Think-aloud protocols in translation research: Achievements, limits, future prospects

Bernardini, Silvia

doi:10.1075/target.13.2.03ber

Article published In:

Target
Vol. 13:2 (2001) ► pp.241–263

Think-aloud protocols in translation research

Achievements, limits, future prospects

Silvia Bernardini | Scuola Superiore di Lingue Moderne per Interpreti e Traduttori, University of Bologna

Over the last decade, Think-aloud Protocols (TAPs) have been used extensively in process-oriented Translation Studies (TS). The serious questions regarding the experimental validity of this research methodology when applied to translation have nonetheless often remained unspoken. This paper surveys the breakthroughs as well as the limits of the growing body of literature dealing with TAPs in TS, points at the necessity to take issues of experimental, theoretical and environmental validity more seriously, and offers suggestions for improvements. The claim is that the risks involved in the adoption of a lax experimental methodology in TAP studies, often underestimated in the past, may invalidate not only the results obtained in the single projects, but, crucially, the method as a whole.

Keywords: process-oriented TS, concurrent verbalisation, strategies, translation units, affective involvement, automaticity, professionalism, routineness

Article outline

1.Introduction
2.TAPs: A survey
- 2.1The theoretical grounding: Think-aloud in psychology and cognitive science
- 2.2TAPs in translation studies
  - 2.2.1Achievements
  - 2.2.2Limits
3.Looking ahead: Issues and suggestions for TAPs in TS
- 3.1Issues and aims: Routineness, professionalism and translation into L₂
- 3.2Task administration: Controlling variables and environmental factors
- 3.3Transcription, coding, analysis
4.Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
References

Published online: 13 June 2002

https://doi.org/10.1075/target.13.2.03ber

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