Transcript What is translation?

What happens in
translators’ brains?
Anthony Pym
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Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Plaça Imperial Tàrraco 1
43005 Tarragona
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Not a crossword…
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Competencies come from…
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Mindless reproduction
Filling of academic space
Evaluations of output (grading schemes)
Suppositions about the market
Professional identities
Feedback from employer groups
Process research comparing novices and
professionals
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Skills and expertise…?
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Equivalence (literal vs. free)
Between texts (products)
For an external purpose (Skopos)
With translation-specific features (“universals”, from
corpora):
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Simplification
Explicitation
Adaptation
Equalizing
Avoidance of TL unique terms
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Problems with those positions
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There are shifts everywhere
They concern more than literal vs. free
Product analysis cannot say why they occur
Product analysis cannot distinguish between the
translation-specific features.
New technologies appear to make the features nonspecific.
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Process studies use
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Think-Aloud Protocols (TAPs)
Keystroke logs
Screen recording
Eye-tracking
Post-performance interviews
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Screen recording
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TAPs
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Translog
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Eyetracking
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More experienced translators…
1) use more paraphrase and less literalism as coping
strategies (Kussmaul 1995, Lörscher 1991, Jensen
1999)
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More experienced translators…
2) process larger translation units (Toury 1986, Lörscher
1991, Tirkkonen-Condit 1992)
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More experienced translators…
3) spend longer reviewing their work at the postdrafting phase but make fewer changes when
reviewing (Jensen and Jakobsen 2000, Jakobsen
2002, Englund Dimitrova 2005)
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More experienced translators…
4) read texts faster and spend proportionally more time
looking at the target text than at the source text
(Jakobsen and Jensen 2008)
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More experienced translators…
5) use top-down processing and refer more to the
translation purpose (Fraser 1996; Jonasson 1998;
Künzli 2001, 2004, Séguinot 1989, Tirkkonen-Condit
1992)
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More experienced translators…
6) rely on encyclopaedic knowledge as opposed to ST
construal (Tirkkonen-Condit 1989)
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More experienced translators…
7) express more principles and personal theories
(Tirkkonen-Condit 1989, 1997, Jääskeläinen 1999)
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More experienced translators…
8) incorporate the client into the risk-management
processes (Künzli 2004)
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More experienced translators…
9) automatize some complex tasks but also shift
between automatized routine tasks and conscious
problem-solving (Krings 1988, Jääskeläinen and
Tirkkonen-Condit 1991, Englund Dimitrova 2005)
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More experienced translators…
10) display more realism, confidence and critical
attitudes in their decision-making (Künzli 2004)
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We need more about…
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speed
the capacity to distribute effort in terms of risk
the restrained use of external resources (both written
and human)
the key role of revision/reviewing
new technologies.
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Research on TMs…
Tina Paulsen Christensen & Anne Schjoldager
Translation-Memory (TM) Research: What Do
We Know and How Do We Know It?
Hermes 44 (2010)
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Research on TMs…
1) Combination of TM and MT only increases
productivity if translators are comfortable with their
new role as post-editors of machine-controlled
translations.
Lange & Bennett 2000
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Research on TMs…
2) Newly qualified translators and translators with TM
experience are more positive about TM technology
than others.
Dillon & Fraser (2006)
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Research on TMs…
3) When working with TM, professionals spend
relatively more time on revising, compared with what
they do during human translation.
Dragsted (2004)
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Research on TMs…
4) The sentence does not constitute a central unit in
translators’ cognitive segmentation, though this may
be truer for professional translators than for students.
Dragsted (2004)
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Research on TMs…
5) Sub-sentential segmentation gives better recall
Colominas 2008
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Research on TMs…
6) TMs enhance error propagation, and professionals
may catch fewer errors than novices.
Bowker 2004, Ribas 2007
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Research on TMs…
7) TMs enhance linguistic interference (punctuation,
avoidance of language-specific items)
Vilanova 2006
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Research on TMs…
8) Exact matches exert the least cognitive load on
translators, while no matches exert the greatest load,
and cognitive load increases as fuzzy-match values
decrease.
O’Brien 2006
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Research on TMs…
9) In terms of processing speed, decreasing fuzzy
matches mean increasing effort, but dilations
increase as match values decrease until the 60-69%
match class is reached. Below this match class,
decreased pupil dilation is noted.
O’Brien 2008
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Research on TMs…
10) In higher fuzzy-match categories, translators using
a more literal TM have higher processing speeds.
Yamada 2010
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Research on TMs…
11) Post-editing MT output requires effort similar to that
of a 90% TM fuzzy match.
O’Brien 2006
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Research on TMs…
12) Post-editing MT output is more efficient and gives
better quality than TM or translating from scratch.
(When MT is wrong, it is really wrong.)
Guerberof 2008, 2009
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Research on TMs…
13) Interfaces that repeat information slow down
processing.
O’Brien 2009
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Experiments as good teaching?
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Summary
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Good p-values are hard to find in periods of learning
and resistance.
The firm conclusions are obvious
The applications of conclusions are less than obvious.
Students can experiment to discover things about
themselves.
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