The digital competences of the contemporary translator in Mexico

Abstract

The effective use of information and communication technologies, in the form of digital competence, has emerged as an indispensable part of human life in the 21^st century, not only for leisure but also for work. This study sets out to investigate the development of digital competence in the realm of translation by considering personal variables such as gender, age, translation experience y self-reported degree of digital competence. The participants were 201 translators who were surveyed nationally and virtually through an adapted Questionnaire for Digital Competences of Contemporary Translators, which encompasses 87 items grouped into nine categories. The results showed that digital safety and office automation were the most reported digital competence categories, whereas project planning and computer-assisted translations were the least reported ones, though in general the whole sample obtained relatively low ratings in digital competence (below 1.5 on a 0-3 scale). Regarding the personal variables, gender differences were found in digital competences within the category of Localization and Audio-visual translation, meaning that male translators indicated more use of such competences. Also, translators’ age positively correlated with five competence categories and translation experience did correlated with the nine categories, meaning that the latter emerged as a better predictor. Interestingly, significant differences across three competence auto-perception levels were graphically observed, reflecting high consistency in what the participants reported for each particular competence. Finally, some pedagogical and professional implications are discussed for the sake of curriculum design and translation training and development.