Abstracts
Abstract
The paper investigates the notion of Translation Units (TUs) from a cognitive angle. A TU is defined as the translator’s focus of attention at a time. Since attention can be directed towards source text (ST) understanding and/or target text (TT) production, we analyze the activity data of the translators’ eye movements and keystrokes. We describe methods to detect patterns of keystrokes (production units) and patterns of gaze fixations on the source text (fixation units) and compare translation performance of student and professional translators. Based on 24 translations from English into Danish of a 160 word text we find major differences between students and professionals: Experienced professional translators are better able to divide their attention in parallel on ST reading (comprehension) and TT production, while students operate more in an alternating mode where they either read the ST or write the TT. In contrast to what is frequently expected, our data reveals that TUs are rather coarse units as compared to the notion of ‘translation atom,’ which coincide only partially with linguistic units.
Keywords:
- human translation process,
- granularity of translation units,
- production unit,
- fixation unit,
- attention in translation
Résumé
Le présent article examine la notion d’unités de traduction (UT) sous un angle cognitif. Une UT est définie comme l’unité sur laquelle l’attention du traducteur se focalise. L’attention pouvant être dirigée vers la compréhension du texte source (ST) ou la production du texte cible (TT), ou les deux, le mouvement des yeux et le rythme de frappe des traducteurs sont tous deux analysés. Nous décrivons des méthodes permettant de repérer les motifs de frappe (unités de production) et les schémas de fixation du regard sur le texte source (unités de fixation). De plus, nous comparons les performances des étudiants avec celles des traducteurs professionnels. La principale différence entre les étudiants et les traducteurs professionnels réside dans le fait que ceux-ci sont mieux en mesure de diviser leur attention et de l’accorder de façon parallèle à la lecture ST (compréhension) et à la production de TT, tandis que les étudiants tendent à alterner la lecture du ST et la rédaction du TT. Enfin, contrairement à ce qui est généralement attendu, nos données révèlent que les UT sont assez grossières, comparativement à la notion d’« atome de traduction », qui coïncide seulement partiellement avec les unités linguistiques.
Mots-clés :
- processus de traduction humaine,
- granularité des unités de traduction,
- unité de production,
- unité de fixation,
- attention en traduction
Appendices
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