Polyvalence du traducteur-interprète salarié : valeur ajoutée ou spécialisation dissipée ? (témoignages professionnels et perspectives académiques)

Abstract

This study highlights a professional fact inherent to the salaried translator-interpreter; it is the multi-skills activity assigned to him beyond the language services. Our main issue focuses on the very nature of multi-skills, are they a value added to the employee or rather a core threat to his linguistic and thematic specializations? How could the student be prepared to execute multi-skills tasks for a future job? Does it require specific learning tools and learning outcomes? To answer these questions, we have made a data collection of several types of tasks performed by the salaried translator-interpreter. The data collection is based on a personal experience in a steel industry company, the descriptive analysis of the data highlighted the significance of multi-skills performed in a professional context; it revealed to be more productive than destructive, because it makes it possible to acquire many innovative aptitudes and develop new talents. Therefore, academic institutions cannot remain on the sideline of those professional facts, and could/should provide a multi-skills training to the translators-interpreters, mainly on ergonomic and psycho-educational schema. Accordingly, the curriculum of the translators-interpreters is being recently updated on the Cross units and the Discovery units, as per the current requirements of the local and the international market. The incorporation of simulation practical training in the classroom is very useful in this regard, because it brings the student in a virtual professional context whose ultimate goal is to reduce the gap usually branded between both the academic environment and the labor market.

Keywords

• Multi-skills
• translator-interpreter
• value-added
• salaried employee
• psycho-educational