Towards a Multi-facet Concept of Translation Behavior

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this paper is to pin down the mental factors which essentially account for efficient translation performance: first, context; second, culture; third, originality and automatization; fourth, speed; and fifth, processual components such as inferencing, schematizing, mapping, comparing, evaluating, problem-solving, decision-making, intuiting and rule & strategy formation. The whole presentation amounts to a specification of information-processing factors that are instrumental in: 1. learning how to behave intelligently and creatively when one is confronted with a novel or a familiar intertextual transfer situation; 2. planning what operations have to be executed in a specific environmental situation; 3. executing them on the basis of a repertoire of knowledge and skills which shows that behavior-in-context is practically always the result of an organized functioning of both cognitive and noncognitive (associative) processes.