establishment of its adequate translation. br/>
Conclusion
cannot be assumed that the cognitive processes of translation and interpreting (either consecutive or simultaneous) are identical to the cognitive processes involved in the tasks of speaking, listening, reading or writing. In fact, although this may seem mere repetition, these processes of language mediation are extremely complex, since they are not only linguistic processes. These processes must also be understood within their social, cultural and above all psychological contexts. A comprehensive analysis of the tasks of language mediation can distinguish three basic stages:
v The communicative function established between the speaker or writer (the first sender) of the source text or discourse and the mediator as first recipient.
v The mental activity of the mediator processing the message received (either written or spoken).
v The communicative function established between the mediator as second sender of the target text or discourse and the final recipients of the message.three stages are understood to be common to both translation and interpreting. The first and the third cover the functional pragmatic aspect of mediating as a communicative social and cultural action, whilst the second covers the mental or cognitive processes. For the communicative function successfully to be fulfilled, an optimum implementation of these cognitive processes is of paramount importance.main objective in presenting this paper is to outline a comprehensive theory of language mediation that fully specifies the component processes of translation and interpretation tasks. work presented here is a piece of interdisciplinary research endeavouring to bring together developments and experiences both in the field of cognitive psychology and in the field of translation and interpreting. Its main objective is to contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive processes implied in translating and interpreting. We have proposed, so far, an outline of a comprehensive theory of language mediation combining psychological work on comprehension with research approaches on translation and interpreting that stress the role of attention and memory capacity. Once a theory formulating the processes involved has been elaborated, including the different variables which affect each one of these processes, we propose a methodology of empirical research using the same methods that Cognitive Psychology has been using.believe that, despite so much criticism of the lack of ecological validity in this kind of methodology, it is precisely the diversity of experimental methods and the indicators of processes (dependent variables) that make it possible to study different aspects of these complex cognitive tas...
