What is Translation Competence

This chapter provides an outline of the main issues concerning the conceptualisation and modelling of Translation Competence (TC) and proposes the adoption of a product-based definition for didactic purposes. Such definition is based on an empirical longitudinal product-oriented study on TC aiming to identify possible textual features and conventions that can be related to the translator's level of competence. The preliminary results from this longitudinal study presented in this chapter appear to suggest the existence of a possible relation between specific textual and procedural patterns and the participants' translation experience. Such patterns could provide translator trainers and trainees with a set of pragmatic indications for the definition and achievement of specific learning goals and could potentially serve as predictive developmental hypotheses in translator training.