Le rôle du séminaire d’expression écrite dans la formation professionnelle des futurs traducteurs
The Role of the Written Expression Seminar in the Training of Future Translators

Summary/Abstract: Writing in a foreign language is a very complex exercise that involves language skills, but also qualities of the thinking and of the expression. We intend to present in this paper, different types of exercises that we use during the written expression seminar, the methods implemented and the benefits of these types of exercises in the professional development of future translators ( first year students) We will limit this article to two types of exercises, the abstract and the text synthesis, which we consider very profitable for the training of future translator. The abstract implies the understanding of a text, the penetration into the thinking of another person, the capacity to differentiate the essential elements from the secondary ones and the re-expression of the ideas in a personal way in order to get a text having the same characteristics as the original one. If we asked the question "Why to teach writing abstracts to future translators?” we could give two reasons. The first one is that translators will, perhaps, be put in the position to translate a shortened form of the original text or to write a summary of the text in the target language. The second reason is that translation, according to J. Deslile (2010: p. 20), means "the development of a dual general competence and the four basic skills that are exercised at three levels." The double competence includes the understanding of the original text and its re-expression in the target language. This competence is developed through the exercise of summarizing a text. From the four skills mentioned by this author, two (integrating non-linguistic knowledge into the statements, mastering the techniques of writing) are developed by writing summaries. The synthesis of texts is an even more complex exercise than the summary.

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