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Article published In:
Translation, Cognition & Behavior
Vol. 1:1 (2018) ► pp.98–118

Decision-making processes in direct and inverse translation through retrospective protocols

 | University of California, Santa Barbara
 | Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
 | Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
Metacognitive aspects of decision-making processes were investigated in eight professional translators who translated related and unrelated texts from L2 English into L1 Portuguese and also from L1 into L2. Retrospective protocols were recorded after each translation task. Verbal utterances were classified into two categories (problem identification and prospective solution) and each one was divided into several subcategories. The data analyses evaluated metacognitive activities during decision-making processes. Results suggest that noteworthy differences between direct and inverse translation can be assessed via retrospective protocols and that translator performance and behavior might be closely related to the source text.
Keywords: direct translation, inverse translation, metacognitive activities, retrospective protocols, translation problems
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Translating into the L2
  • 3.Metacognition, decision-making, and retrospective protocols
  • 4.Classifying verbalizations during retrospective protocols
    • 4.1Identifying problems
    • 4.2Finding solutions
  • 5.Materials and methods
    • 5.1Objectives
    • 5.2Experimental design
  • 6.Results and discussion
    • 6.1The distribution of the verbalizations: Descriptive analyses
    • 6.2Comparisons by category and by group: Inferential statistics
    • 6.3Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References


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Published online: 2 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tcb.00005.fer
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