Experimental study of heuristics in solving linguistic tasks by translation students

Abstract

The article presents the experimental study of the heuristics manifestations seen during solving linguistic tasks divided into three categories: Olympiad linguistic tasks, linguistic tasks on translation, linguistic tasks on interpreting. The algorithm and conditions of the experiment are also described. The solutions to 9 written tasks and the recording of 326 minutes of oral answers were analysed. Among the participants, there were 30 students (the 3rd and 4th years of study) of the Department of Foreign Languages, Linguistics & Translation of Perm National Research Polytechnic University. The experiment showed the difference between translation and other types of cognitive language activity, as well as the importance of cognitive control and comprehension of the nature of the performed activity. In written tasks, heuristic mechanisms were preceded by logical algorithms. When solving linguistic tasks on interpretation and translation, a cognitive distortion ‟confirmation bias” was detected. We also noted a type of heuristics specific for translation activity, determined as ‟flow heuristics” and manifested at the moment of correlating the information coming from the context with the previous cognitive experience of translation activity.