New Advances in Legal Translation and Interpreting

Neveu A., Lacruz I.

Synonyms in a target language are a source of ambiguity in translation production. This ambiguity can be quantified by the translation entropy metric and used to assess predictions by different models on the time course of target language activation in the translation process. Aggregated data from several language pairs and translation modalities reveal a correlation between translation entropy and eye tracking metrics, providing evidence of early target language activation during translation tasks. We examine published data from CRITT to investigate whether this correlation remains present in the single Spanish-English language pair. We confirm previous findings when all translation modalities are aggregated, but present evidence that early target language activation may vary across different translation modalities in the Spanish-English language pair.

Lacruz I.

We provide an overview of the contributions to this volume, elaborating on how they relate to each other and to the overall theme.

Shreve G.M.

The complex-adaptive systems model is useful for understanding translational behavior and cognition in a way that unites our discipline with others (economics, biology, psychology) investigating complex, non-linear, dynamical, and adaptive systems. We can recast some conceptions of the development of translation expertise and the methods and strategies of translation pedagogy using the metalanguage and concepts of complexity theory. Donald Kiraly realized this earlier, and this article extrapolates upon his innovative work. In particular, we examine the role of boundary conditions and “strange attractors” in the systemic emergence of behavioral patterns such as Halverson’s “default translations.” We examine how introducing new attractors as “lever points” can disrupt student translational systems and cause them to shift and settle into more pedagogically desirable phase spaces.

Karakanta A., Orrego-Carmona D.

One of the largest projects of volunteer subtitling is the TED Talk Translators programme, with more than 3000 talks subtitled in 115 languages, the programme has been constantly adapting to respond to the increasing popularity of TED Talks with a robust quality assurance process, training material and adoption of tools. In this work, we pose the question of whether this constant transition and refinement of the workflows has an effect on the quality of the subtitles and their adequacy. Our corpus-based investigation using subtitling and linguistic features provides evidence in favour of a chronological transition from a “plain” translation of the source transcript, which does not consider subtitling constraints, to well-formed subtitles.

Xiao K., Li W.

Frequent use of metaphors is a distinctive feature of the Chinese scholar Qian Zhongshu’s popular novel Weicheng (Fortress Besieged). Its English translation by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K. Mao was well received in the English-speaking world. What are readers’ responses to and comments on the metaphors in this novel, and how are the translated metaphors received by target language readers, compared to their reception by source language readers? Our big data based study uses sentiment analysis to break new ground and improve our understanding of English readers’ reception of English translations of Chinese metaphors, which inevitably impose a heavy cultural load. We also discuss the implications of the differences with Chinese readers’ reception of metaphors in the original work.

Yamada M.

Many translators and language service providers (LSPs) emphasize a distinction between human translation (HT) and post-editing (PE). As the perceived divide between the two tasks grows, the differing social status of HT and PE becomes more pronounced. This has consequences for professional identity as well as compensation. But are HT and PE substantially different? We examine this question, mainly by reinterpreting previous studies in translation process research. Based on these findings, we argue that HT and PE are not radically different in terms of the skills and effort required to achieve their shared goal of ensuring consistent, quality translations. Therefore, the perception among practitioners and LSPs of PE being easier and of lesser quality than HT may be baseless.

Xu S., Pan J., Carl M.

Note-taking serves an important memory-supporting role in consecutive interpreting. It greatly facilitates the reproduction of the same message in another language. Previous research mainly focused on note-taking and interpreting performance but studies failed to reach consensus on whether and how choice of form and language in note-taking influences interpreting performance. This was possibly due to lack of consistency in annotation of the notes and the fact that note-taking itself diverts interpreters’ attention from listening to the source language and analyzing the message. We take a different perspective on note-taking, exploring economy and efficiency and using empirical data to examine their interrelationship. We also propose a novel classification and annotation schema, which can be used in future large-scale investigations.

Gilbert D.

In 2018, the first claims of empirical backing for human-machine parity in translation (HMPT) emerged at the WMT18 Conference on Machine Translation and in a study using WMT resources. Other researchers quickly refuted these claims, pointing to a flawed human evaluation campaign. Subsequent HMPT claims at WMT19 were also empirically refuted. This chapter discusses the evolution of recommendations for human evaluation of MT stemming from these claims to HMPT and evaluates possibilities of HMPT at WMT20 in the context of these recommendations. Finally, we summarize all criteria for human evaluation of MT based on recent literature.

Tokowicz N.

Many words can be translated in more than one way across languages. For example, the German word Kiefer can be translated into English as both pine and jaw. This mis-mapping of translations across languages, known as translation ambiguity, causes difficulty in language processing and language learning. Here, I discuss how translation ambiguity affects language processing in bilinguals of various proficiencies, including individuals who were raised bilingual. I further describe an analysis aimed at understanding how the disadvantage associated with translation ambiguity changes with increased second language proficiency.

Carl M.

Horizontal (automatic) and vertical (control) processes have been observed and reported for a long time in translation production. Schaeffer and Carl’s Monitor Model integrates these two processes into one framework, assuming that priming mechanisms underlie horizontal/automatic processes, while vertical/monitoring processes implement consciously accessible control mechanisms. The Monitor Model has been criticized in various ways and several misconceptions have accumulated over the past years. In this chapter, I update the Monitor Model with additional evidence and argue that it is compatible with an enactivist approach to cognition. I address several misconceptions related to the Monitor Model.

Gilbert D., Toledo-Báez C., Carl M., Espino H.

Many of the findings from studies using the Center for Research and Innovation in Translation and Translation Technology (CRITT) Translation Process Research Database (TPR-DB) framework rely on word(s)-to-word(s) alignments of the source text and target text. However, little research has been done on the impacts different alignment methods have on these findings. This study compares two different manual word alignment methods and four automatic word alignment methods on the basis of one English-Spanish TPR-DB study that has been used extensively (the BML12 dataset). We replicate past findings from the BML12 dataset using these different alignments in order to determine the impact of alignment, and we present qualitative/quantitative analyses of the different word-alignment methods.

Sun J., Lu Z., Lacruz I., Ma L., Fan L., Huang X., Zhou B.

For several language pairs, an emerging consensus finds that post-editing of machine translations is faster and less cognitively effortful than from-scratch human translation, resulting in increased translator productivity and decreased translator fatigue. These benefits have yet to be robustly established in some language pairs that are linguistically and culturally remote with very different writing systems. We carry out a systematic Chinese-to-English study using keystroke logger timing measures and eye-tracking measures of cognitive effort, taking into account translator education levels, different source text domains, and quality of the translation product. We observe significant post-editing productivity gains for more highly educated participants and for more straightforward and less technical texts. Measures of cognitive effort show significantly reduced cognitive effort in post-editing.

Cheung A.K.

Torres-Simón E., Pym A.

Torres del Rey J.