The article focuses on the determination of cognitive and acting features/peculiarities of the translation competence regarding the texts of socio-cultural sphere of communication. The author is preoccupied by the professional competences and skills of the translator and interpreter emphasizing such concepts as “professiogram” artistic text, metaphor and its types. The author underlines that during the translating of a literary text the translator should consider the linguistic (reading) competence, interpretative competence and the competence of literary criticism. She presents the specific rules and components of these skills from two perspectives – the translator’s and the reader’s views. As well, the author presents three interrelated principles that diminish the difference between two cultures, two worlds involved in the translational process by means of translator’s skill of “smoothing” called “translational reduction”.