Impact of translation difficulty and working memory capacity on processing of translation units: evidence from Chinese-to-English translation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aims to examine how the source text’s (ST) translation difficulty and subject’s working memory (WM) capacity impact the number and size of translation units (TUs). Based on the data collected through key-logging of 38 students translating two relatively easy and difficult texts, the number of production TUs (PTU) at all levels and sizes of average production TU (APTU) were calculated and compared. It was found that while translating the difficult text, the subjects used more 1-to-6-word TUs, but their APTU sizes were not clearly reduced. The number of PTUs at each level did not vary with WM capacity in the translation of either the easy or the difficult text, but the APTU size of subjects with high WM capacity was larger than that of those with low WM capacity. However, in the translation of the difficult text, the size of APTU of subjects with high WM capacity was significantly reduced compared to those with low WM capacity, thus neutralizing the difference between the two groups in the translation of the relatively easy text.