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- Volume 6, Issue 1, 2023
Translation, Cognition & Behavior - Volume 6, Issue 1, 2023
Volume 6, Issue 1, 2023
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Cognitive load and cognitive effort
Author(s): Anne Catherine Gieshoff and Andrea Hunziker Heebpp.: 3–28 (26)More LessAbstractThe cognitive demands associated with performing a task involve at least two dimensions: (1) the load dimension that is related to the assumed task difficulty and (2) the effort dimension that reflects the resources invested in a task. This study considers whether this distinction is actually relevant to translators and interpreters when they report load and effort and, if so, how the assumed psychological reality of these two dimensions is related to task performance. In this study, professional translators and interpreters performed naturalistic tasks with comparable stimuli, working from English into German. After each task, they were asked to rate their experienced load and effort as part of the NASA Task Load Index. Their performance was measured by analysing process and product indicators that correspond in interpreting and translation. Results indicate that while self-reported load and effort are highly correlated, their relationships to process or product measures appear to be more complex.
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Text-production tasks at the keyboard
Author(s): Sara Puerinipp.: 29–59 (31)More LessAbstractOne of the main process features under study in Cognitive Translation & Interpreting Studies (CTIS) is the chronological unfolding of writing tasks. This exploratory, pilot study combines pause- and text-analysis to seek tendencies and contrasts in informants’ mental processes when performing different writing tasks, analyzing their behaviors, as keylogged. The study tasks were retyping, monolingual writing, translation, revision and a multimodal task—monolingual text production based on an infographic leaflet. Task logs were chunked with the Task Segment Framework (Muñoz & Apfelthaler 2022).
Several previous results were confirmed, and some others were surprising. Time spans in free writing were longer between paragraphs and sentences and, in translation, much more frequent between and within words, suggesting cognitive activities at these levels. The infographic was expected to facilitate the writing process, but most time spans were longer than in both free writing and translation. These results suggest venues for further research.
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The impact of traditional and interactive post-editing on Machine Translation User Experience, quality, and productivity
Author(s): Vicent Briva-Iglesias, Sharon O’Brien and Benjamin R. Cowanpp.: 60–86 (27)More LessAbstractThis paper presents a user study with 15 professional translators in the English-Spanish combination. We present the concept of Machine Translation User Experience (MTUX) and compare the effects of traditional post-editing (TPE) and interactive post-editing (IPE) on MTUX, translation quality and productivity. Results suggest that translators prefer IPE to TPE because they are in control of the interaction in this new form of translator-computer interaction and feel more empowered in their interaction with Machine Translation. Productivity results also suggest that IPE may be an interesting alternative to TPE, given the fact that translators worked faster in IPE even though they had no experience in this new machine translation post-editing modality, but were already used to TPE.
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Material, competence and meaning in the fansub community
Author(s): Zhang Xueni and Zheng Binghanpp.: 87–107 (21)More LessAbstractPrevious investigations into fansub groups have focused on their internal coherence as communities of practice and external links to technological affordances, but research on how fansubbers interact with their social and material surroundings is limited. This article reports on a netnographic study that showcases a novice fansubber’s construction of translating experience. It employs practice theory to describe the composition of the fansub activity through the eyes of the netnographer as a newcomer. This study illustrates the undertaking of translation tasks in this fansub group as co-mediated by the availability and reproduction of materials, interaction between previously acquired and newly gained knowledge, and emergence of meanings through membership construction. It addresses an integration of practice theory and ethnography as a promising approach to tapping the situatedness of translation.
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