The Role of Language and Culture Awareness in Improving Translation Competence of the German Studies Students

Abstract

Professional specialisation within translation theory and practice of translation has gained popularity – particularly in recent years – with people taking up modern language studies and graduates of other faculties, which makes more and more university centres introduce it to the regular curriculum. In this article the author shares her reflections, remarks and experiences gathered during theory and practice of translation classes on a two-year extramural complementary course in German Studies.

Theory and practice of translation classes at a university level – particularly in the initial phase of the course – are usually interpreted by the students as testing their language skills, mainly in the field of German. How false this attitude is the students learn as early as aft er a few classes. Their attention is focused on improving foreign language ability, which results in the fact that they do not notice the difference in: translator competence in a foreign language, though it plays an important role in all stages of the translation process and is indispensable in acquiring and improving translation skills, cultural competence, determining linguistic and extra-linguistic behaviours adequate to a given cultural context.

Lapses in texts translated by students also result from the uncritical use of dictionaries, lexicons and supplementary materials, constituting a source of information on the language and cultural context of source and target texts. The author’s observations have been illustrated with examples from written translations prepared individually (at home) by students of German Studies with a bachelor’s degree.