Using translation strategies to solve cultural translation problems. Differences between students and professional translators

ABSTRACT

The translation strategies used to solve cultural translation problems were analysed in different levels of acquisition of the translator’s cultural competence. Thirty-eight BA students in Translation and Interpreting at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and ten professional translators translated a text containing cultural translation problems from German (L3) into Spanish (L1). The strategies based on internal support (automatised and non-automatised cognitive resources) and the strategies based on external support (the use of different documentation sources) used when translating the text were recorded using a screen-recording software. Results indicate that, while professional translators apply internal support strategies with good quality results, students are not capable of applying them, despite the fact that doing so is related to better results than those obtained when using external support strategies. Translation students tend to apply the same type of strategies regardless of the year they are in, suggesting that training may have had little impact on their strategy choices. A multinomial regression analysis revealed that factors such as the subjects’ level of knowledge of German culture and the nature of each cultural translation problem influenced the choice of each strategy, suggesting that translation strategies are linked to the translator’s cultural competence and translation competence.

KEYWORDS:

• Translator’s cultural competence
• translation strategies
• cultural translation problems
• acquisition of the translator’s cultural competence
• quasi-experiment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Christian Olalla-Soler holds a Ph. D. in Translation and Intercultural Studies by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Since 2012 he has been a member of the research group PACTE (Process of Acquisition of Translation Competence and Evaluation). His research interests come within the following fields: translator and interpreter training, intercultural studies and ideology, and cognitive processes in translation.

ORCID

Christian Olalla-Soler http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9251-476X

Notes

1. The other eight dependent variables that were analysed were: knowledge of the source culture (the translator’s declarative knowledge of the source culture), cultural contrastive skill (the skills for applying cultural knowledge when identifying, interpreting and translating cultural translation problems in a text), culture-related attitudinal components (attitudinal characteristics that affect the development of the sub-competences of cultural competence), Use of instrumental resources for the acquisition of cultural knowledge (information-seeking strategies used when consulting electronic resources during the translation of a text for the acquisition of cultural knowledge), identification and solution of translation problems of a cultural nature (the subjects' identification and solution of translation cultural problems when carrying out a translation task), efficacy of the translation process (the relationship between time taken to complete a translation task and translation quality), knowledge of translation (the subject's implicit knowledge about the principles of translation), and translation project the subject's approach to the translation of a specific text and of the units it comprises in a specific context).

2. For a more in-depth analysis of these two conceptualisations of translation strategies, see Jęczmyk Nowak (2016).

3. See Olalla-Soler (2017) for more information about the expert judgements of the text.

4. The task consisted in filling in a template for the identification and characterisation of culturemes, which aimed to collect data on the following issues: (1) the number of culturemes that subjects were able to identify in the text that they would later translate; (2) the number of culturemes in the text that subjects were able to categorise according to the experts' characterisation; and (3) the knowledge that subjects have of the culturemes that have been selected as rich points prior to the translation of the text. Subjects could not carry out consultations during this task so as not to influence the translation task.

5. This questionnaire was based on the Einbürgerungstest (an official exam that needs to be passed to opt for the German nationality) and its content, criterion, and face validity were checked. This task was performed after translating the text so as not to influence the translation task, and subjects were not allowed to carry out consultations when completing the questionnaire.