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Part of
Eye Tracking and Multidisciplinary Studies on Translation
Edited by Callum Walker and Federico M. Federici
[Benjamins Translation Library 143] 2018
► pp. 145–184

Chapter 8
Working styles of student translators in self-revision, other-revision and post-editing

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Drawing on theories from translation-related studies and cognitive psychology, this study triangulates eye tracking, keystroke logging and retrospection to probe into student translators’ cognitive processes in self-revision, other-revision and post-editing, and to categorize their working styles within and across tasks. Eighteen student translators from Durham University, with Chinese as L1 and English as L2, were invited to participate in the experiment. Three revision phases (planning, drafting and final check) were defined and four types of working style (Macro-Micro-Macro, Micro-Macro, Macro-Micro, and Micro) were recognised. By comparing the participants’ personal working styles in all three tasks, it was found that 38.9% of them were habit-oriented revisers, 22.2% were task-oriented, and 38.9% were habit/task-oriented revisers. This study proposes a tentative model of student translators’ cognitive processes in self-revision, other-revision and post-editing, and also compared their working styles with that of professional translators.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Research design and methods
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Source texts
    • 3.3Experiment design and procedure
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Types of reading and typing activities and the underlying purposes
    • 4.2Sequential reading and typing activities and the underlying purposes in different phases
      • 4.2.1Sequential reading activities in the planning phase and the underlying purposes
      • 4.2.2Sequences of reading and typing activites in the drafting phase
      • 4.2.3The final-check phase
    • 4.3Types of working styles of student translators
    • 4.4A comparison of revision and post-editing styles between students and professionals
      • 4.4.1Self-revision styles
      • 4.4.2Other-revision styles
      • 4.4.3Post-editing styles
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 16 October 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.143.08hua
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