2-4 The history of translation competence

Translation competence has been one of the important subjects of interest and a matter of
discussion among scholars and translation researchers in the last three to four decades.
There are two reasons for this statement. The first one is according to Pym (2003) since the
1970s the concept of translation competence has been viewed as at least "1) a mode of
bilingualism, 2) a question of market demands, 3) a multi-component competence, involving
sets of skills that are linguistic, cultural, technological and professional, and 4) a supercompetence that would somehow stand above the rest" (p. 481). The other reason is seen
as the date of the following researches which also shows since 1971 so far translation
competence has been the area of interest of many researchers. (cited in PACTE, 2011,
paragraph. 10).

- Translation competence
Even those discussions of translation competence in translation studies that strive towards the
Chomskyan understanding tend to include aspects of, or be akin to, the Human resources and
Social Competence definitions. For example, PACTE (2000, 100) claim to have borrowed the
notion of translation competence from the idea of linguistic competence, but they define
translation competence as including an array of knowledges, skills and abilities which vary
between individuals and which would never find their way into the notion of linguistic
competence.
According to PACTE [2] PACTE research group (Proceso de Adquisicin de la...[2], there
are six subcomponents of translation competence, which I list briefly here with just a
smattering of what PACTE includes under each (PACTE, 2000, 101-102):
1. Communicative Competence in two languages, including linguistic, discourse and
sociolinguistic competence.
2. Extra-Linguistic Competence composed of general world knowledge and specialist
knowledge.
3. Instrumental-Professional Competence composed of knowledge and skills related to
the tools of the trade and the profession.
4. Psycho-Physiological Competence, defined as the ability to use all kinds of
psychomotor, cognitive and attitudinal resources including psychomotor skills for
reading and writing; cognitive skills (e.g. memory, attention span, creativity and
logical reasoning); psychological attitudes (e.g. intellectual curiosity, perseverance,
rigour, a critical spirit, and self-confidence).
5. Transfer Competence, which is the ability to complete the transfer process from the
ST (source text) to the TT (target text), i.e. to understand the ST and re-express it in
the TL (target language), taking into account the translations function and the
characteristics of the receptor.
6. Strategic Competence, which includes all the individual procedures, conscious and
unconscious, verbal and non-verbal, used to solve the problems found during the
translation process.

Such a list raises two questions: is it useful to include so many features as part of translation
competence? and why do so many scholars of translation competence proceed in this fashion,
so that, in Shreves words (2002, 154) the term translation competence has come to
represent a motley set of academic understandings about what one has to know (and by
implication what one has to learn or be taught) to become a translator. Pym (2003, 15 on the
web version) provides an entertaining account of a number of these:
Bell (1991) describes translator competence as a huge summation: target-language
knowledge, text-type knowledge, source-language knowledge, subject area (real-world)
knowledge, contrastive knowledge, then decoding and encoding skills summarized as
communicative competence (covering grammar, sociolinguistics and discourse). Virtually
everything that any kind of linguistics wanted to talk about was tossed into the soup. []
Hatim and Mason (1997, 204-206), working from Bachman (1990), present a traditional
three-part competence inherited from linguistics (ST processing, transfer, TT processing) and
then name a handful of skills for each of those heads. Hewson (1995) adds something called
cultural and professional elements (108), where the professional part refers to
remuneration [] access to and use of proper dictionaries and data banks, access to
equivalent material in the second language, practical knowledge of word-processors and
peripherals, and so on (ibid.). [] Mayoral (2001, 109) insists on components including
common sense (above all), curiosity, ability to communicate, capacity for self-criticism,
meticulousness, ability to synthesize, etc. Anything else? In Douglas Robinsons Becoming a
Translator (1997) we find serious attention to the real-world necessities of good typing
speeds, Internet discussion groups, and working with a computer in a room at the right
temperature [sic].
Pym explains this proliferation of features in accounts of translation competence with
reference to a perceived need to establish the discipline as something separate from
linguistics and from language learning; another reason that people include so many features is
probably that the task of the translator is indeed very complex. But are all of these desirable
states and characteristics really parts of translation competence, or are some better placed in
lists of more general competences, leaving translation competence to specify just those
features that are peculiar to the translation task?
De Groot (2000, 54) provides an interesting discussion of how to identify task specific
components of complex tasks. Her discussion is framed in training-oriented terms, but I think
it works equally well as a guide to concept inclusion in an account of task-specific skills:
Not all components that can be distinguished in a criterion task will need to be trained
because a number of them may be mastered already at the onset of training. An example is
visual word recognition, in translating written text. In fluent readers this process proceeds to a
large extent automatically and effortlessly [] on the assumption that the typical trainee
selected for participation in a translation training program will be a fluent reader, the
inclusion of a visual-word-recognition component in such a program would thus be a waste
of time and effort.
It is my belief that all of the components listed by the scholars included in Pyms entertaining
article (2003), with the exception of the notion of transfer competence, may be prerequisites
to translation, or desirable states which may enhance translation, which, however, do not
make a translator. Let me now spend some time unpacking this notion of transfer
competence.

REFRENCES

Bachman (1990)
Bell(1991)
Hewson(1995)
Douglas Robinsons Becoming a Translator (1997)
Hatim and Mason (1997 -204 to 206)
De Groot (2000 54)
PACTE (2000 100 ) ( 2011 Paragraph 10)
Mayoral (2001-109)
PYM (2003-15 on the Web Version)