Relevance and expertise under scrutiny: Modelling translator’s competence

Alves, Fabio; Gonçalves, José Luiz Vila Real

doi:10.1075/btl.72.07alv

In:Doubts and Directions in Translation Studies: Selected contributions from the EST Congress, Lisbon 2004
Edited by Yves Gambier, Miriam Shlesinger † and Radegundis Stolze
[Benjamins Translation Library 72] 2007
► pp. 41–55

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Modelling translator’s competence

Relevance and expertise under scrutiny

Fabio Alves | Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

José Luiz Vila Real Gonçalves | Federal University of Ouro Preto, Brazil

Published online: 13 July 2007

https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.72.07alv

Building on Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995) and connectionist principles (Elman et al. 1996), this paper presents the rationale and assesses the plausibility of a dynamic cognitive model of translator’s competence proposed by Gonçalves (2003). It differentiates between a specific and a general translator’s competence, supports the amalgamation of procedural and declarative knowledge as constitutive instances of translation competence, and argues for an increment of awareness-raising, meta-cognitive processes to develop this kind of competence. Translator’s competence is, therefore, considered to be a particular cognitive configuration that allows translators to establish a balance between the periphery and the central layers of cognitive systems and, from a situated perspective, enables them to attain an inferentially driven interpretive resemblance between source and target texts.

Keywords: cognitive modelling, connectionism, interpretive resemblance, Relevance Theory, translator’s competence

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