The psychology of translation and psychological competence development in translator training programmes

Abstract EN

Holmes (1988) in his map of Translation Studies envisioned a process-oriented branch of Descriptive Translation Studies which is concerned with the psychology of translation trying to find out what happens in the mind of a translator during the process or act of translating.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the psychological dimension of the translation procedure and propose a didactic approach aiming to student psychological competence development in a translator training programme.

To this respect, the psychological aspect of the translation process will be briefly discussed, comprising the workings of the translator's mind ranging from cognition to emotion as well as personality traits.

Another important parameter to be considered is the psychological immersion of the translation phenomenon to the way in which translated texts are understood and interpreted by their recipients as well as the interconnectedness between translation psychology and translation sociology research.

Furthermore, the implications of the psychological nature of the translation process for translation didactics will be investigated, providing suggestions that could help students handle the psychological tension felt during the learning process and develop their emotional intelligence in order to deal with emotional challenges during their career as professionals.

The overall intention of the paper is to show that there is a psychological angle to most translation-related procedures, which could offer interesting avenues for fruitful research cooperation within Translation Studies as well as with other disciplines.