The standard profile of the 21st century translator and its impact on translator training

This study examines the profile of the translator in Cameroon and posits that the translating activity is increasingly becoming part of the translation service, reflecting the market expectation to train translation service providers rather than translators. The paper demonstrates that the translation profession as it is performed in the field and portrayed in job adverts reveals that a wide range of employers are looking for translators and their services. A survey of the Cameroonian translation market was carried out to raise awareness of the language skills translators need in order to work successfully as language services providers. The data for this study was obtained from 36professionaltranslators drawn from the public service, the freelance and in-house corporate translation market in Cameroon. The study argues that today’s new translator’s profile and his activities are basically variants of interlingual communication in which the traditional concept of translation constitutes only one option and that these ‘add-ons,’which contribute to a better professionalization of the translator,pose new challenges to translation pedagogy in terms of both content and methodology.In this vein the study proposes a translational language teaching model aimed at making training more responsive to market exigencies in this era of modernization.