Estudio empírico sobre la competencia traductora [An empirical study of translation competence]

The aim of this research  project is to analyse  Translation Competence  in written translated texts , using an empirical-experimental approach. It constitutes the first stage of  a much larger research project into  the Acquisition of Translation Competence  undertaken by the group PACTE. Research into Translation Competence  will  be undertaken  by examining both : 1) the translation process - collection and analysis of data obtained from  experimental studies of the mental processes at work in translation, and the  competencies and  skills required to translate; 2) the  translation product  - collection and analysis of the  texts produced  using corpus methodology. The present research proposal follows on from a previous study  undertaken by the same research group (PACTE) in which  the conceptual stages of the project were  established – models of translation competence  and  acquisition of translation competence developed; hypotheses established; and measuring instruments and experiments designed and validated through exploratory studies and pilot tests. The present project aims to collect and analyse data obtained on Translation Competence. To do this: 1) an experimental  study  of Translation Competence will be carried out using professional translators (experimental group) and bilinguals who are not professional translators (control group) to generate  data on the mental processes at work in translation, and  the competencies  and  skills required to translate. Six language combinations will be used: English-Spanish; English-Catalan; French-Spanish; French-Catalan; French-Spanish; German-Catalan. 2) a  computerised multi-lingual corpus of texts will be created using the translations produced by the group of professional translators and the group of bi-lingual speakers to obtain data on text production.