The Handbook of Translation and Cognition

John W. Schwieter, Aline Ferreira, John W. Schwieter, Aline Ferreira

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119241478
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Psicolinguistica

The Handbook of Translation and Cognition is a pioneering, state-of-the-art investigation of cognitive approaches to translation and interpreting studies (TIS).

• Offers timely and cutting-edge coverage of the most important theoretical frameworks and methodological innovations
• Contains original contributions from a global group of leading researchers from 18 countries
• Explores topics related to translator and workplace characteristics including machine translation, creativity, ergonomic perspectives, and cognitive effort, and competence, training, and interpreting such as multimodal processing, neurocognitive optimization, process-oriented pedagogies, and conceptual change
• Maps out future directions for cognition and translation studies, as well as areas in need of more research within this dynamic field

Part I
Introduction

1
Translation and Cognition
An Overview

ALINE FERREIRA AND JOHN W. SCHWIETER

1.1 Introduction

Translation has been carried out for millennia, but understanding the particularities of the complicated process of transforming a piece of information from one language into another increasingly intrigues researchers around the world. Perhaps this is one of the many reasons why researchers have become so motivated to conduct studies explaining the processes of translation and interpreting. The integration of cognitive science into translation and interpreting studies (TIS) has formed an interdisciplinary‐rich field that is the foundation and impetus of The Handbook of Translation and Cognition. In a comprehensive and critical review, the Handbook builds on existing theories and research designs by bringing together contributions from international experts affiliated with institutions and research centers in 18 countries.

As noted by Ferreira, Schwieter, and Gile (2015), “the continued diversity and ever‐deepening exploration of various aspects of translation and interpreting are naturally associated with interdisciplinarity and […] the input of cognitive science has been considerable” (p. 7). We exploit this observation in this introductory chapter by foreshadowing prominent themes at the forefront of research in translation and cognition. In the following sections, we briefly present and comment on each of the chapters in the Handbook in the order that they appear within the main parts of the book, namely: theoretical advances; methodological innovations; translator and workplace characteristics; competence, training, and interpreting; and moving forward.

1.2 Theoretical Advances

In Part II, “Theoretical Advances,” nine chapters present an overview of translation process research (TPR) and discuss the contributions from and interfaces with cognitive science. In Chapter 2, “Translation Process Research” by Arnt Lykke Jakobsen, the author provides a review of the behavioral‐cognitive experimental paradigm that has been popularly used by researchers around the world. Jakobsen explains the correlation between the events in the mind and the body when humans translate. He presents the historical context of TPR and its development since the first methodologies such as think‐aloud protocols. The chapter paints a colorful picture of current TPR and illuminates how translation itself is changing as a result of multimedia forms and machine translation.

Chapter 3, “Models of the Translation Process” by Michael Carl and Moritz Schaeffer, reviews translation models since the late 1940s. Models of translation processes have been developed for machine and human translation and in both TS (translation studies) and in computational linguistics. The idea of linguistic stratification was the basis for translation models, mostly established on the belief that the syntax of natural languages could be formalized. The authors explain rule‐based and example‐based machine translation, focusing on the decoding process of the source text (ST), followed by the analysis, transfer, and regeneration of sentences in the target text (TT). In the 1980s, as humans continued to gain access to personal computers and more translations were conducted in electronic format, the foundations of statistical machine translations (SMTs) were formulated. Also around the same time, more attention was given to translation functions in the target culture, and less to the linguistic aspects of the STs. The authors move to review models based on empirical data (Gutt, 1991/2000; PACTE, 2003; Risku, Windhager, & Apfelthaler, 2013) and discuss Schaeffer and Carl’s (2013) recursive translation process model. The chapter demonstrates that both TS and TPR have generated models and hypotheses that have been concerned with both translation process and product, by investigating typical phenomena in the product, the representation of translation in the translator’s mind, and how translations are carried out. Although experiments have been conducted across different languages and tasks, there is still a need to formalize, operationalize, and test the variables that have been identified as relevant in TPR.

Based on the notion that written, auditory, and audiovisual translations are built on two cognitive processes—production and reception—Chapter 4 by Kruger and Kruger, “Cognition and Reception,” discusses the importance of a more solid, empirical approach to translation effects. The asymmetrical focus on producers and receivers in cognitive studies is discussed, and it is clear that the importance of analyzing how the translated texts are reconstituted every time the product is read, viewed, and received has been neglected in the literature. An overview of Chesterman’s (1997) explanation of translation effects on the reader is presented (i.e., change of mental state, change in actions, and effects in the target culture or intercultural relationships). Kruger and Kruger first explain the relevance of the analysis of cognitive processing in the reception of translation. A target orientation has been accepted by scholars (Chesterman, 1997; Nida & Taber, 2003/1969); however, how receivers (both original and receivers of translations) respond to those texts is scarcely investigated. As such, Kruger and Kruger present a critical review of the links between cognitive‐linguistic and sociocultural or ideological approaches to translation, followed by an explanation of the connections between the micro‐level of cognitive processing and the macro‐level of texts, cultures, and ideologies. A brief discussion on the theory of mind (Annoni, Lee‐Jahnke, & Sturm, 2012) is offered to examine the translator’s ability to assess the target audience’s knowledge and needs, which is related to a person’s mental state. Next, Kruger and Kruger present the theoretical models of translation reception, followed by a discussion on usability studies, accessibility, and translation evaluation. They also offer an overview of empirical research on cognitive processing in terms of reception for written and audiovisual translation from different perspectives, such as reading behavior, cognitive effort, comprehension, and attitudes. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the complexity characteristic of cognitive processing in translation spanning several modalities.

In Chapter 5, “Directionality in Translation,” Ferreira and Schwieter bring to light the importance of translating into a non‐mother language (inverse translation, IT) and how research in this area has not been adequately recognized even though its practice may be more common than translation into the mother language (direct translation, DT). Traditional assumptions regarding the superiority of DT relative to IT have been made without empirical support, even though IT is a necessity as it may be difficult to have access to translators who are native speakers of the target language. The authors analyze the few empirical studies that have compared DT and IT and their often misleading discussions of the translator’s ability to perform IT. They also review data from questionnaires carried out in Europe, where IT seems to be a common practice accepted by both clients and translators. The idea of the perfect translator, or a balanced bilingual, is briefly discussed. From a Chomskyan perspective, the perfect informant would be an authority on the language and would be able to make grammatical judgments. The chapter considers issues relating to a translator’s identity and ideologies and notes that in terms of social and cultural approaches, little interest has been shown in answering these important questions. Both IT practice and teaching have been criticized by scholars without having the empirical data to support their claims. The field has now reached a point where studies must be developed to not only describe IT’s specificities but also the development of IT competence. Future work should try to uncover the array of variables that play a role in the translation process, including translators’ own abilities and experiences.

Celia Martín de León, in Chapter 6, “Mental Representations,” discusses two perspectives of mental representations: The first defines a mental representation as an image‐like or a language‐like construct, and the second explains cognition through mental representations. The chapter begins by discussing the nature of mental representations and how their components have been tested in multiple frameworks and by different philosophers over the last century. It then turns to symbolic representations in cognitive science from a relevance theory perspective and to the imagery debate and its role in TS. Focusing on social and cultural dimensions, Martín de León applies experience‐based mental representations to TS, assuming that mental representations may be differently organized by different groups (source culture and target culture) and that translators would be able to identify such differences. Experiential mental representations are also used to describe the translators in a user‐centered approach, as well as to describe how TTs are mapped. Next, she explains embodied representations and mental simulations in cognitive science, including image schemas, followed by a review of how they form part of TS. According to these approaches, cognition relies on mental representations, although alternative perspectives are also discussed. The chapter concludes with a commentary on how the mind and world are coupled in dynamic ways and that mental representations are “more like internal simulations of external actions and situations than like internal static structures.”

Chapter 7, “Aspects of a Cognitive Model of Translation,” is contributed by Gregory M. Shreve and Isabel Lacruz. The chapter explains how translation and cognition has developed in sync during the last two decades and how there is every reason to believe that it will continue to rapidly increase. The fusion of translation and cognition allows research to build a solid empirical framework that supports the creation of a robust cognitive model of translation. The chapter presents a review of translation competence as understood by Wilss (1976) and discusses the cognitive resources required during translation as interpreted in expertise studies. The authors also discuss the idea that being able to solve transfer problems is a required starting point for a cognitive translation model. Under this assumption, the process of solving transfer problems, based on several knowledges, is presented. Because reading, writing, and transfer are essential components of translation processes, the authors provide an overview of models from various perspectives. They point out that there is not a wide range of theoretical apparatus to explain the transfer process of a comprehensive psycholinguistic model of reading, text comprehension, and writing. Perhaps the most significant contribution of the model is that it provides an explanation of the transfer processes that occur between ST reading and TT writing. The chapter transitions to explain that translation is a complex cross‐language activity that involves sequences of activation and inhibition. This discussion integrates language switching models from the bilingual literature into translation activities and explains a cognitive model of translation that situates activities such as reading, writing, and transfer within the scope of general and specialized models of cognition and bilingualism. The integration of models from various disciplines can lead to more robust models of translation processes.

In Chapter 8, “Bilingualism in Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies,” Schwieter and Ferreira outline issues related to the interface between cognitive bilingualism and TIS. A discussion on the differences and similarities between translation and interpreting from psycholinguistic perspectives is first contextualized, followed by a review on language recoding as articulated in Christoffels’ (2004) meaning‐based strategy and transcoding strategy. The authors underscore the differences between translation and interpreting—both of which are complex tasks, yet involve different strategies and decision‐making processes. The chapter then turns to a discussion on literal translation and cognitive effort (Schaeffer & Carl, 2014; Tirkkonen‐Condit, 2005) and then to an examination of the role of working memory (WM) in interpreting tasks. Key studies are reviewed that measure the relationship between WM and multilingualism while focusing on the multilingual lexicon and multilingualism in general. The cognitive consequences of bilingualism are presented in a brief review of important studies that have analyzed different groups of bilinguals in order to access executive control, among other asp...