen and Vinterberg & Bodelsen, respectively, are the best ones available.
2. At least one very good monolingual dictionary for English (Oxford, Longman, Collins or Webster) and for Danish (Retskrivningsordbogen or Politikens Nudansk)
You can search directly in Oxford English Dictionary in this box:

3. Michael Swan: Practical English Usage, Third Edition (Oxford, 2005) [MAKE SURE YOU GET THE THIRD ED:!!]
4. Torben Vestergaard: Engelsk Grammatik
5. The AUB on-line portal of dictionaries and encyclopediae.
6. Translation and language production/reception theory, drawn from a number of sources, primarily Peter Newmark : A Textbook of Translation.

Excerpts will be made available as a master copy, but you can also acquire the whole book from Amazon.co.uk
We will also be using excerpts from Knud Sørensen: English and Danish Contrasted.

A good resource for idiomatic phrases, their meaning and origin.

NEW: Online Thesaurus

Session 1, Thursday 6/9 (almen 9-11, SIS 12-2):
Introduction: What is language production and why is it good for me? Watch these slides
Examples of poor language production, exercises. Study these slides and tell me what went wrong.

Session 2, Thursday 13/9 (almen 10-12, SIS 12-2):
Assignment: Passovotchka [Texts here] Hand in assignment no later than Friday 7/9, 12.00 [Solution]
Reading: Newmark 1: Introduction

Session 3, Thursday 20/9 (almen 8-11, SIS 11-2) [NB! 3-hour sessions]:
Assignment: Tortured Logic [Text here] Hand in assignment no later than Friday 14/9, 12.00 [Solution]
Reading: Newmark 2: The Analysis of a Text

Session 4, Thursday 27/9 (almen 10-12, SIS 12-2):
Assignment: Sædelighedsfejden [Text here] Hand in assignment no later than Friday 21/9, 12.00 [Solution]
Reading: Newmark 3: The Process of Translation

Session 5, Thursday 4/10 (almen 10-12, SIS 12-2):
Assignment: Idioterne [Text here] Hand in assignment no later than Friday 28/9, 12.00 [Solution]
Reading: Newmark 4: Language Functions, Text-categories and Text-types

Session 6, Thursday 11/10 (almen 8-11, SIS 11-2) [NB! 3-hour sessions]:
Assignment: Attack of the Listless Lads [Text here] Hand in assignment no later than Friday 5/10, 12.00 [Solution]
Repetition: Newmark 4: Language Functions, Text-categories and Text-types

Session 7, Thursday 18/10 (almen 10-12, SIS 12-2):
Assignment: Betting Fools [Text here] Hand in assignment no later than Friday 12/10, 12.00 [Solution]
Reading: Newmark 5: Translation Methods

Session 8, Thursday 25/10 (almen 9-11, SIS 12-2):
Assignment: I seng med Marilyn Monroe [Text here] Hand in assignment no later than Friday 19/10, 12.00 [Solution]

Three of the above assignments must be included in your exam portfolio (Language Production 3), hand-in date December 21, 2008.