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The CIC-Keiichiro Connection: A Translation Project Tim Mossman from Canada Tim Mossman is an Instructor of Bilingual Studies at the Canadian International College, North Vancouver, Canada.
The mission of the college is to educate students to become global citizens-individuals who understand their own and other cultures from a global viewpoint and who are committed to developing the knowledge, problem-solving strategies and compassion needed to fully participate in a global society. Our students experience an integrated program of academic studies, experiential learning and campus life that maximize the benefits of study abroad in a safe yet challenging multicultural environment. CIC offers a Two-Year International Studies Certificate and a Four-Year International Relations Diploma based on the founding principles of independence, understanding, and co-existence.
Student tasks included translating Japanese Folk Tales and presenting them in English as puppet theatre, translating news items, magazine articles, and consecutively interpreting speeches given by guest speakers. Rather than a technical course in translation. the focus was on how translation functions as a bridge between cultures, allowing for greater intercultural understanding between Japanese and North Americans. In August 1997, our college campus was wired for Internet access. Faculty, staff and students were able to use e-mail to communicate and the Internet was gradually introduced into our programs and curriculum. Through an Internet search one day I came across a site called, Keiichiro's Home Page. This web site, dedicated to "helping Americans and Japanese understand each other better," was a nice fit with the goals of our class.
This turned out to be a very motivating factor and the students were very keen to begin. I contacted Keiichiro about my idea, and although he was a little hesitant at first because he wanted to translate the essays himself, he consented, and we began the project. How
to Have Soup (May 7, 1998) All students were also required to e-mail Keiichiro, introduce themselves briefly, and ask him a question about his essay. On November 7, 1998, we submitted our English translation and asked him for feedback. Since the original ideas were his, being able to "speak" to the author directly via e-mail was an important step in this translation project since he was able to clarify what exactly he meant and we could therefore retain as much as possible his original meaning. The
Terror of L and R (August 8, 1998) A
Sandwich Story (March 1, 1999) The unanimous choice was, A Sandwich Story, a perfect fit with the content of our class. We were having weekly seminars based on our readings of a book called, Polite Fictions: Why Japanese and Americans seem rude to each other (Nancy Sakamoto, 1982), which deals with our natural and often unconscious cultural assumptions and how they influence communicative behavior. A Sandwich Story included many of the themes we had been reading and discussing all term. Students were required to e-mail Keiichiro, introduce themselves, and ask him one or two questions. To illustrate the advantage we had in being able to contact Keiichiro directly to inquire about words and phrases we could not translate well, Keiichiro wrote about a restaurant chain in Chicago called, au bon pain. Since this is not a Japanese word, it was written in katakana, the symbols used to write foreign words in Japanese. In
addition, although these restaurants are found all
over the United States and in several international
locations, there is only one in Canada—in
Toronto—far away from west coast where we
lived. Therefore, we could not be certain how to
write this name correctly, but one e-mail to
Keiichiro clarified our dilemma. He even e-mailed
us the au bon pain web site
(http://www.aubonpain.com/).
We submitted our translation in early February and
it was uploaded on February 19, 2000. Student
Translators (Interpreting and Translating
200) Student
Translators (Interpreting and Translating Studies
200) Contact Timothy: tmossman@cic.bc.ca Student Project: Translating Keiichiro's Stories Student translators have their say: Student Comments Keiichiro's Page: Keiichiro Sugimoto's Page | Keiichiro's Home Page Return to: Teachers' Corner | Home Page
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