Eye-tracking revision processes of translation students and professional translators

ABSTRACT

Great effort has been made to define and to measure revision competence in translation. However, combined eye tracking and keylogging have hardly been applied in revision research. We believe it is time to apply these methods to the investigation of revision for further insights into this phase of the translation process. In an eyetracking and keylogging study, we compare translation students to professional translators who revised six English-German human pre-translated texts from the TPR-DB. The texts were manipulated according to an existing error typology by including errors from a set of six error categories. We examine the effect of the errors on early (first fixation durations, gaze durations) and late eye movement measures (total reading time, regression path) and on typing behaviour for the error types and professional translation experience. The results enable a detailed modelling of the revision process by determining the kind of behaviour associated with the recognition and correction of different error types. Differences in this behaviour between students and professional translators allow for conclusions regarding the effect of professional experience on the revision process.

KEYWORDS:

• Revision competence
• translation process research
• cognitive effort
• user activity data
• keylogging/eyetracking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr.Moritz Schaeffer, received his PhD from the University of Leicester in translation studies and has since worked as a research assistant at the Center of Research and Innovation in Translation and Translation Technology (CRITT) (Copenhagen Business School), the Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation (University of Edinburgh) and the National Institute of Informatics (Tokyo). He is currently a research associate at the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.

Dr. Jean Nitzke, graduated her M.A. studies at the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in 2011. She has been a PhD student, teacher and researcher at the same faculty since April 2012. Her main research interests are translation process research, cognitive processes during translation, translation technologies, and post-editing. Her PhD thesis deals with problem solving in translation, contrasting translation from scratch and post-editing, using questionnaires, translation products, keylogging, and eyetracking data.

Anke Tardel, studied at the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies in Germersheim, where she received her B.A. and her M.A. degree in Translation. Besides her studies, she has been a student research assistant since 2012, supporting various eyetracking studies and research projects. As of October 2017, she is a PhD student, research assistant, and lecturer at the same faculty. Her research interests include translation process research, translation revision, post-editing, translation technologies, and cognitive translation studies.

Katharina Oster, studied at the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies in Germersheim, where she received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in language, cultural, and translation studies. In 2012, started her PhD studies focusing on translation process research, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. In 2013, she started a research position at the above mentioned Faculty, which she still holds today.

Silke Gutermuth, holds a M.A. in „Language, Culture and Translation” and works as lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies in Germersheim. Her main research interests include translation process research in general and eyetracking studies in the area of Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies. She is currently pursuing her PhD project within this area focussing on easy-to-read and plain language reception.

Prof. Dr. Silvia Hansen-Schirra, Dipl.-Übers., Dr. phil., PD, is a full professor of English linguistics and translation studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germersheim, Germany. Her main research interests include specialized communication, text comprehensibility, post-editing, translation process and competence research. As fellow of the Gutenberg Research College she is the director of the Translation & Cognition (TRACO) Center in Germersheim and co-editor of the online book series “Translation and Multilingual Natural Language Processing”.

Notes

1. In the present investigation, we assume that translation expertise increases with the time a person spends translating. For a review of the concept expertise see also Ericsson (2006).