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Establishingcommongrounds
33
Walters(2005)sharedsomeobservationswhichshowtheclashbe-
tweenhighexpectationssetforprofessionaltranslatorsandthehumanas-
pectsoftheskill.
Theinterpreter’s/translator’sidentityispresumedinsomecontextsandfor
somegenrestobeanonymous,objective,andevenomniscientnomean
taskforameremortalwhohassometimesbeencomparedtoanairport
controltoweroperator.Inreality,theinterpreter/translatorishuman,male
orfemale,withafixedage,professionallytrained,andmayhavecometo
workwithahostofpersonalandcircumstantialqualitiesthathavegreater
orlesserrelevancetothetaskinhand(Walters2005:212).
ItispreciselythehumanaspectofthetranslatorindicatedbyWalters
(2005)whichpossiblyhasbeenoverlookedinthestudyoftranslation
skilldevelopment.FormuchoftheTSresearchthetranslator’sidentity,
thatishisorherpsycholinguisticprofile,isfrequentlyunspecifiedand
undefinedwhichconsequentlymightleadtomisunderstandingsinthein-
terpretationoffindingsprovidedbyvariousstudies.Snell-Hornby(2006:
123)commentedonthemisleadingclaimsofKrings’(1986)researchwho
usedthemethodofthinkingaloud(TAPstudies)tryingtoinvestigate
whatisgoingoninthetranslator’smindsayingthatKrings(1986)didnot
investigateprofessionaltranslatorsbutlanguagestudents.Onecancon-
cludethatL2learnersarethencontrarytothecommonexpectationsun-
abletotranslate,anddonotdeservetobecalledtranslators.Yet,one
couldask,‘whatshouldtheybecalledwhentheyinfactarefullyableto
produceatranslation?’LikenaturaltranslatorsandlanguagebrokersL2
learnerscanactastranslatorswhousetheirnaturalabilitytotranslate.
Furthermore,alotofresearchintolanguageprocessingintranslation
isusingboththeterms‘translator’and‘translation’toanykindofinter-
lingualtask,suchassinglewordtranslationorthesimpletranscodingof
sentences,andtexttranslation.Thisoverextensionofthetermisofcourse
morphologicallymotivatedbutjustasitwasthecasewiththeuseofthe
term‘bilingual’
3,itcanleadtoamisinterpretationofresearchresults.A
lotofstudieswhichreportfindingsontheprocessoftranslationdonot
investigateprofessionaltranslatorsorinterpretersbutusebilinguals
sometimeswithaverybriefbilingualhistoryoftheirsecondlanguageac-
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3MostlyexpectedtomeannaturalbalancedbilingualswhoasshownbyGrosjean
(1982)andothersarerareornon-existent,butalsousedtorefertoanybodywhocan
speaktwolanguages.