Abstract:
In this seminar, I will compare the concept of Translation Competence with a concept that I have called Translator Competence and which is more closely associable with (though very far from alignable with) the notion of competence which we find at play in theoretical linguistics. I will explore the cognitive foundations of this phenomenon, the more conscious text processing elements of it insofar as we have any grasp of what they may be, and finally I will touch on less systematisable, socio-cultural elements, which are blatantly obviously conscious, willed, strategic translator behaviour.
About the Speaker:
Kirsten Malmkjær is Professor in Translation Studies and Director of Translation Studies Programme at the University of Leicester. Her research interests include translation theory, translation studies, translation and language, translation and philosophy, and Hans Christian Andersen’s language and literary production in Danish and in translations into English. She is the author of Linguistics and the Language of Translation (Edinburgh 2005) and editor of The Linguistics Encyclopedia (London 1991; second edition 2002; third edition 2010), Translation in Undergraduate Degree Programmes (Amsterdam and Philadelphia 2004), Translation in Language Teaching (Manchester 1998), and, with Kevin Windle of the Australian National University, of The Oxford Handbook of Translation Studies (2011). Forthcoming books are on translation and on Hans Christian Andersen’s language.