A Survey Report On Translation Competence Of Professional Translators

Translation competence of professional translators can be regarded as the cultivation target of MTIpostgraduates, making them meet the demands of translation market. Since the present researches andstudies on translation competence have not reached an agreement, the author conducted this investigation,aiming at finding out the translation competence needed by professional translators, with the hope ofproviding suggestions to the cultivation of MTI postgraduates.This investigation adopted grounded theory of qualitative research as the guiding method, andconducted interviews of professional translators. The objectives of this investigation, namely therespondents of the interviews are from four cites of Beijing, Shanghai, Xi·an and Lanzhou. Theserespondents included translators, professors of translation and project managers.Based on the existing researches and the translation competences given by scholars in foreigncountries and China, the author classified the translation competence into knowledge of language andculture as well as personal characteristics and professional moralities. The author got12elements of thetranslation competence according to the interviewing data. These elements are knowledge of foreignlanguage, knowledge of major, knowledge of mother tongue, ability of learning, experience of translating,ability of information searching, application of software, encyclopedic knowledge, sense of responsibility,preciseness, ability of communication and spirit of teamwork. Based on the analysis to the12elementsobtained from the interview, the author got the following suggestions: the education of MTI should attachimportance to the knowledge of language and strengthen the teaching of the knowledge of major. Courseson training ability of searching information and using software should be offered. And the professionalcultivation of MTI postgraduates is as important as the learning of knowledge and skills.