Translation as a writing process: Pauses in translation versus monolingual text production
SiniImmonen
University of Joensuu, Finland
Abstract
This paper is an empirical study on pause patterns in fluent translation and monolingual text production. By comparing pauses recorded from both processes, two temporal features were discovered: Firstly, the mean length of pause at textual category boundaries grew the higher the category was in the linguistic hierarchy. Secondly, the length of pause at clause level and lower was on average longer in translation than in monolingual text production, whereas pauses above clause level tended to be shorter in translation. Besides the differences in pause duration, translation also affected the use of total production time. Translation requires on average a longer revision and monitoring phase while the drafting phase is completed more quickly. Both writing tasks used approximately the same proportion of time for the orientation phase.
The present study is concerned with the temporal progression of two types of writing processes: the production of a monolingual text and the production of a translation. It concentrates on studying pause patterns detected during the production processes and attempts to elucidate some aspects of the translation process by means of comparison.
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