Translation, Cognition & Behavior - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2022

The translation production team that consists of a translator and a reviser can be investigated as a specific kind of (sub)system of socially distributed cognition, a cognitive dyad; this system is defined as only including the translation professionals who are directly involved in the drafting of the translation. Based on interviews with translation professionals, I argue that this fine-tuned cognitive dyad gets its form not only as a result of its participants’ characteristics, but also under the influence of other factors, some of which vary from one project to the next, leading to the flexible formation of the reviser’s task in particular. The three most important project-specific influencing factors are the text genre, the translator’s experience and competence, and the client’s needs and requirements. While genre and the client’s needs and requirements seem to have a markedly similar impact, mainly influencing the internal task configuration of the cognitive dyad, the translator’s experience and competence often leads to non-revision. Trust is an important element in this process.

The translation of culture-specific expressions has received considerable attention in translation studies in recent decades; however, the translation of allusion and allusive text has rarely been touched upon. This article reports an eye-tracking study which aims to answer the following question: What factors influence the allocation of cognitive efforts (CE) in L1 and L2 translation of allusive text? Results from a generalised linear mixed model revealed that for the 30 Chinese student translators who participated in this study, the impact of allusion type was significant in L1 but not L2 translation. Allusion familiarity, the source context length and typing speed have no significant relationship with the amount of CE in all areas of interest (AOIs). Meanwhile, Skopoi and the visits to the external resources correlated with the CE in both directions of the translation process.

This paper reports on a RPT study which employed an adapted version of the three-stage method used by Herring (2018). The same stimulus and method were employed with two distinct populations (experienced medical interpreters in the USA and student interpreters in Poland), with the aim of refining RPT methods and exploring the feasibility of their use in multi-researcher, multi-site studies. The authors discuss the process of developing and carrying out a study design and procedure for use by two researchers across two sites and with two populations, critically address the effectiveness of the use of the method & procedure by two researchers, and discuss recommendations for future studies employing similar designs and methods. The paper also presents preliminary analysis of the RPT data gathered as part of the study and suggests avenues for further research.

This paper presents methodological challenges in a study focusing on the impact of remote interpreting settings on interpreter experience and performance. In recent years, the practice of simultaneous interpreting has undergone a robust development with the quick uptake of remote interpreting technologies due to the global pandemic. In order to investigate remote interpreting, we created the Inside the Virtual Booth project encompassing a survey and an experimental study. We report on selected results of the survey that directly inform the experimental study design. We focus on challenges related to the compromise between experimental control and ecological validity, creation of materials and selection of dependent variables, including eyetracking measures that cannot be directly applied from reading studies to a study involving multimodal content typical for remote interpreting assignments. The paper may serve as a source of methodological guidance to scholars entering the field of experimental translation and interpreting studies.

Previous studies on affective dimensions of interpreting suggest that the emotionally-charged conversations or complex topics encountered by interpreters in community settings may be stressful and emotionally taxing, leaving interpreters prone to vicarious trauma and retraumatization. The assumed psychological risk associated with these conditions may point to the importance of self-care in community interpreting practice and its role in building interpreters’ resilience. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 20 professional community interpreters, this article aims to identify self-care strategies adopted in community interpreting. By using Posluns & Gall’s (2020) framework, we focus on six main self-care domains, i.e., awareness, balance, flexibility, physical health, social support, and spirituality. The study documents how community interpreters utilize self-care practice to mitigate stress inherent in the profession.