The Competences of Software Translators from the Point of View of Slovak Translation Studies

Abstract

The work of Slovak Translation Studies scholars often deals with the competences of literary translators (e.g., Keníž 2018), translators of non-literary texts (e.g., Angelovičová 2018), and audiovisual translators (e.g., Paulínyová and Perez 2018). Not much focus is given to the competences of translators of software products (websites, software, and videogames), which is understandable given that localization does not get a lot of attention in Slovakia. The following article aims to be a contribution to the discourse on competences in Slovak Translation Studies, and it focuses on the translation of software products (localization). Firstly, it introduces competences from different fields of translation, and then it presents a set of competences of software translators. In doing so, it uses works by Mangiron and O’Hagan (2013) and Jimenez-Crespo (2013) as a foundation that is later confronted with practical issues from the present author’s own experience.