Researching Cognitive Processes Of Translation

This edited volume covers an array of the most relevant topics in translation cognition, taking different approaches and using different research tools. It explores theoretical and methodological issues using case studies and examining their practical and pedagogical implications. It is a valuable resource for translation studies scholars, graduate students and those interested in translation and translation training, enabling them to conceptualize translation cognition, in order to enhance their research methods and designs, manage innovations in their translation training or simply understand their own translation behaviours.

The Handbook of Translation and Cognition is a pioneering, state-of-the-art investigation of cognitive approaches to translation and interpreting studies (TIS). Offers timely and cutting-edge coverage of the most important theoretical frameworks and methodological innovations Contains original contributions from a global group of leading researchers from 18 countries Explores topics related to translator and workplace characteristics including machine translation, creativity, ergonomic perspectives, and cognitive effort, and competence, training, and interpreting such as multimodal processing, neurocognitive optimization, process-oriented pedagogies, and conceptual change Maps out future directions for cognition and translation studies, as well as areas in need of more research within this dynamic field

"Translation and Cognition" assesses the state of the art in cognitive translation and interpreting studies by examining three important trends: methodological innovation, the evolution of research design, and the continuing integration of translation process research results with the core findings of the cognitive sciences. Several of the volume s essays focus on fruitful new process research methods, such as eye tracking and keystroke logging that have arisen to supplement the use of think-aloud protocols. Another set of contributions investigates how some central theories, concepts, and methods from our sister disciplines of psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience can inform our understanding of translation processes and their development in novices and experts. Yet another set of essays argues that methodological innovation and integration with the cognitive sciences can lead to more robust research designs and theoretical frameworks to explain the intricacies of cognitive processing during translation and interpreting. Thus, this timely volume actively demonstrates that a new theoretical and methodological consensus in cognitive translation studies is emerging, promising to greatly improve the quality, verifiability, and generalizability of translation process research."

This volume addresses translation as an act and an event, having as its main focus the cognitive and mental processes of the translating or interpreting individual in the act of translating, while opening up wider perspectives by including the social situation in explorations of the translation process. First published as a special issue of Translation and Interpreting Studies (issue 8:2, 2013), the chapters in this volume deal with various aspects of translators’ and interpreters’ observable and non-observable processes, thus encouraging further research at the interface of cognitive and sociological approaches in this area. In terms of those distinctions, the chapters can be characterized as studies of the actual cognitive translation acts, of other processes related to the translation acts, or of processes that are related to the sociological translation event.

Translation practice and workflows have witnessed significant changes during the last decade. New market demands to handle digital content as well as technological advances are leading this transition. The development and integration of machine translation systems have given post-editing practices a reason to be in the context of professional translation services. Translators may still work from a source text, but more often than not they are presented with already translated text involving different degrees of translation automation. This scenario radically changes the cognitive demands of translation. Technological development has inevitably influenced the translation research agenda as well. It has provided new means of penetrating deeper into the cognitive processes that make translation possible and has endorsed new concepts and theories to understand the translation process. Computational analysis of eye movements and keystroke behaviour provides us with new insights into translational reading, processes of literality, effects of directionality, similarities between inter- and intralingual translation, as well as the effects of post-editing on cognitive processes and on the quality of the final outcome. All of these themes are explored in-depth in the articles in this volume which presents new and valuable insights to anyone interested in what is currently happening in empirical, process-oriented translation research.

Reembedding Translation Process Research is a rich collection of empirical research papers investigating important new facets of the relationship between translation and cognition. The common thread running through the collection is the notion of “re-embedding” the acts of translating and interpreting—and the ways we understand them. That is, they all aim to re-situate these acts within what we now know about the brain, the powerful relationship of brain and body, and the complex interaction between cognition and the environment in which it is embedded. Each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of the overall notion of re-embedding, thereby expanding the breadth of empirical research about translating. This book refuses Descartes' distinction between mind and brain, and reaffirms the highly dynamic, emergent, and interactive nature of cognitive processes in translation. The overarching conclusion is that translation studies should reconsider, re-embed, any model of translation processes that arises without properly accommodating the interdependence of brain, body, and environment in the emergence of cognition.

This book presents the latest theoretical and empirical advances in cognitive translation studies. It involves the modes of written translation, interpreting, sight translation, and computer-aided translation. In separate chapters, this book proposes a new analytical framework for studying keylogged translation processes, a framework that reconciles a sociological and a psychological approach for studying expertise in translation, and a pedagogical model of translation competence. It expands the investigation of cognitive processes by considering the role of emotional factors, reviews, and develops the effort models of interpreting as a didactic construct. The empirical studies in this book revolve around cognitive load and effort; they explore the influences of text factors (e.g., metaphors, complex lexical items, directionality) while taking into account translator factors and evaluate the user experience of computer-aided translation tools.

This volume contains ten papers describing various translation experiments using Translog and/or think-aloud methodology. Copenhagen Studies in Language volumes 36 (Looking at Eyes edited by Susanne Gopferich and Arnt Lykke Jakobsen) and 37 are two complementary volumes containing empirical studies by scholars working in the field of translation process research. Contributors include members of the EU Eye-to-IT project

The volume includes contributions on the cognitive processes underlying translation and interpreting, which represent innovative research with a methodological and empirical orientation. The methodological section offers an assessment/validation of different time lag measures; discusses the challenges of interpreting keystroke and eye-tracking data in translation, and triangulating disfluency analysis and eye-tracking data in sight translation research. The remainder of the volume features empirical studies on such topics as: metaphor comprehension; audience perception in subtitling research; translation and meta-linguistic awareness; effect of language-pair specific factors on interpreting quality. A special section is dedicated to expertise studies which look at the link between problem analysis and meta-knowledge in experienced translators; the effects of linguistic complexity on expert interpreting; strategic processing and tacit knowledge in professional interpreting. The volume celebrates the work of Birgitta Englund Dimitrova and her contribution to the development of process-oriented research.

This volume brings together cognitive psychologists, interpreting scholars and translation researchers, who look at the process phenomena involved in translation and interpreting (T/I) from various linguistic vantage points. The focus is on methodology and the problems that loom large in a multidisciplinary discipline. The authors include Annette de Groot, Juliane House, Kirsten Malmkjaer and Miriam Shlesinger. The topics discussed range from simultaneous interpreting, subtitling, translating in pairs, the sub-skills involved in T/I, to expertise and management issues. Three major challenges emerge from T/I process research as it is portrayed in this book: - How to maintain a clear vision of the object of study? - How to ensure methodological sobriety? - How to transfer the emerging knowledge of expertise to translation pedagogy?