Abstract
This study explores how the process of translating relates to other types of writing processes by comparing pause lengths preceding syntactic units (words, phrases and clauses) in two types of writing task, a monolingual text production and a translation. It also discusses the grounds for interpreting pause length as a reflection of the cognitive demands of the writing process. The data was collected from 18 professional translators using the Translog keystroke logging software (Jakobsen/Schou 1999). Each subject wrote two texts: an expository text in Finnish and a translation from English into Finnish (Immonen 2006: 316-319). Firstly, phrase boundary pauses were categorised according to type, function and length of phrase. All three features correlate with pause length. On average, predicate phrases are preceded by short pauses, adpositional phrases by long pauses, and pauses preceding noun phrases grow with the length of the phrase. These fi ndings suggest that the processing of the predicate begins before written production of the clause is started, whereas noun phrases and adpositional phrases are processed during writing. Secondly, pauses preceding clauses were categorised with respect to clause type. In monolingual text production, pauses preceding subordinate clauses are on average shorter than those leading to main clauses. In translation, pauses preceding subordinate and main clauses are almost the same length. It seems therefore that, in translation, the main clause and subordinate clause are processed separately despite the fact that the subordinate clause functions as a syntactic unit within the main clause.
Highlights
During the typing of a text, keystrokes divide the total writing time into numerous intervals of different length
We explore and compare the duration of pauses detected prior to syntactic units during the production of two different writing tasks: monolingual text production, which refers to writing in a single language context, and translation, which means rewriting a text in another language
If pause length signals the cost of the processing that is needed for the following unit, these figures can possibly be interpreted as evidence that, in monolingual text production, the subordinate clause is at least to some extent planned as part of the main clause
Summary
During the typing of a text, keystrokes divide the total writing time into numerous intervals of different length. [T]he lengths of pauses, a measurable feature of writing behaviour, and their location in text, whether within a particular global discourse context [...] or prior to a specific unit in language [...], provides a temporal taxonomy or description of real-time aspects of written language production from which inferences about planning and decision-making can be made. In this excerpt, Matsuhashi (1981: 114) explains how the combining of information drawn from the writing process (pause length) and the product (location in text) gives insight into the mental processes (planning and decision making) required during writing. This gamut of methods reflects the technical development of data elicitation methods that has occurred during the past three decades of writing research
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