Ergonomics and the translation process

The translation process can be regarded as a complex system involving many agents, organizational factors such as workflow, communication processes, project management, job security, and translator status. Environmental factors in the physical sense (e.g. lighting, temperature, air quality, space) as well in the broader sense of the role of translation and translators in the economy and society as a whole can also influence the process. Viewing translation from an ergonomic perspective can provide an appropriate framework to understand the impact of such factors on the demanding bilingual activity that translators engage in. Because their work requires close attention and concentration, translators have to exert energy and ultimately cognitive resources to compensate for the distraction of any physical discomfort, delays in computer responsiveness, or frustration with organizational problems. In this article, the relevance of ergonomics and the implications of putting the translator and their translation processes in focus are discussed in light of recent research

Innovative subtitling : a reception study

This paper presents the results of an experimental study investigating reception capacity and audience response to subtitled movies. Twenty-seven viewers were shown four movie excerpts, with commercially available standard subtitling or with innovative subtitling. The latter comprised additional information regarding language and culture-specific elements in the original soundtrack. Data were collected simultaneously with eye-tracking and consecutively with questionnaires. Eye-tracking measured fixation duration and percentage of gaze time in the various areas of interest, whereas the questionnaire assessed accuracy on questions about movie content and audience perception and satisfaction. The results show no significant differences in accuracy between the two conditions, indicating that viewers of subtitled audiovisual productions are able to process more information than established subtitling norms suggest

Applying a newswriting research approach to translation

Translation is a situated activity that involves more than simply producing target texts from source texts. In order to understand what translators actually do when they translate, their psycho-biographies as well as the social setting of the workplace and the contextual resources must be considered. In this paper, we outline how a mixed-method approach originally developed to study the news-writing processes of journalists at their workplaces can be applied in translation process research. We argue that progression analysis, which combines keystroke logging, screen recordings, eye-tracking, and cue-based retrospective verbalization, can be profitably used along with version analysis to gain insights into cognitive aspects of the translation process

Commenting on translation : implications for translator training

As translation research moves towards investigating translation processes and not just products, researchers have begun to examine the effects of those processes on the quality of target texts. Translation products result from the interaction between expectations of what translations should be and those practices and competences by which translators produce acceptable translations within temporal and economic constraints. Translation process models suggest what cognitive decision processes might involve, and competence models outline the expert knowledge and cognitive components assumed necessary for effective translation work. In translator training, translation processes have traditionally been accessed and evaluated through student annotations and other written commentaries. Recently, however, other ways of including explicit input on the translation process have been proposed, including the transfer of process research techniques to understanding and evaluating undergraduate students' translation performance. This paper outlines how methods to investigate translation processes can profitably be applied to translator training. A pilot study conducted in our MA programme shows that making translation processes transparent provides trainers and students with valuable insights into translation behaviour. This transparency facilitates better needs-oriented coaching than product-oriented evaluations can, since many of the considerations in reaching translation solutions can be directly observed rather than assumed

Languages in contact: The influence of language activation and competing language patterns on translation performance

The two pilot studies described in this article, both part of a larger on-going project investigating multilingualism in a translation context, deal with separation of languages in translation students. At the same time, they demonstrate how multilingualism research can be integrated into the translation classroom. Within the framework of Grosjean's model (1997, 1998, 2001), the first study tests the influence on translation performance of preferentially activating one of the languages for the translation version Spanish (L2) into German (L1). The second assesses the transfer of structures from the dominant language in translating from German (L1) into English (L2). Despite the relatively small database, various inferences can be made about multilingual language processing in trainee translators

Informed Consent : Literaturbericht, Verständlichkeitsmodell und Evaluation der swissethics-Templates

Der Bericht besteht aus vier Teilen: Teil I: Hintergrund: Begriffliche, ethische und juristische Problemlage Teil II: Forschungsstand: Literaturbericht aus pragmalinguistischer Perspektive Teil III: Verständlichkeitsmodell für Informed-Consent-Dokumente Teil IV: Evaluation der Informed-Consent-Templates von swissethic

Energiediskurse in der Schweiz : anwendungsorientierte Erforschung eines mehrsprachigen Kommunikationsfelds mittels digitaler Daten

Öffentliche Diskurse über Energiepolitik spielen eine entscheidende Rolle, wenn es darum geht, die «Energiestrategie 2050» der Schweizer Regierung erfolgreich umzusetzen. Das interdisziplinäre Forschungsprojekt «Energiediskurse in der Schweiz» untersucht Muster des öffentlichen Sprachgebrauchs zum Thema. Solche Muster bilden die Grundlage für das öffentliche Verständnis der Themen und Kontroversen im demokratischen Dialog und in der vernetzten Innovation. Das vorliegende «Working Paper» präsentiert das dreijährige Projekt in seinen theoretischen und methodischen Grundzügen ebenso wie ausgewählte Ergebnisse des ersten Projektjahrs. Dazu gehören der Aufbau und die Annotation des digitalen Swiss-AL-Textkorpus ebenso wie Vergleiche zwischen dem Sprachgebrauch in den drei Landessprachen Deutsch, Französisch und Italienisch. So kann beispielsweise der Einfluss von Ereignissen wie der Nuklearkatastrophe in Fukushima Daiichi nachgezeichnet werden, in dem die Hinweise auf das Ereignis über die Jahre hinweg gemessen werden. Zudem gibt es erste Hinweise und Belege dafür, dass die verschiedenen Sprachen den öffentlichen Diskurs über Energiefragen auch unterschiedlich gestalten. Bestimmte Wortkombinationen stehen für Konzepte wie «erneuerbare», «Wind-», «Solar-», «Nuklear-» oder «fossile» Energien, wobei diese Konzepte in den verschiedenen Sprachen unterschiedlich gewichtet sind. Argumentationsstrategien beispielsweise in Bezug auf die «erneuerbaren Energien» scheinen sich ebenfalls zu unterscheiden, so dass es angezeigt ist, in der Fortsetzung des Projekts die nationalen und regionalen Diskurse je für sich und detaillierter zu untersuchen. Im Fokus der nächsten Projektphasen werden systematische Analysen zu diskursiven Kontroversen und Koalitionen stehen, um Diskursnetzwerke zwischen relevanten Akteuren zu identifizieren.Public discourse about energy policies plays a key role in the successful implementation of the Swiss energy strategy. The interdisciplinary research project Energy Discourses in Switzerland focuses on the patterns of language use related to energy policy. Patterns of language use are understood and analyzed as drivers or constraints of democratic dialogue and collective innovation in the field. This working paper outlines exemplary results of the project work in the first year of the 3-year project, including exploratory analyses of the Swiss-AL corpus and comparisons of the discourses typical of actors whose public communication is in one of the Swiss national languages or some combination of them. The influence of events such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on public discourse were traced by mapping the frequency of references to that event in texts. The changes over time of terms associated with energy issues also provided indications of the development of public discourses. Initial analyses of the multilingual Swiss-AL corpus indicate that the way that energy in its various forms is discussed seems to differ depending on the language of the texts. The most frequent word combinations represent concepts such as renewable, hydro, wind, solar, nuclear, and fossil-fueled energy but the order of importance differs for German, French, Italian, and English. Argumentation strategies also seem to vary not only between languages but also between multilingual and monolingual sources in the Swiss-AL corpus, suggesting that national and local discourses need to be examined separately and in more detail. The focus of the next phase of the project will be on systematically analysing discourse controversies and coalitions in order to identify discursively linked actor networks