The quest for the ideal business translator profile in the Romanian context

Abstract

An ideal translator profile is a crucial issue for both translation providers, who want to deliver impeccable performance, and translation beneficiaries, whose purpose is to obtain flawless services. In the context of Romanian higher education, two distinct educational profiles of providers are distinguished in the business translation market: graduates of Philology, who have been trained in translation (3-year BA and 2-year MA programmes in Translation Studies), and graduates of Faculties of Economics or Business who have undertaken 3-year and/or 2-year MA study programmes in a foreign language. Showing the results of a study conducted with groups of third year Bachelor students of the University of Craiova, Romania (students in Translation Studies and students in the Finance and Banking English-taught programme), across a 3-year period (2015–2017), our research aims at providing answers to the following questions: To what extent does each of these two profiles match the ideal one of a business translator? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of the two training profiles? What specific actions can and should be taken for each of the two target groups in terms of university training?