Building Translation Competence through Portfolios at Undergraduate Level – Reflections on a Practical Approach to Subtitling

Abstract

This study focuses on reflections by students of ‘English Translation Practice,’ within the Study Plan of Languages and Business Relations at UTAD, Portugal, in 2018–2019. The main purpose is to 1. reflect upon the process of building Translation Competence through formal academic training; 2. discuss some of the difficulties that the students were faced with in a specific task, and the way they struggled and overcame their obstacles, thus 3. Proving that mediators between two languages and cultures are better prepared if they use more than just intuition and they have systematic training in the field. By comparing the students’ translation of the last 00:05:47 of S03E05 of Forged in Fire (History Channel) and the original subtitles, we came to conclude that portfolios are key to understanding critical approaches to problematic situations; they are iterative and dynamic working documents that exemplify the students’ search for solutions to their puzzlements and reveal fascinating insights into the development of Translation Competence. Keywords: translation didactics, translation competence, subtitling, portfolios, critical reflection