translation professionals

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.

PACTE’s research is funded during this stage, in which they carry out empirical and experimental research on Translation Competence (TC) and its acquisition. Their research involved six language combinations (German, English and French into Catalan or Spanish) and translation into L1 and L2. Research is carried out taking into account two complimentary points of view: (1) translation process, data collection and analysis through empirical studies of the mental processes involved, as well as, the competences and abilities required, with the aid of the software Proxy and Camtasia; (2) translation product, data collection and analysis of the results of translation, with the aid of the electronic corpora analysis methodology. This stage marks the end of the first phase of our research, the study of TC and the beginning of the new phase of research in translation competence acquisition (TCA). The aims of this second phase are: to carry out empirical and experimental research in translation competence acquisition (TCA) and the writing of a book about a CT.