Relatore: Professor Bruno OSIMO - Bruno Osimo, traduzioni ...

distinguishes between professional vs. non-professional translation
(Jääskeläinen, Tirkkonen-Condit). The second group, in turn, focus on
investigating more specific hypotheses, often derived from the findings of the
first-generation studies. TAP research carried out at the Savolinna School of
Translation Studies makes part of this second kind of studies.
The purpose of the first TAP experiments at Savolinna was to identify
differences between professional vs. non-professional translation
(Jääskeläinen and Tirkkonen-Condit). The designation of ‘professional’ and
‘non-professional’ referred, misleadingly, to fifth-year and first-year students of
translation respectively. However, it has been frequently pointed out that the
differences between first-year and fifth-year students’ translation processes
may not depend on different levels of translation competence alone, but on
other factors, such as differences in their world knowledge (in its quantity,
because the quality of world knowledge is naturally different in every single
individual). As a consequence, Pöntinen and Romanov (1989) organized a TAP
experiment with two subjects: the first one was a teacher of translation and
free-lance translator; the second one was a subject specialist. They were about
the same age with a high level of education. The data collected showed some
interesting differences between the two subjects’ decision criteria: the
translator relied more on textual knowledge than the subject specialist
(Jääskeläinen 1999).
A further generation of researchers on the translation process turned
their interest to even more specific aspects, e.g. the semantic change and the
reading and comprehension process involved in translation (Dancette 1994).
Several of the most recent TAP studies on the translation process, are
aimed to explore the difference between categories of translators such as
professionals, advanced students in translation training programs and
language students with respect to their translational behavior (Englund
Dimitrova 2005, Norberg 2003). Some of them wanted to discover what kind
of linguistic and extra linguistic factors influence the production of “good”
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