translation process

The project studies the cognitive aspects of the translation process while taking account of the technological and social embeddedness of the translators involved in their real working environments. The primary objective of the research is to expand the established tradition of experimental translation process research with an ethnographic approach in order to boost the ecological validity of findings and extend the process research object. An extension of the research object of this nature presents translation as a socio-cognitive, embodied interaction between people and artefacts. To achieve this, the research will focus both on the situative cognitive processes found in the translation process and on the interaction between translators and those actors and artefacts relevant to a translation project.

The research is being conducted in the form of a multi-case study using participative observation and interviews with (1) two freelance translators, (2) one translation agency, (3) a translation department in a public sector company, and (4) a technical communication department in a technology company and its external translation agency. The qualitative analysis of the data is supplemented by the development and use of appropriate process and network visualisations.

This project is part of a research line on translation students'processes, initiated in 2003 by García, Giozza and D’Gregorio. The goal of the present study is to identify the translation sequence and the use of metacognitive strategies. Hence, the ensuing hypothesis suggests that the study of the translatory processes through data triangulation would allow the identification of the extent to which translator-trainees apply metacognitive strategies. It is based on the translation process model proposed by Delisle and the Translation Competence Model proposed by PACTE group (2003). It is non-experimental, observational research of both qualitative and quantitative nature. The stages of the procedure were as follows: provision of information to the student, translation of a text, concurrent registration of the process through TRANSLOG, TAPs used retrospectively, questionnaire and data segmentation and processing applying a triangular model.Through empirical validation, the proposed methodoly made it possible to identify metacognitive strategies and translation process sequences, as well as the varying degrees of efficiency derived from the TUs (Translation Units) selected by the students. All this provided new insights into the students’ translation process, and will provide the basis for the improvement of the teaching practice and the use of metacognitive strategies by the students.