Translating Humanities and Social Sciences texts: Translators’ perceptions of difficulties and competences

• Li, Xiangdong ^[1]
  1. [1] Xi'an International Studies University

     Xi'an International Studies University

     China

     
• Localización: Ibérica: Revista de la Asociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos ( AELFE ), ISSN-e 2340-2784, ISSN 1139-7241, Nº. 51, 2026, págs. 307-332
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.17398/2340-2784.51.307
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen
  • español

    La traducción de textos de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (HCS) promueve la circulación de conocimiento y teoría a través de idiomas y fronteras. Dada la unicidad disciplinaria y la divergencia entre los discursos y contextos de origen y de destino, traducir obras de HCS presenta un desafío. Aunque las dificultades y competencias para traducir textos de HCS se mencionan en la literatura, hasta el presente no han sido validadas empíricamente. Este estudio tiene como objetivo explorar las percepciones de los traductores sobre las dificultades al traducir textos HCS y sus calificaciones sobre la importancia de las competencias relevantes. Una muestra de conveniencia de traductores académicos de textos de HCS se completó un cuestionario. Los resultados indican que las dificultades propuestas en la literatura se dan en mayor o menor medida y que la baja calidad de algunos textos fuente, la mención de que se omite en la literatura, también presenta problemas a los traductores. En cuanto a las competencias, los resultados indican que las competencias propuestas (conocimiento extralingüístico, competencia comunicativa y textual, y competencia estratégica) son importantes. La competencia instrumental, aunque no se menciona en la literatura, también es esencial. Este estudio también generó resultados que pueden ayudar la elección entre traductores genéricos y expertos con diferentes niveles de conocimiento de la materia y habilidades de traducción.

  • English

    The translation of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) texts promotes the circulation of knowledge and theories across languages and borders. Given disciplinary uniqueness and the divergence between the source and target discourses and contexts, translating HSS works is challenging. Although the difficulties in and competences for translating HSS texts are mentioned in the literature, they have not been empirically validated so far. This study aims to explore translators’ perceptions of the difficulties in translating HSS texts and their ratings of the importance of relevant competences. A questionnaire was completed by a convenience sample of academic translators of HSS texts. The results indicate that the difficulties proposed in the literature occur to a greater or lesser extent and that the low quality of source texts, which is ignored in the literature, also poses problems for translators. As for competences, the results indicate that the proposed competences (extra-linguistic knowledge, communicative and textual competence and strategic competence) are important. Instrumental competence, though not mentioned in the literature, is also essential. This study also generated results that may inform the choice of translators between generic translators and subject experts with different levels of subject knowledge and translation skills.  

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