Translation, Cognition & Behavior - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2019

The ability of interpreters to engage in metacognitive activity enabling them to self-assess the changing purpose of their task and subsequent strategies can play a pivotal role in their global attainment levels. This paper argues that developing a high degree of metacognition can be key, not only for the expert’s interpreting performance, but also for trainees’ learning processes, helping them develop a more accurate professional self-concept and better self-regulation techniques. The study, carried out with 199 interpreting trainees, tested a tool to assess self-perceived metacognition levels. The measurement tool was developed on the basis of previous relevant academic contributions to the overlapping fields of Education, Interpreting and Psychology. According to the results of a factor analysis, self-perceived metacognition in interpreting trainees can be defined as a construct made up of four dimensions: self-knowledge perception, consolidation of one’s own set of criteria, development of a macro-strategy, and task-focused flow.

As the object of study of Cognitive Translation Studies (CTS) expands to encompass social and cultural aspects of multilingual communicative events, scholars face the challenge of combining research methods and analytical perspectives to investigate cognitive phenomena. While plurality has been so far considered transitory, eventually converging on a unified theory of translation, I propose to adopt a functional assessment framework for competing models in order to endorse epistemic pluralism. The development of cognitive translatology as an emergent tradition combining multifarious approaches presents a new epistemological landscape in which epistemic pluralism can be embraced, fostered and practiced for the benefit of producing new knowledge. Far from being a relativist stance defending that all systems of knowledge are equally useful or appropriate, pluralism entails an assessment framework, which I introduce, so that we can improve our empirical designs and streamline our theoretical frameworks.

Investigating translation and interpreting from the perspective of a non-computational theory of cognition requires continuing development of the requisite theoretical constructs. As part of the ongoing elaboration of this alternative approach, this paper proposes the construct of ‘default translation’ as a specific phase of translation production. This phase is characterized by rapid, relatively uninterrupted production and in this paper the kinds of knowledge accessed in this phase are outlined. The proposal is that default translation involves primarily bilingual linguistic knowledge (including communication norms), metalinguistic knowledge, and a specific understanding of the translation/interpreting task. The paper suggests a means of identifying the phase in process data. Finally, the construct is positioned relative to the idea of ‘literal translation’ and a proposal for terminological use is given in the concluding remarks.

The translation process has often been described as a sequence of three steps, source text (ST) analysis, source-target transfer, and target text (TT) generation. We propose a radically different view, in which the human translation process consists of a hierarchy of interacting word and phrase translations systems which organize and integrate as dissipative structures. Activation of word (or phrase) translation systems is a non-selective subliminal process in the translator’s mind not restricted to one language. Depending on the entropy (i.e., the internal order) of the word translation systems, a human translator spends more or less time and energy during the translation process, which can be measured in the form of gaze patterns and production duration.

Research into dialogue interpreting has thus far focused on its interactional dimension. Only recently have cognitive approaches been introduced. This article uses the situated cognition and functional pragmatics paradigms to explain how a broad and holistic understanding of the (healthcare) set-up in which dialogue interpreting assignments take place enables interpreters to develop an awareness of the purpose-orientation of medical professionals’ (inter)action plan. This understanding forms part of an inferential mental backdrop that allows interpreters to go from bottom-up drifting to gaining top-down control over their task. On the basis of a corpus of 19 interpreter-mediated doctor-patient encounters, the article suggests that it is acting upon an integral background of understanding as inferential basis (rather than role) that empowers dialogue interpreters to perform successfully.

The objective of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the negotiation of meaning between the participants of a bilingual interpreter-mediated interaction by analysing the effects of the verbalization of the inferences by the interpreter. The conceptual tools of Relevance Theory were applied to three interpreted excerpts of Russian-French psychotherapeutic interactions. The results suggest that, by verbalizing inferences, the interpreter co-creates a shared cognitive environment, reinforces intra- and inter-discursive coherence, diminishes the cognitive efforts of the recipient, and encourages primary parties to cooperate. The analysis of the cognitive processes at work in the excerpts tends to show that what has so far been treated as the interpreter’s “additions” or “expanded renditions” enables the latter to exercise cooperative coordination of interaction, and could therefore be more precisely called collaborative renditions.

This paper takes a process-focused approach to investigating the dialogue interpreting task from the perspective of the task performer. It reports on a portion of a research study aimed at better understanding the cognitive and interactional processes involved in dialogue interpreting. Eight interpreters interpreted a simulated interaction and subsequently completed a retrospective process-tracing session. The results shed light on the complexities of dialogue interpreting performance as experienced by the task performer, specifically with regard to interpreters’ online monitoring of affect, behavior, cognition, and context.

Language proficiency of dialogue interpreters, who typically work in the public service sector, is an under-researched area. Unlike as in the case of conference interpreters, there is no generally accepted definition of proficiency levels of working languages for dialogue interpreters. This article discusses language proficiency in dialogue interpreting. It presents a methodological problem, namely, how to define and determine a given interpreter’s stronger and weaker working languages. We discuss different methods for determining the individual interpreter’s stronger and weaker working languages, such as self-assessment, demographic, socio-linguistic questionnaire and test score (Dialang). We conclude that there is a need for more research in this area.