- Home
- e-Journals
- Translation Spaces
- Fast Track Listing
Translation Spaces - Online First
Online First articles are the published Version of Record, made available as soon as they are finalized and formatted. They are in general accessible to current subscribers, until they have been included in an issue, which is accessible to subscribers to the relevant volume
-
-
(Mis)translating Sensitive Content
Author(s): Beatriz NaranjoAvailable online: 08 August 2022More LessAbstractThis article offers an exploratory approach to the role of anger in translation performance. We performed a study in which translation students translated a negative review containing opinions that they may potentially find offensive. Based on previous findings pointing to punishment and restoration of justice as the most common behaviors of anger, we predicted that angry translators would manipulate the text in an attempt to punish the author and/or mitigate the offensive content. We operationalized such manipulation by identifying attenuating and emphasizing strategies in target texts. While no significant differences were revealed between baseline and post-read anger levels, sentiment analysis tools revealed angry moods when applied to participants’ written opinions. Significant differences were also found for the strategies applied with more occurrences for attenuation than emphasis. However, these findings are acknowledged as preliminary; larger samples, control groups and more reliable indicators of anger would be necessary to corroborate these results.
-
-
-
Establishing a theoretical framework for AVT research
Author(s): Jan-Louis Kruger and Sixin LiaoAvailable online: 19 July 2022More LessAbstractEmpirical research on the cognitive processing of audiovisual translation (AVT) products has been thriving over the past decade. While the use of cutting-edge experimental tools such as eye trackers has drawn increasing scholarly attention and accelerated the progress in understanding the complex mental processes involved in the reception of multimodal AVT products, relatively less attention has been devoted to the importance of establishing a theoretical framework or cognitive model that can explain and predict the behaviours observed in empirical experiments. By reviewing numerous theories or cognitive models relevant to AVT research in explaining how different perceptual and cognitive systems operate for understanding multimodal products, this paper calls for engagement with these theoretical frameworks and models to work towards a robust model that can generate testable hypotheses for the integration and interaction of multiple sources of information involved in the processing of AVT or other multimodal products.
-
-
-
Because We’re Worth It
Author(s): Joseph Lambert and Callum WalkerAvailable online: 19 July 2022More LessAbstractRate-setting is a problematic area for newcomers to translation and established practitioners alike. Survey data generally support the view that translators feel underpaid and that money matters remain a chief ethical and pragmatic concern, but appropriate guidance is almost entirely absent from introductory textbooks on the translation profession and documentation prepared by industry associations remains unsatisfactory. Focusing on the translation industry in the United Kingdom, this conceptual paper explores constraints that limit price formation practices, and argues that translators feel under threat from disruptive technologies, Uberisation, and non-professional translation, now more than ever. We explore the complex interaction between status, internal and external perceptions, and regulation, and illustrate their push-pull relationship with rate-setting within a range of industry ‘educators’, uncovering the ways in which translators themselves, translation associations, and academic institutions directly and indirectly impact upon rate-setting practices. The article concludes by considering potential channels to buoy status and improve rate-setting practices in the translation industry.
-
-
-
Preparing and comparing subtitles for quasi-experimental and experimental research in audiovisual translation studies
Author(s): Senne M. Van Hoecke, Iris Schrijver and Isabelle S. RobertAvailable online: 19 July 2022More LessAbstractEmpirical research on cognitive processing in AVT has been on the rise in recent years. A number of overarching works have recommended more standardised approaches and methodological frameworks to contribute to more streamlined, replicable, reproducible and valid future AVT research. To date, the issue of comparability of research materials (e.g., clips, subtitle tracks, comprehension questionnaires) and, more specifically, how to achieve comparability in quasi-experimental and experimental studies, particularly those involving repeated measures, has received little attention. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap by proposing a common-sense ten-step preparatory process for quasi-experimental and experimental subtitling studies. This preparatory process has previously been used in the S4AE project. The paper will focus on the final four steps, consisting of the preparation and comparison of multiple subtitle tracks. These steps were conceptualized taking into account the present research on subtitle parameters and the obstacles encountered while preparing comparable subtitle tracks.
-
-
-
Using linear mixed models to analyze data from eye-tracking research on subtitling
Author(s): Breno B. Silva, David Orrego-Carmona and Agnieszka SzarkowskaAvailable online: 14 June 2022More LessAbstractIn this paper, we aim to promote the use of linear mixed models (LMMs) in eye-tracking research on subtitling. Using eye tracking to study viewers’ reading of subtitles often warrants controlling for many confounding variables. However, even assuming that these variables are known to researchers, such control may not be possible or desired. Traditional statistical methods such as t-tests or ANOVAs exacerbate the problem due to the use of aggregated data: each participant has one data point per dependent variable. As a solution, we propose the use of LMMs, which are better suited to account for a number of subtitle and participant characteristics, thus explaining more variance. We introduce essential theoretical aspects of LMMs and highlight some of their advantages over traditional statistical methods. To illustrate our point, we compare two analyses of the same dataset: one using a t-test; another using LMMs.
-
-
-
Experimental research in automatic subtitling
Author(s): Alina KarakantaAvailable online: 14 June 2022More LessAbstractRecent developments in neural machine translation, and especially speech translation, are gradually but firmly entering the field of audiovisual translation (AVT). Automation in subtitling is extending from a machine translation (MT) component to fully automatic subtitling, which comprises MT, auto-spotting and automatic segmentation. The rise of this new paradigm renders MT-oriented experimental designs inadequate for the evaluation and investigation of automatic subtitling, since they fail to encompass the multimodal nature and technical requirements of subtitling. This paper highlights the methodological gaps to be addressed by multidisciplinary efforts in order to overcome these inadequacies and obtain metrics and methods that lead to rigorous experimental research in automatic subtitling. It presents a review of previous experimental designs in MT for subtitling, identifies their limitations for conducting research under the new paradigm and proposes a set of recommendations towards achieving replicability and reproducibility in experimental research at the crossroads between AVT and MT.
-
-
-
Physiological instruments meet mixed methods in Media Accessibility
Author(s): Irene Hermosa-RamírezAvailable online: 30 May 2022More LessAbstractMixed methods have an established trajectory in the social sciences. Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility (MA) Studies are also increasingly applying the “third research paradigm” ( Johnson et al., 2007 , 112). Yet, publications in our field often fail to discuss the mixed-method nature of the study in depth, be it because of space limitations or a lack of deliberate integration of the methods. Concurrently, MA has seen a boom in experimental research, as descriptive approaches have given way to reception and user-centred studies that engage in the cognitive processes and immersion of audiences ( Orero et al. 2018 ). This article proposes a methodological basis for MA researchers to design studies employing physiological instruments within a mixed methods framework. The core mixed methods designs (convergent, explanatory, and exploratory) are presented, and examples of their applications to research employing physiological instruments are discussed.
-
-
-
A cartography of translation
Author(s): Philipp HofenederAvailable online: 24 May 2022More LessAbstractSpace as an epistemological category has a long history within the humanities in general and has attracted increasing attention more recently in translation studies. It has come to be understood predominantly as a discursive category (e.g., cultural spaces in a figurative sense) and the product of social interactions (cf. the relationship between agents). This contribution focuses for the first time on the physical movement within an eminent translatorial project at the beginning of the 19th century in Russia. Where do these translators come from, where do they move to and where do they leave after finishing the translation? In addressing those questions, this case study brings to the fore the relevant spatial relations of translators, translations and other agents engaged in a translation. Several thematic maps are produced, which are helpful for visualizing these movements in space and for situating a translation space in the context of its physical surroundings.
-
-
-
Evaluating audio description and emotional engagement for BPS visitors in a museum context
Author(s): Xi Wang, Danny Crookes, Sue-Ann Harding and David JohnstonAvailable online: 23 May 2022More LessAbstractMuseums face a particular challenge in enabling blind and partially sighted (BPS) visitors to engage emotionally with the narrative(s) they present. In collaboration with a world-leading tourist attraction (Titanic Belfast) and the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), we have applied several different approaches for improving emotional engagement for BPS visitors. This paper addresses the critical challenge of how to obtain reliable evidence for evaluating the emotional response of BPS visitors to the museum’s audio description (AD) and overall experience. We consider six different methods for measuring emotional engagement, and consider their potential for providing reliable experimental evidence. Based on BPS-user feedback, we present a qualitative comparison of these methods, uniquely all applied to the same museum context.
-
-
-
Creativity in translation
Author(s): Ana Guerberof-Arenas and Antonio ToralAvailable online: 28 March 2022More LessAbstractThis article presents the results of a study involving the translation of a short story by Kurt Vonnegut from English to Catalan and Dutch using three modalities: machine-translation (MT), post-editing (PE) and translation without aid (HT). Our aim is to explore creativity, understood to involve novelty and acceptability, from a quantitative perspective. The results show that HT has the highest creativity score, followed by PE, and lastly, MT, and this is unanimous from all reviewers. A neural MT system trained on literary data does not currently have the necessary capabilities for a creative translation; it renders literal solutions to translation problems. More importantly, using MT to post-edit raw output constrains the creativity of translators, resulting in a poorer translation often not fit for publication, according to experts.
-
-
-
Some Translation Studies informed suggestions for further balancing methodologies for machine translation quality evaluation
Author(s): Ralph KrügerAvailable online: 18 March 2022More LessAbstractThis article intends to contribute to the current debate on the quality of neural machine translation (NMT) vs. (professional) human translation quality, where recently claims concerning (super)human performance of NMT systems have emerged. The article will critically analyse some current machine translation (MT) quality evaluation methodologies employed in studies claiming such performance of their MT systems. This analysis aims to identify areas where these methodologies are potentially biased in favour of MT and hence may overvalue MT performance while undervaluing human translation performance. Then, the article provides some Translation Studies informed suggestions for improving or debiasing these methodologies in order to arrive at a more balanced picture of MT vs. (professional) human translation quality.
-
-
-
Assessing the impact of translation guidelines in Wikipedia
Author(s): José Gustavo Góngora-GoloubintseffAvailable online: 24 February 2022More LessAbstractWikipedia is a multilingual, user-driven online encyclopaedia available in 325 languages and language varieties. Such linguistic diversity has drawn the attention of translation scholars over the past decade. Previous research has addressed, among other issues, the quality of translated Wikipedia entries, the motivations driving editors-translators, and the taxing negotiations behind editorial changes. Nevertheless, the processes underpinning translation practices in the encyclopaedia have often been overlooked. Consequently, this paper adopts a praxeological approach to translation by analysing documented standards across four Wikipedia language communities and the extent to which 16 experienced translators have assimilated them. The findings suggest that Wikipedia guidelines on translation have slight but tangible differences across the communities under investigation. Moreover, the interview data showed a tendency among participants to attach more importance to cross-wiki editing policies than to any local translation guidelines. This preference ultimately reinforces previous claims that translation and editing in Wikipedia form a continuum.
-