Translation to a foreign language: skills, attitudes, social context

We explore the issue of L2 translation, which is frequently practised in many cultures, despite the risks that it involves. The sociological aspects of this type of translation are approached through the prism of "cross-cultural allowance," which affects the addressees, clients, agencies and translators. A sample of 160 translations (40 translators; two cohorts - advanced students and practising translators; two foreign languages - English and French; two directions; two text types - promotional and legal) was used to assess Czech translators' competence in non-native translation. The results of the analysis confirm the assumption that translating into one's mother tongue is optimal and indicate that technical texts are more compatible with L2 translation than texts of a more expressive nature. According to the collected data, contrary to native translations, the quality of L2 translation does not increase in line with the length of professional practice. The effect of previous experience on the quality of L2 translation for the analysed text types yields controversial results.