Translation competence in bilinguals

The brief definition of bilingualism is the ability to use two languages. However, each scholar offers different definitions and classifications for bilingualism. Based on these classifications, the criteria that are used to define bilingualism have been determined. Some of the criteria are language competence, social and cultural factors and language acquisition. In this thesis, the different approaches identifying bilingualism and the classifications of bilingualism based on the criteria used to identify bilingualism will be examined. On the other hand, translation competence is the acquisition of abilities related to the act of translation. Just like bilingualism, there are also many different approaches used to identify translation competence. However, there is a subject that everyone has come to an agreement; that bilingualism is a necessary ability in order to translate and to achieve translation competence. Therefore, along with the theoretical approaches describing translation competence, the sub-abilities (sub-competences) that establish translation competence have also been included in this sturdy. The aim of this thesis is to examine whether the people who are bilinguals from birth and live in a bilingual community, have translation competence or not. Within this framework, a survey study was conducted on bilinguals who are born and raised in Greece's West Thrace Turkish Community in order to determine their profiles. Afterwards, the participants were asked to translate Greek-Turkish and Turkish-Greek texts. These texts were examined in terms of lexical, syntactic and semantic levels in order to analyze their translation competence perceptibly. The findings obtained from the translation texts were compared with the data gathered from the survey study. By this way, the bilinguals in Greece's West Thrace Turkish Community have been evaluated in terms of translation competence.