Cover not available
Article published In:
Translation, Cognition & Behavior
Vol. 2:2 (2019) ► pp.211–232

A systems theory perspective on the translation process

| Kent State University,
| Kent State University,
| Kent State University,
The translation process has often been described as a sequence of three steps, source text (ST) analysis, source-target transfer, and target text (TT) generation. We propose a radically different view, in which the human translation process consists of a hierarchy of interacting word and phrase translations systems which organize and integrate as dissipative structures. Activation of word (or phrase) translation systems is a non-selective subliminal process in the translator’s mind not restricted to one language. Depending on the entropy (i.e., the internal order) of the word translation systems, a human translator spends more or less time and energy during the translation process, which can be measured in the form of gaze patterns and production duration.
Keywords: translation production, entropy and dissipation in translation, translation effort
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Models of the bilingual mind
  • 3.Cognitive effort and entropy in translation
  • 4.Entropy and negentropy
  • 5.Word translation entropy
  • 6.Dissipative structures
  • 7.Entropic gravity
  • 8.Information philosophy
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 September 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tcb.00026.car
References (45)
References
Angelone, Erik. 2010. “Uncertainty, Uncertainty Management and Metacognitive Problem Solving in the Translation Task.” In Translation and Cognition. Edited by G. M. Shreve and E. Angelone, 17–40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Basnight-Brown, Dana M. 2014. “Models of Lexical Access and Bilingualism.” In Foundations of Bilingual Memory. Edited by R. R. Heredia & J. Altarriba, 85–107. New York; Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bernardini, Silvia. 2001. “Think-aloud Protocols in Translation Research.” Target 13 (2): 241–263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carl, Michael, and Barbara Dragsted. 2012. “Inside the Monitor Model: Processes of default and challenged translation production.” In Translation: Computation, Corpora, Cognition, 2 (1): 127–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carl, Michael, and Mortiz J. Schaeffer. 2017. “Why Translation is Difficult: A corpus-based study of non-literality in post-editing and From-scratch translation.” Hermes 561: 43–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carl, Michael, Mortiz J. Schaeffer, and Srinivas Bangalore. 2016. “The CRITT Translation Process Research-Database.” In New Directions in Empirical Translation Process Research. Edited by M. Carl, S. Bangalore, and M. Schaeffer, 13–54. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-20357-7. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cosmic Creation Process. 2018. Cosmic Creation Process. [URL]. Accessed 17 August 2018.
De Groot, Annette M. B. 1992. “Determinants of Word Translation.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 18 (5): 1001–1018. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, T., & van Heuven, W. 1998. “The BIA-model and Bilingual Word Recognition.” In Localist Connectionist Approaches to Human Cognition. Edited by J. Grainger & A. Jacob, 189–225. Mahwah (NJ): Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, Ton, & Walter van Heuven. 2002. “The Architecture of the Bilingual Word Recognition System: From Identification to Decision.” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 51: 175–197. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dijkstra, Ton, Alexander Wahl, Franka Buytenhuijs, Nino Van Halem, Zina Al-Jibouri, Marcel De Korte, and Steven Rekké. 2018. “Multilink: A Computational Model for Bilingual Word Recognition and Word Translation.” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 13 (3): 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Degani, Tamar, and Natasha Tokowicz. 2010. “Ambiguous Words are Harder to Learn.” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 13 (3): 299–314. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eddington, Chelsea M. and Natasha Tokowicz. 2013. “Examining English—German Translation Ambiguity Using Primed Translation Recognition.” Bilingualism, Language and Cognition 16 (2): 442–457. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Folkart, Barbara. 1989. “Translation and the Arrow of Time.” TTR : Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction, 2 (1): 19–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gile, Daniel. 2009. Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halverson, Sandra L. 2003. The cognitive basis of translation universals. Target 15 (2):197–241. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017. “Gravitational Pull in Translation. Testing a Revised Model. In Empirical Translation Studies: New Methodological and Theoretical Traditions. Edited by G. De Sutter, M.-A. Lefer, and I. Delaere 9–46. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hartsuiker, Robert J., Martin J. Pickering, and Eline Veltkamp. 2004. “Is Syntax Separate or Shared Between Languages? Cross-linguistic syntactic priming in Spanish-English bilinguals.” Psychological Science 15 (6): 409–414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobsen, Arnt J. and Kristian T. H. Jensen. 2008. “Eye Movement Behaviour across Four Different Types of Reading Task.” In “Eye movement behaviour across four different types of reading task.” In Looking at eyes. Eye Tracking Studies of Reading and Translation Processing. Edited by S. Göpferich, A. L. Jakobsen & I. M. Mees, 103–124. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur.Google Scholar
Jantsch, Erich. 1980. The Self-Organizing Universe. Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution. New York: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, ISBN 978-0374275631.Google Scholar
Koelman, Johannes. 2010. “It from Bit—Entropic Gravity for Pedestrians.” Accessed August 2018. [URL]
Kroll, Judith F., and Erika Stewart. 1994. “Category Interference in Translation and Picture Naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations.” Journal of Memory and Language 33 (2): 149–174. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kussmaul, Paul. 2000. “Types of Creative Translating.” In Translation in Context. Edited by A. Chesterman, N. Gallardo San Salvador, and Y. Gambier, 117–127. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Layzer, David. 1975. “The Arrow of Time.” Scientific American December 1975: 56–69. [URL]
Martyushev, Leonid M. 2013. ”Entropy and Entropy Production: Old Misconceptions and New Breakthroughs.” Entropy 151: 1152–1170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Melamede, Robert. 2008. “Dissipative Structures and the Origins of Life.” In Unifying Themes in Complex Systems IV. Edited by A. A. Minai, and Y. Bar-Yam, 80–87. Berlin: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mossop, Brian. 2003. An Alternative to ‘Deverbalization’. Technical report, York University. [URL]
Muñoz Martín, Ricardo. 2017. “Looking Toward the Future of Cognitive Translation Studies.” In The Handbook of Translation and Cognition. Edited by J. W. Schwieter, and A. Ferreira, 555–572. Hoboken (NJ): Wiley Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruiz Navarro, Carmen, Natalia Paredes Jiménez, Pedro Macizo Soria, and Mª Teresa Bajo Molina. 2008. “Activation of Lexical and Syntactic Target Language Properties in Translation.” Acta Psychologica 128 (3): 490–500. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schaeffer, Moritz J. 2018. “Language Processing in Translation.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies and Linguistics. Edited by K. Malmkjaer, s.p. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, Moritz J., and Michael Carl. 2017. “Language Processing and Translation: Translation and non-translational language use.” In Empirical Modelling of Translation and Interpreting. Edited by S. Hansen-Schirra, O. Czulo and S. Hofmann, 117–154. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, Moritz J., Michael Carl, Isabel Lacruz, and Akiko Aizawa. 2016. “Measuring Cognitive Translation Effort with Activity Units.” Baltic Journal of Modern Computing 4 (2): 331–345.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, Moritz J., Barbara Dragsted, Kristian T. Hvelplund, Laura W. Balling, and Michael Carl. 2016. “Word Translation Entropy: Evidence of early target language activation during reading for translation”. In New Directions in Empirical Translation Process Research: Exploring the CRITT TPR-DB. Edited by M. Carl, S. Bangalore, and M. Schaeffer, 183–210. Berlin: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schrödinger, Erwin. 1944. What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schwieter, John W., and Aline Ferreira. 2018. “Bilingualism, Translation, and Interpreting.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies and Linguistics. Edited by K. Malmkjaer, s.p. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shreve, Gregory M., and Isabel Lacruz. 2017. “Aspects of a Cognitive Model of Translation.” In The Handbook of Translation and Cognition. Edited by J. W. Schwieter, and A. Ferreira, 127–144. Hoboken (NJ): Wiley Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tirkkonen-Condit, Sonja. 2005. “The Monitor Model Revisited. Evidence from Process Research.” Meta 50 (2): 405–414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tokowicz, Natasha, Judith F. Kroll, Annette M. B. de Groot, and Janet G. van Hell. 2002. “Number of Translation Norms for Dutch-English Translation Pairs: A new tool for examining language production.” Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 34 (3): 435–451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Heuven, Walter J. B., Ton Dijkstra, and Jonathan Grainger. 1998. “Orthographic Neighborhood Effects in Bilingual Word Recognition.” Journal of Memory and Language 391: 458–483. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verlinde, Erik. 2011. “On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton.” Journal of High Energy Physics, [URL]. DOI logo
Wei, Yuxiang. 2018. “Cognitive Effort in Relation to Word Translation Entropy and Syntactic Choice Entropy.” Presentation at the MEMENTO Summit, 2018. [URL]
Wolchover, Natalie. 2017. “The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution.” [URL] Accessed August 2018.
Wu, Yan Jing, and Guillaume Thierry. 2010. “Chinese-English bilinguals Reading English Hear Chinese.” The Journal of Neuroscience 301: 7646–7651. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zipf, George K. 1935. The Psychology of Language. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Carl, Michael
2021. A Radical Embodied Perspective on the Translation Process. In Explorations in Empirical Translation Process Research [Machine Translation: Technologies and Applications, 3], ► pp. 389 ff. DOI logo
Carl, Michael
2023. Chapter 12. The Monitor Model and its misconceptions. In Translation in Transition [American Translators Association Scholarly Monograph Series, XX], ► pp. 257 ff. DOI logo
Vanroy, Bram, Orphée De Clercq, Arda Tezcan, Joke Daems & Lieve Macken
2021. Metrics of Syntactic Equivalence to Assess Translation Difficulty. In Explorations in Empirical Translation Process Research [Machine Translation: Technologies and Applications, 3], ► pp. 259 ff. DOI logo
Vanroy, Bram, Moritz Schaeffer & Lieve Macken
2021. Comparing the Effect of Product-Based Metrics on the Translation Process. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Wei, Yuxiang
2021. Entropy and Eye Movement: A Micro-analysis of Information Processing in Activity Units During the Translation Process. In Explorations in Empirical Translation Process Research [Machine Translation: Technologies and Applications, 3], ► pp. 165 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.