Doświadczeni tłumacze tekstów prawniczych o sobie. Analiza jakościowa odpowiedzi na pytania otwarte

This article presents the results of content and thematic analysis of the answers of experienced legal translators (n=101) to open questions in a survey about their perceptions of their own expertise. These data complement the respondents’ answers to closed questions about different aspects of expertise in the same survey. Qualitative analysis resulted in distinguishing three overarching themes: (1) skills develop through experience; (2) translators actively develop their knowledge of law, and (3) external changes aff ect the work of translators. Within these central themes, subthemes grouping codes from initial analysis of the material were distinguished. The overarching themes and subthemes are consistent with findings of research on translators’ expertise, including differences in practitioners’ and translation scholars’ understanding of expertise. The answers are nuanced and stress the complexity of the expertise acquisition processes: the described end result is often a resultant of opposite processes. When discussing knowledge, respondents stress the importance of information competence. The study belongs to participant-oriented research strand and gives voice to potential legal translation experts, hence many quotations appear in the article. The analysis results suggest the need for indepth research on respondents’ understanding of the key concept of experience, which seems close to deliberative practice.