Using translation strategies to solve cultural translation problems. Differences between students and professional translators

The translation strategies used to solve cultural translation problems were analysed in different levels of acquisition of the translator’s cultural competence. Thirty-eight BA students in Translation and Interpreting at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and ten professional translators translated a text containing cultural translation problems from German (L3) into Spanish (L1). The strategies based on internal support (automatised and non-automatised cognitive resources) and the strategies based on external support (the use of different documentation sources) used when translating the text were recorded using a screen-recording software. Results indicate that, while professional translators apply internal support strategies with good quality results, students are not capable of applying them, despite the fact that doing so is related to better results than those obtained when using external support strategies. Translation students tend to apply the same type of strategies regardless of the year they are in, suggesting that training may have had little impact on their strategy choices. A multinomial regression analysis revealed that factors such as the subjects’ level of knowledge of German culture and the nature of each cultural translation problem influenced the choice of each strategy, suggesting that translation strategies are linked to the translator’s cultural competence and translation competence.