Translator competence in the context of digital transformation

Abstract

The article examines how digital transformation practices, driven by the rapid integration of artificial intelligence, machine translation, and platform-based communication, reshape contemporary translator competence by expanding professional roles beyond traditional interlingual translation. As translators increasingly engage in creative and strategic digital text production, existing competence marginalize these practices, widening the gap between theory and professional reality. The study analyses how digital transformation practices reconfigures translator competence, emphasizing the integration of technological, cognitive, and creative skills in translation practice and training. The study adopts a qualitative analytical approach that combines theoretical review with comparative analysis. The article demonstrates that proofreading, rewriting / restyling, copywriting, posting / dissemination, and naming constitute distinct yet interconnected professional domains that should be recognized as core digital transformation practices rather than auxiliary activites. Each practice is shown to have specific aims, defining features, and practical implications for contemporary translation process. The analysis reveals a clear shift from equivalence-based, text-centred translation models toward purpose-driven, audience-oriented, and technologically mediated communication. The study concludes that digital transformation practices fundamentally reshape the translator competence, which integrates linguistic, cognitive, technological, creative, pragmatic, and ethical dimensions, and position translators as hybrid language and communication specialists.