TITLE:
The Social Situatedness of Translatorial Competence: A Framework for Chinese Indigenous Translators in the Outbound Translation of Chinese Literature
AUTHORS:
Hongtao Liang, Yanqiu Yang
KEYWORDS:
Chinese Culture “Going Global”, Indigenous Translators, Translatorial Competence, Social Situatedness, Outbound Literary Translation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Modern Linguistics,
Vol.16 No.6,
November
9,
2026
ABSTRACT: In the context of Chinese Culture “Going Global” strategy, the outbound translation of Chinese literature demands from translators not only textual transfer but also professional judgement across text selection, publishing, and reception. This study takes Chinese indigenous translators actively engaged in the outbound translation of Chinese literature as its research object and examines how social-contextual factors are transformed into competence requirements through concrete decision-making tasks. Distinguishing external social conditions from individual translator competence, this study proposes a framework of five competencies: 1) understanding of cultural strategy and translation policy, 2) source-cultural value assessment and text selection, 3) target-language society and reader assessment, 4) recognition of publishing and communication environments and programme planning, and 5) post-translation reception tracking and dynamic adjustment. Linked through pre-translation judgement, translation-stage implementation, and post-translation feedback, these five competencies form a socially situated analytical framework of translatorial competence. The framework broadens the analytical dimension of translation-competence research and offers a reference for the training and evaluation of Chinese indigenous translators as well as for the effective outbound translation of Chinese literature.