Can Theory Help Translator and Interpreter Trainers and Trainees?

This paper starts with defining ‘theory’, ‘translation’ and the type of training given in translation institutions. The trainers on whom the paper focuses are professional translators, and the trainees are advanced-level students. The question is raised as to whether trainers should also be translation scholars, and whether they should be cognizant with one or all of the various theories of translation. Several theories used in translator training are then reviewed. The paper finally discusses a number of theoretical principles (mostly based on the interpretive theory of translation, though some are common to several theories) and their implications for translator training. These principles enable trainers to explain to trainees the difference between language and discourse, and hence the reason why literal translation does not work at text level; the way understanding emerges from the merging of linguistic meanings with real world knowledge, and hence the necessity of documentary research; the way the text should be analyzed in order for trainees to internalize its sense; how trainees may detach themselves from the meanings and structures of the original in order to reformulate it idiomatically. Drawing on such principles, trainers can give their students a working methodology – they are able to build up a didactic progression grounded on a rational grading of texts, and to assess the work of trainees on the basis of objective criteria.