Empathic accuracy and translator training: helping students imagine other minds
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Daryl R. Hague
- Source
- The Interpreter and Translator Trainer. 9:20-29
- Subject
- Linguistics and Language
Empathic accuracy
Psychological literature
ComputingMilieux_COMPUTERSANDEDUCATION
Psychology
Social psychology
Competence (human resources)
Language and Linguistics
Education
- Language
- ISSN
- 1757-0417
1750-399X
Whether explicitly or implicitly, translation-competence models recognise translators’ ability to imagine the expectations of different audiences. In addition to imagining audiences’ perspectives, translators imagine the expectations of colleagues and clients. This ability to imagine others’ perspectives is known in psychological literature as empathic accuracy. If empathic accuracy is indeed essential to translation competence, then translation instructors have a responsibility to help students develop this imaginative capacity. Instructors can help students improve their empathic accuracy by employing collaborative-translation activities and teaching students how to engage in perspective-taking.