WRITTEN AND ORAL TRANSLATION CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN KOSOVO

Abstract

Despite the fact that thousands of people nowadays work and earn their living from translation and/ or interpreting, the widely spread opinion is that one does not need any special training in order to become a translator or an interpreter. Nevertheless, people who deal with translation and interpreting are aware that this assumption does not hold. The fact that translation is not just a linguistic procedure but is socially constructed and oriented just like language itself, is gradually accepted. Hence, translators are becoming fully aware that training is necessary just as in any other profession if one wants to keep up with global changes. One of the major challenges in translation and interpretation in Kosovo is the inadequate translation quality of texts as well as poor simultaneous and consecutive interpreting during conferences, training, and other important events. However, in the case of written translations, the translator has the chance to intervene, correct, and proofread the text through proofreaders, which is not a touch that can be done during oral interpretation. This does not mean that interpretation has any lower stakes; poor oral interpretation can even result in the failure of an event, e.g. interlocutors may misunderstand each other or convey an inaccurate intellectual or professional picture of the speakers. Therefore, this paper explores the challenges and solutions of translation in Kosovo, in general, and oral interpretation, in particular.