University textbooks for official (legal) translation: Reviewing and proposing a model for textbook development

Official Translation, that is also called Legal Translation, or Translation of Correspondence and Documents is an extremely important enterprise that has a lot of potential for creating many jobs in labor market, but received little attention in terms of academic research. Official translation requires advanced knowledge of general language (both source language and target language), familiarity with legal knowledge of both source and target ‎countries, and familiarity with translatable documents. Translators should learn these skills through lots of practice; therefore, a 4-unit course of “translation of correspondence and related documents” is not enough for mastering these skills. This paper critically studies the method of translation teaching, reviews the existing official translation textbooks that are published under the title of “translation of correspondence and documents”, assesses market needs, and presents alternatives for a more systematic method of textbook writing – all within the framework of theories such as Scopus in translation studies, and also within the diverse modern educational-assessment frameworks, including task-based technology-aided teaching. However, the other dimensions of these textbooks will not be addressed here since they are beyond the scope of this research. The findings of this research may throw some light on how the gap between teaching and evaluation on the one hand, and the gap between knowledge and skills on the other hand can be bridged, and show how translators can meet the real-life and legitimate expectations in the official translation labor market. Applying the guidelines suggested in this article may help establish a more reliable link between university and official translation labor market, and also financial and time costs in both sectors.