Abstract

This thesis addresses competence and creativity in translation by focusing on the translator as a multilingual, historically grounded subject. Drawing on recent multilingualism research and integrating insights from translation studies, hermeneutics, sociolinguistics, and second-generation cognitive science, it is argued that translators do not simply transfer meaning between words, texts or cultures; they embody a relation to the languages and cultures they are translating, just as multilinguals do in code-switching, performing identities, and symbolically identifying with different linguistic and cultural meanings. To explore these ideas, I conducted a qualitative study on multilingual translation students in Montreal to learn more about their diverse backgrounds. Research results—covering a broad range of languages, age groups, life experience, education, and employment histories—suggest that the translation process cannot be defined without considering the sociocognitive complexity of translation and that translators, at every stage of their development, actively draw on their unique linguistic and sociocultural repertoires. A working definition of translators’ symbolic competence is proposed as a framework for analysing students’ interests in, attitudes about, and approaches to translating and for considering how translators, especially translation students, can potentially develop their competence and creatively in translation by exploring this nuanced terrain.