Abstract:

Perspective-oriented research of professional competences and changing skill needs in the European labour market requires multilevel analysis including macroeconomic and regional levels, local, sectoral, occupational and even enterprise levels. However, as it is neither possible nor advisable to analyse all the levels in one article, we have limited our research to occupational level.
The profession of the legal translator has been attracting much attention in Europe recently, particularly due to the need to translate masses of the European Union’s documents into the national languages of the 28 member countries and their national documents into English, which again, has been developing as a kind of new phenomenon – European English primarily on the basis of legal English.
It’s needless to say that the occupation of the legal translator is quite complicated encompassing a number of professional duties and obligations and involving a very high level of responsibility. The legal translator’s expertise includes a vast scope of competencies, skills and close to encyclopedic knowledge and requires their constant development and replenishment.
To consider the issues of qualitative development of the legal translator’s personality, we first have to explain the terms and provide definitions for them in order to invite our readers to join our discourse. So, the legal translator’s personality is understood as a kind of professional personality (Burukina, Vorozhbitova, 2012), and qualitative development unlike quantitative, doesn’t mean formation and development of numerous competencies but deepening of a scope of particular professional competencies (those of the legal translator’s in this case) on the basis of systems approach in order to strengthen the expertise and improve the system of professionalism.
Our understanding of professionalism goes far beyond the definition from Meriam-Webster’s dictionary – “the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well” or from Oxford dictionary – “the competence or skill expected of a professional,” and it goes beyond the definition of expertise – “special skill or knowledge” or “an expert’s skill or knowledge in a particular area.” We understand professionalism as a high level of mastery in one’s profession for high quality professional performance and fulfillment of professional tasks. As the tasks of the legal translator vary very much and change swiftly, particularly in Europe these days, they need constant professional development in order to fit the ever changing professional environment.
Extrapolating Darling-Hammond’s, Wei’s, Andrée’s, Richardson’s, and Orphanos’ (2009) definition of effective or high quality professional development onto all kinds of professionals, we can define it as providing for improvements in professionals’ knowledge and instructional practice that would result in improved professional performance.
As regards to qualitative development of legal translators’ competences, we offer a systems of training aimed at developing their professional knowledge including that of several legal systems and laws and the legal environment of the European Union and in particular European countries, their ability to use comparative law and comparative analysis, their skill to select proper contextual equivalents, and see a legal text as a system rooted in legislation and intended for particular purposes (use of semantic analysis). Also, the legal translator’s qualitative professional development includes the development of his/her professional motivation, the system of his/her ambitions and values and the sense of his/her labour at large and everyday work in particular.

Keywords:

Legal translation, professional personality, professional qualitative development.