On the concept of “Comprehensiveness” in Information Services: The case of the online translation aid and hosting service Minna no Hon'yaku / Kyo Kageura and Takeshi Abekawa

The aim of this research is to clarify the concept of ―comprehensiveness‖ and its relationship to the concept of ―normativeness‖ in language reference tools and information for online translators, from the point of view of strategically providing useful reference information via a translation aid-service. The concept of ―comprehensiveness‖ in reference information has not been explored fully to dateThe questions to be answered are: What are the factors that determine different levels of ―comprehensiveness‖ and ―normativeness‖? How can ―comprehensiveness‖ be classified in relation to different types of reference lookup, and what kind of strategies can we define and adopt in developing and providing useful reference resources automatically or semi-automatically? While it is widely held that careful user studies are important in the strategic design of information services, empirical studies of potential users are not sufficient in the conceptualisation and development of advanced information services and tools which incorporate innovative functions or features, because quite frequently users do not understand what they want from the new information technologies. This is all the more true for issues in which one or more of the key concepts are not understood clearly. The question we wished to address fall precisely within this category, as the concept of ―comprehensiveness‖ has not yet been explored fully. We therefore took a deductive and analytical approach, firstly listing up the factors that affect the concept of ―comprehensiveness‖ and related concepts, with special reference to the translation-aid site Minna no Hon'yaku (translation of/by/for all: http://trans-aid.jp/), and deriving the classification of and desiderata for language reference tools and information from the objective of helping online translators. Although we adopted an analytical and deductive approach, the whole argument is implicitly supported by our own experience with actual translators' behaviour on the site Minna no Hon'yaku. Results of the analysis revealed that, within a framework of providing language reference tools for translators in general and in the context of the online translation-aid environment in particular, three different types of combinations of ―comprehensiveness‖ and ―normativeness‖ are of prominence and importance, namely: (i) task-oriented normativeness/comprehensiveness; (ii) domain-oriented normativeness/comprehensiveness; and (iii) user-oriented normativeness/comprehensivenes

A study into the motivations of internet users contributing to translation crowdsourcing: the case of Polish Facebook user-translators

Facilitated by technologies enabling a large number of networked individuals to collaborate voluntarily on translation tasks, translation crowdsourcing isa new translation procurement model which relies on crowds of Internet users willing to engage in translation activity at the request of a company or organisation. Taking the case of Facebook translation, with specific reference to the community of Polish Facebook user-translators, this study seeks to understandthe motivation underpinning contributions that are typically without financial reward, especially when the call for translation is made by a for-profit entity. A mixed methods research design involving netnography, online surveys and an observational study with elements of remote usability testing and contextual inquiry was incorporated to collect the data on the community of contributors, their translation activity and use of the Facebook collaborative translation platform. The analysis of the data suggests that the Polish Facebook user translators are motivated by a number of factors, both personal as well as social, which primarily contribute to the satisfaction of their needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness. The studied user-translators perceived the Facebook initiative as an opportunity to practice skills and effect change for the better while collaborating with others and experiencing fun. However, the flaws and limitations inherent in the purpose-built Facebook collaborative translation platform frequently prevented the translation activity on Facebook from being carried out as intended. This was found to undermine the satisfaction of needs and thus negatively affect the user-translators’ motivation. Based on these findings, the study characterises the motivations of user-translators in translation crowdsourcing in for-profit contexts and explains how motivation to contribute is affected by the translation platforms provided for the purpose. A set of guidelines for the design of such platforms is offered to organisers of translation crowdsourcing initiatives for consideration in future. Keywords: translation, crowdsourcing, motivation, collaborative translation platfor

Translation and trust: a case study of how translation was experienced by foreign nationals resident in Japan for the 2011 great east Japan earthquake

This thesis examines translation and interpreting in a particular context: the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Motivated by the researcher’s experience of being resident in Tokyo when the disaster struck, a study was carried out to better understand translation and interpreting in this context using the case of foreign residents who experienced the disaster. A constructivist philosophical approach and the academic traditions of ethnography were adopted when designing the case study, and face-to-face, individual interviews with 28 participants from 12 nationalities (Irish, Dutch, French, German, Sudanese, Tunisian, Chinese, Bangladeshi, American, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealander) made up its core primary data. The diverse linguistic and demographic profiles of these participants provided access to multiple perspectives on the objects of enquiry. These perspectives were then analysed over six phases of thematic analysis to describe and explain how foreign residents communicated and gathered information, how translation and interpreting formed part of these activities, and why any of this was important. The analysis suggested that the objects of enquiry can best be understood as written and oral interlingual and intercultural transfer, dominated by the Japanese-English language pair, carried out mostly by volunteers known to the user, to create products that were not always received as translations, but that were valorised when seen to produce timely information of adequate quality. It also suggested that a lack of sufficient resources and a strongly culturally-bound space of interaction created problems for translation and interpreting. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that trust was a significant category in these data. For this reason, a socio-cognitive model of trust was selected and applied to the data to describe and explain the role that translation and interpreting played in some foreign residents’ decisions to trust and to argue for the importance of these phenomena to the existence of trust in this and other disasters