Translation is a vital part of multilingual communication in the work of international companies and organizations. In this project, we set out to examine the influence of emotion on performance in this professional task. Integrating theory and methods from translation studies and the psychology of emotions, we conducted a study with translators in their usual work environments. Results of the study suggest that emotions can influence key indicators of performance in language professionals, such as idiomatic expression, stylistic adequacy and correctness of terminology. While we find that emotional involvement in the translation task was associated with an overall better performance, positive and negative emotions aroused by performance feedback induced different processing styles, increasing either creativity or accuracy in translation. The study's implications for theory and methodology in translation studies and psychological research, as well as for the design of translators' work environments and their training are discussed.