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Article published In:
Translation and Interpreting Studies
Vol. 14:1 (2019) ► pp.110–134

Identifying translation problems in English-Chinese sight translation

An eye-tracking experiment

| University of Macau
| University of Macau

Translation problems have received considerable attention among translation process researchers and different research methods have been used to identify them. Findings are sometimes inconsistent, and as these studies have mainly studied translation between European languages, little research has been conducted to explore the issue concerning non-European languages. To fill this gap, the present study investigates problem triggers in English-Chinese sight translation in both directions (L1 and L2 translation). using eye-tracking data (Dragsted 2012). Results suggest that the type and number of translation problems encountered by the translators are different in L1 and L2 sight translation and that language-pair specificity is at play during the process, indicated by two identified Chinese-specific problem triggers, namely, back-sloping comma and head-final noun phrase.

Keywords: translation problem triggers, cognitive load, eye-tracking, sight translation, linear mixed-effects regression modeling
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Translation problems and cognitive load
  • 3.Cognitive load and translation problems in L1 and L2 translation
  • 4.The present study
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Materials
    • 4.3Equipment and stimuli display
    • 4.4Procedure
    • 4.5Data analysis
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Cognitive load in L1 and L2 sight translation
    • 5.2Cognitive problem triggers
      • 5.2.1Problem triggers in L2 sight translation (C–E)
        • 5.2.1.1Low frequency words
        • 5.2.1.2Abstract (disyllabic) nouns
        • 5.2.1.3Head-final noun phrase: Modifier + de + noun
        • 5.2.1.4Punctuation
      • 5.2.2Cognitive problem triggers in L1 sight translation (E–C)
        • 5.2.2.1Less frequent words
        • 5.2.2.2Head-initial noun phrase: Noun + of + modifier
    • 5.3LMER analysis of problem triggers in L1 and L2 sight translation
  • 6.Discussions
  • 7.Summary and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.00033.su
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