Translation Process Research Research Articles

Mapping translation process research: A bibliographic study on special issues since year 2005

This paper investigates recent developments in translation process research (TPR) as an emerging sub-discipline of descriptive translation studies by surveying articles published from 2005–2019 in special issues of eight major translation/linguistic journals. The overall trend in the field is first presented, followed by a systematic analysis of the articles in terms of authorship, regional distribution, themes, and methodology. To perform the thematic analysis, a three-layer classification system was developed, which includes the type of translation tasks, the type of study (theoretical/review or data-based research articles), and specific topics addressed in each article. This article presents distribution within each category and sub-category, followed by a discussion of trends and future research directions. The major findings are: 1) 61.36% of the articles in the database were single authored while UK and Spain had the highest number of authored publications; 2) 77.27% of the articles focused on written translation tasks, and 34.09% of the research articles were dedicated to new topics in TPR; 3) 59.38% of the publications employed more than one research method. The outcomes of this study allow future researchers investigating translation processes, such as the specific and in-depth analysis of theoretical models and the combined use of experimental and naturalistic methods, to expand the research landscape and pursue new methodological innovations.

Empirical translation process research

Abstract Over the last four decades, considerable efforts have been devoted to the modeling and evaluation of human translation processes. This article takes a closer look at the evolution of empirical Translation Process Research (TPR) within the CRITT TPR-DB tradition. It contends that human translation unfolds on various processing levels and puts forth the Free Energy Principle (FEP) and Active Inference (AIF) as a promising framework for modeling these intricately embedded processes in a mathematically rigorous framework. The article introduces innovative methods for quantifying fundamental concepts of Relevance Theory (relevance, s-mode, and i-mode translation) and establishes their connection with the Monitor Model, framing relevance maximization as a special case of free energy minimization. The framework presents exciting prospects for future research in predictive TPR, promising to enhance our understanding of human translation processes and contributing significantly to the broader field of translation studies and cognitive sciences in general.

Cognitive aspects of compound translation: Insights into the relation between implicitation and cognitive effort from a translation process perspective

In this paper we analyse translation of compounds from English to German relating our observations to the phenomenon of implicitation, explicitation and structural equivalence using translation process data from the CRITT translation process research database (TPR-DB). We look into complex nominal phrases, e.g. nominal compounds in English-German translations. We determine a number of product and process features that have an impact on cognitive effort during compound translation. Our results show that in most cases translators opt for the structural equivalent, and that choosing a direct equivalent requires less cognitive effort than choosing an implicitation. This is explained by the fact that direct equivalents can be easily activated whereas changing the structure and using a more implicit, less typical translation requires more effort, which in turn leads to longer production pauses.

Ecological validity in corpus-based and experimental translation research

This study provides insights into the ecological validity of experimental results in translation process research (TPR) by comparing translation products under three different conditions: produced in a translation research lab, in the translators' usual working environment, and included as part of a corpus. The results will test the ecological validity of experimental results in TPR and shed light on some of the discrepancies between findings based on corpus data and lab experiments. Data collected in rigorous translation process experiments outside the translators’ usual working environment may not represent authentic translation behaviour. For example, in the experimental setting, translators will not have access to the tools and resources they usually work with, they will be immediately aware of their participation in a scientific study (which may affect their choices), and the stimuli under investigation will often be artificially constructed. These caveats call into question the meaningfulness of conclusions about translation and the translation process based on target texts produced in such artificial settings. This is furthermore reinforced by the differences found between experimental and corpus-based results. In order to test the comparability of different translation settings, 20 translators were commissioned to translate texts according to their usual workflow, in their usual working environment and at their own pace with access to resources of their preference. The source texts were previously used in experiments (Heilmann et al., 2021; Heilmann et al., 2022) and they contain stimuli that may represent a contrastive or cognitive challenge to the translators. The translators were also asked to provide information about the resources they used and the time and breaks they took to finish the translations. Their translations were compared to the target texts collected in the lab experiments and to translations obtained from a corpus with regard to the linguistic stimuli as well as linguistic characteristics such as average sentence length and lexical density. The results highlight the effect of the experimental setting on the translation product and illuminate the differences between experimental data and corpus data.

The proof of the translation process is in the reading of the target text: An eyetracking reception study

This article is an attempt to bridge the divide between translation process research (TPR) which has investigated how translators as specialised bilingual professionals use their expertise to translate texts and translation reception which explores how the texts are read and received by the target language readers. Over the last thirty years, TPR has provided empirically grounded findings to demonstrate the complexity of the cognitive processes in the translator's mind but much less empirical interest has been paid to how translated texts are read and processed by the readers. To redress this imbalance, we hypothesise that the cognitive effort invested in reading a translated text can be taken as proof of how successful the translation process has been. We report on an exploratory study in which two groups of participants read a high-quality and a low-quality translation of the same text while their eye movements were recorded by an eyetracker. We compare the readers' cognitive effort indexed by character-adjusted dwell time, number of runs and re-reading in the second and third run with the translators' character-adjusted cognitive effort invested in producing the target texts. The results show that the relationship between the translation process and the reading experience is not straightforward and depends on the quality of the target text.

Models of the Translation Process and the Free Energy Principle.

Translation process research (TPR) has generated a large number of models that aim at explaining human translation processes. In this paper, I suggest an extension of the monitor model to incorporate aspects of relevance theory (RT) and to adopt the free energy principle (FEP) as a generative model to elucidate translational behaviour. The FEP-and its corollary, active inference-provide a general, mathematical framework to explain how organisms resist entropic erosion so as to remain within their phenotypic bounds. It posits that organisms reduce the gap between their expectations and observations by minimising a quantity called free energy. I map these concepts on the translation process and exemplify them with behavioural data. The analysis is based on the notion of translation units (TUs) which exhibit observable traces of the translator's epistemic and pragmatic engagement with their translation environment, (i.e., the text) that can be measured in terms of translation effort and effects. Sequences of TUs cluster into translation states (steady state, orientation, and hesitation). Drawing on active inference, sequences of translation states combine into translation policies that reduce expected free energy. I show how the notion of free energy is compatible with the concept of relevance, as developed in RT, and how essential concepts of the monitor model and RT can be formalised as deep temporal generative models that can be interpreted under a representationalist view, but also support a non-representationalist account.

Translating science fiction in a CAT tool: machine translation and segmentation settings

There is increasing interest in machine assistance for literary translation, but research on how computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools and machine translation (MT) combine in the translation of literature is still incipient, especially for non-European languages. This article presents two exploratory studies where English-to-Chinese translators used neural MT to translate science fiction short stories in Trados Studio. One of the studies compares post-editing with a ‘no MT’ condition. The other examines two ways of presenting the texts on screen for postediting, namely by segmenting them into paragraphs or into sentences. We collected the data with the Qualititivity plugin for Trados Studio and describe a method for analysing data collected with this plugin through the translation process research database of the Center for Research in Translation and Translation Technology (CRITT). While post-editing required less technical effort, we did not find MT to be appreciably timesaving. Paragraph segmentation was associated with less postediting effort on average, though with high translator variability. We discuss the results in the light of broader concepts, such as status-quo bias, and call for more research on the different ways in which MT may assist literary translation, including its use for comparison purposes or, as mentioned by a participant, for ‘inspiration’.

Adaptation, reliability, and validation of the Turkish version of the Bad Sobernheim Stress Questionnaire-Deformity in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.

There is a limited number of disease-specific outcome measurement scales in Turkish, which can be used for individuals with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). The aim of this study was to translate, adapt, and evaluate the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Bad Sobernheim Stress Questionnaire-Deformity (TRv.BSSQD) questionnaire in Turkish patients with AIS. After the translation and back-translation process, the TRv.BSSQD and Scoliosis Research Society-22 questionnaires were completed in face-to-face interviews with 49 patients with AIS. The TRv.BSSQD questionnaire was readministered to the same patients 2 weeks later to assess test-retest reliability. The Cronbach alpha value calculated for internal reliability was 0.806. The intraclass correlation coefficient values of the items of the TRv.BSSQD ranged from 0.809 ( P < 0.001) (question 8) to 0.955 ( P < 0.001) (question 7). The test-retest correlation coefficient for the item-total score was 0.960 ( P < 0.001). Validity analysis showed a significantly positive correlation between the TRv.BSSQD total score and pain, self-image, and mental subgroup and the total scores of the SRS-22r scale ( P < 0.05). This patient-reported outcome instrument, the TRv.BSSQD, showed good internal consistency, good reliability with test-retest analysis, and construct validity, suggesting that it is an appropriate assessment instrument for Turkish patients with AIS.

A methodological proposal integrating the translation process into the study of cognitive effort

This paper presents a methodological proposal that integrates the translation process into studying the cognitive effort with the use of three instruments. Data triangulation accounts for such phenomena. Translation process research has used Translog to approach mental activities, such as cognitive effort. However, authors such as O’Brien (2006) suggest the use of complementary methods to have a comprehensive understanding of what occurs while translating. This paper aims to present a data collection model that includes the use of Translog as the main instrument to record the indicators of cognitive effort (time and typing pauses) during a translation process, a screen capture software that records the screen’s output, as well as retrospective interview to obtain verbal information from its users. In order to establish a relationship between cognitive effort and the translation process, a triangulation data method was used with the information collected from the aforementioned instruments, alongside conducting a semantic content analysis.

Measuring Cognitive Effort with Translation Process Database

The analysis and measurement of cognitive effort could be complicated when involved in translation production. And it therefore attracts researchers’ great attention to the investigation of this topic. Different from traditional data collection methods, the Translation Process Research Database (TPR-DB) utilizes the large corpus to record the translation process, including translation process data (e.g. keystrokes, fixations, mouse movements) and translation product data (e.g. ST, TT and links between tokens in both texts) from more than ten language pairs and dozens of translation and associated studies. After reviewing the studies and some findings on measuring cognitive effort with the TPR-DB, the present study proposes that features of HTra, HCross, AUs and PWR in the TPR-DB tables are frequently used as indicators for the measurement of cognitive effort during translation and post-editing processes. The attempts to measure cognitive effort with the TPR-DB have not only yielded some interesting findings but also added fresh insights to facilitate understanding and examination of cognitive effort. The present study pointed out that the TPR-DB provides a new and effective method to measure cognitive effort. It will further support and promote the future research in this field.

Reconceptualizing breaks in translation: Breaking down or breaking through?

Various observable on-screen translator behaviors, such as extended pauses in activity, mouse hovering, cycling through tabs/windows, and different kinds of scrolling, all common occurrences during task completion, have been regarded as potential problem indicators (cf. Angelone, 2018). Their presence is often attributed to a breakdown in declarative and/or procedural knowledge at a concrete problem nexus (Angelone and Shreve, 2011). Inspired by recent translation process research on aspects of cognitive ergonomics, pause-related cognitive rhythms (Muñoz and Cardona, 2018), and Kussmaul’s notion of parallel activity in the translation process (1995), we re-examine such phenomena through a different lens. We propose these phenomena may represent the loci of volitional, potentially strategic breaks rather than problem indicators per se. That is, the breaks observed are not necessarily linked to specific problems, but rather to subjects’ cognitive resource management. Our findings suggest that apparently random behaviors, seemingly unrelated to the task, generally have a positive impact on performance from both process and product perspectives. We refer to these breaks as instances of cognitive suspension, and, based on our findings, propose that translators engage in them as a refresh mechanism when performance has either waned or runs the risk of doing so. We start by examining cognitive suspension in terms of types and scope. This is followed by an empirical analysis of its direct impact on translation performance, as established by number of errors, number of generated characters, and number of typos within established windows (areas of interest) that precede and follow its occurrence.

Musical stairways to creativity heavens: a chain-reaction theory about the benefits of background music in literary translation

Research in the psychology of music has shown that music-listening can foster psychological transportation. Whether played alone or as a complement of other artistic products such as films or narratives, music allows listeners to travel mentally to fictional realities. This phenomenon occurs due to the potential of music to trigger cognitive and affective reactions in listeners such as visual stimulation and emotional engagement. Simultaneously, recent studies in translation process research (TPR) have revealed how translation performance can benefit from both visualization and emotional involvement, making the difference in the resulting target text. Therefore, this paper proposes a theory based on a chain-reaction model, according to which background music would eventually lead to an increase of translation creativity through the filter of psychological transportation. Practical implications of our model would entail using instrumental background music to foster motivation in translation environments, which could possibly lead to higher-quality and more creative target texts.

Translation of Children’s Speech in Frank Schaeffer’s Portofino

Abstract The theme of the article is a research into the issue of translation of children’s speech. The analysis will be conducted based on three excerpts from a novel – Portofino – written by a contemporary American writer Frank Schaeffer and translated into Polish by the author of the article, early in her career as a translator. First, the results of text typology investigation by Anna Trosborg (1997b), Paul Kussmaul (1995, 1997) and Christiane Nord (2018) regarding cognitive structuring, text structures, and general style conventions will be highlighted. Then the outcomes of the translation process research (TPR) on cohesive aspects and structuring by Michael Carl, Srinivas Bangalore &amp; Moritz Schaeffer (2016) will be summarised. This will be followed by the discussion of findings of Paul Thompson &amp; Alison Sealey (2007), Gillian Lathey (2011), and Anna Čermáková (2018) regarding the issue of repetition and the aspects of point of view. Subsequently, the notion of style in a work of fiction will be introduced and followed by the description of stylistic and linguistic means used to achieve it. This will include the discussion of speech and thought presentation (STP) scales proposed first by Geoffrey Leech &amp; Mick Short (2007) and then developed by Mick Short in cooperation with Elena Semino (2004). Next, the stylistic features of children’s speech and its linguistic exponents will be outlined. The translation analysis will focus on stylistic and linguistic devices used by the author to imitate children’s speech in the source text and their rendering by the translator in the target text. The achieved effect and translation equivalence will be evaluated, possible reasons behind any loss in meaning will become identified and some final recommendations for translators will get defined.

Novel metaphor translation is modulated by translation direction

AbstractPrevious translation process research has pointed to an increased cognitive load when translating metaphoric compared to literal language. Yet, studies conducted thus far have not examined the role of translation direction (i.e., L1–L2 vs. L2–L1) in novel metaphor translation and have not tested whether and how this process might be modulated by the linguistic form of a novel meaning. In the present study, Polish (L1) – English (L2) translation students translated novel nominal metaphors (A is B), novel similes (A is like B), and literal sentences, in either L1–L2 or L2–L1 translation directions, while their translation behavior was recorded using a keystroke logging method. The results revealed longer translation durations for both metaphors and similes relative to literal utterances. Furthermore, we found slower translation times for novel nominal metaphors compared to novel similes and literal sentences, yet only in the L2–L1 translation direction. Such results might indicate that novel meaning translation is more cognitively taxing in the case of novel nominal metaphors, which require a more robust activation of comparison mechanisms, relative to novel similes. Importantly, this effect might be stronger when translating in the direction in which access to semantic representations is potentially more automatic (i.e., L2–L1 translation).

Revisie in vertaling: wanneer en wat

Translators often go through their texts several times before considering their translations ‘done’. In most translation process research the different runs through the text after producing a draft version of the translation are considered as a single revision stage of the translation process. If, however, the factor time is taken into account, it might be expected that the revision activities a translator performs differ in nature and function depending on the moment where they occur during the translation process. The present article is a search for describing and understanding revision processes based on this view. Revision activities in the think-aloud protocols of five translators are analysed with regard to cognitive context and text processing characteristics. Results show that there is little evidence that revision activities vary during the translation process. Revision activities seem to occur at random throughout the translation process and appear to be triggered locally.

Revisie in vertaling: wanneer en wat

Translators often go through their texts several times before considering their translations ‘done’. In most translation process research the different runs through the text after producing a draft version of the translation are considered as a single revision stage of the translation process. If, however, the factor time is taken into account, it might be expected that the revision activities a translator performs differ in nature and function depending on the moment where they occur during the translation process. The present article is a search for describing and understanding revision processes based on this view. Revision activities in the think-aloud protocols of five translators are analysed with regard to cognitive context and text processing characteristics. Results show that there is little evidence that revision activities vary during the translation process. Revision activities seem to occur at random throughout the translation process and appear to be triggered locally.

Comparing the Effect of Product-Based Metrics on the Translation Process.

Characteristics of the translation product are often used in translation process research as predictors for cognitive load, and by extension translation difficulty. In the last decade, user-activity information such as eye-tracking data has been increasingly employed as an experimental tool for that purpose. In this paper, we take a similar approach. We look for significant effects that different predictors may have on three different eye-tracking measures: First Fixation Duration (duration of first fixation on a token), Eye-Key Span (duration between first fixation on a token and the first keystroke contributing to its translation), and Total Reading Time on source tokens (sum of fixations on a token). As predictors we make use of a set of established metrics involving (lexico)semantics and word order, while also investigating the effect of more recent ones concerning syntax, semantics or both. Our results show a, particularly late, positive effect of many of the proposed predictors, suggesting that both fine-grained metrics of syntactic phenomena (such as word reordering) as well as coarse-grained ones (encapsulating both syntactic and semantic information) contribute to translation difficulties. The effect on especially late measures may indicate that the linguistic phenomena that our metrics capture (e.g., word reordering) are resolved in later stages during cognitive processing such as problem-solving and revision.

Situated cognition and the ethnographic study of translation processes: Translation scholars as outsiders, consultants and passionate participants

Whereas traditional methods of translation process research aim predominantly at fulfilling the requirements for controlled scientific experiments, shifts towards embodiment and situatedness at a conceptual level require methodological innovations for the analysis of cognitive processes as embedded in their relevant environments. In this article, we concentrate on one of the main challenges in the ethnographic study of translation processes in the translation workplace: the relationship between the researchers and the participants. Drawing on data from a multiple case study, we investigate the perceived role of the researchers and the mutual expectations of both the observers and the observed. In doing so, we examine the attitudes of translators and translation project managers towards researchers in a series of different work settings. Our results indicate that the enquirer posture imposed on the researchers by some participants corresponds with the formers’ planned methodological and epistemological approaches, as do their expected trade-offs. Others, in turn, differ substantially from the researchers in their expectations. Based on our own experience and subsequent reflections, we argue that fostering connections between translation scholars and practitioners may contribute to overcoming some of the methodological challenges of ethnographic research in Translation Studies.

ЕМПІРИЧНІ МЕТОДИ ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ У ПЕРЕКЛАДОЗНАВСТВІ ТА ЇХ ЗАСТОСУВАННЯ У СХІДНОСЛАВ’ЯНСЬКИХ СТУДІЯХ: СПОСТЕРЕЖЕННЯ, ІНТРОСПЕКТИВНИЙ ТА РЕТРОСПЕКТИВНИЙ МЕТОД, АНКЕТУВАННЯ

The choice of a research method is crucial for the implementation of the data collection and for the type, depth and, last but not least, verifiability of the data collected. This article deals with popular empirical methods of translation research – observationn, introspective and retrospective data collection and questioning. In view of the fact that East Slavic translation studies are currently undergoing an intensive change from linguistically oriented translation studies to translation studies as an independent discipline, considerations on research methodological questions are highly relevant in this context. The methods presented in this publication examine translation primarily as a process. They are used for implicit (procedure logging) and explicit (registration of thought processes) recording of the translation processes. In addition to a summary description, advantages and disadvantages are discussed here and research questions that have already been examined and/or potential research questions are listed. This overview also enables a comparison of the research methods, which is particularly useful in the run-up to an experimental study. Particular attention is paid to the increasing use of empirical research methods in East Slavic translation studies. This article mentions numerous studies that have so far been published in Ukrainian and Russian. Thus, this publication provides an overview of translation process research and makes these studies accessible to a wider audience.

Em busca de relevância no olhar: à procura de semelhança interpretativa através de dados de rastreamento ocular

Este trabalho se situa no ramo dos estudos descritivos da tradução e no sub-ramo de estudos processuais, desenvolvendo-se a partir de dados de rastreamento ocular, registro de teclado e de protocolos retrospectivos, coletados na pesquisa de Fonseca (2016). Utiliza-se como arcabouço teórico a Teoria da Relevância e o seu conceito-chave de semelhança interpretativa (cf. Gutt, 2000; Alves, 2000). O objetivo principal é identificar e discutir potenciais ocorrências de semelhança interpretativa ótima e o suposto equilíbrio entre esforço processual e efeitos cognitivos no processo tradutório. Os dados foram coletados no Laboratório Experimental de Tradução (LETRA) da UFMG e este estudo explora somente dados de um participante que traduziu um texto curto de popularização da ciência, do inglês para o português, sem acesso a auxílios externos e sem pressão de tempo para concluir a tarefa. Como ferramentas para a coleta e análise de dados, foram utilizados o rastreador ocular Tobii T-60, o software Tobii Studio, o software Translog II, além de protocolos retrospectivos escritos. Após o desenvolvimento de análises quantitativas e qualitativas, algumas hipóteses são levantadas com vistas ao desenvolvimento de pesquisas futuras, apontando questões desafiadoras para o campo dos estudos processuais da tradução e, consequentemente, para os estudos sobre competência tradutória e expertise em tradução e estudos da cognição em geral.