Abstract
The present paper reports on results of two translation experiments conducted with eye tracking and keylogging. Norwegian and Danish professional and student translators have each translated a small English news text into their L1. The texts include possessives in different syntactic environments which affect choice between a reflexive and an irreflexive form in the targets. While native speakers are expected to make uniform choices which conform to regularities on local and non-local binding principles in Danish and Norwegian, we find disparate solutions among the participants in both groups. The study compares final products with process data, both in terms of edits and in terms of temporal measures indicative of translation effort. Results show a considerable amount of hesitation on choice in all non-finite clause constructions, although more so among students than among professionals. Questions of translation effects versus an unstable locality principle is taken up in the final discussion.
Highlights
[1] introduction This paper1 deals with grammatical choices made by translators who translate into their mother tongue
In an earlier paper (Behrens 2006), based on contrastive product data, I present some evidence to the effect that advanced L2 production and translation into L1 may reside in similar underlying mechanisms
The question is whether translators working into their L1, do not access all the internalized rules of their mother tongue when intensively engaged in two languages simultaneously
Summary
The present paper reports on the results of two translation experiments conducted with eye tracking and keylogging. As was suggested for the participial clause in (2e) in section [2], the prepositional phrases with the possessives (as one unit) have two possible attachments: to the verb in the subordinate clause (sleeping), or to the verb in the main clause (found) On the latter account, the possessives are locally bound by the subject of the main clause, and providing the same structure in the target language, the correct choice is that of a reflexive possessive (SIN) to refer to the driver. In view of the possible pragmatic readings of the source sentence (whether Norris is taken to be the agent of the killings, not just imprisoned for them), hypothesis 2a stated that the participants would vary in choice of possessive if a nominal structure was chosen.
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