Translation Problem Detection: a Pilot Experiment into Students Keystrokes

Transcription

1 1 Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Margo Wattel Translation Problem Detection: a Pilot Experiment into Students Keystrokes Masterproef voorgedragen tot het behalen van de graad van Master in het Vertalen 2014 Promotor Prof. Dr. Sonia Vandepitte Vakgroep Vertalen Tolken Communicatie

2 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Sonia Vandepitte, for her time and ideas and my sincere gratitude to the students who voluntarily participated in the experiment. Without Prof. Dr. Sonia Vandepitte and the participants, this dissertation could simply not exist. My gratitude also goes to my parents, for giving me the chance to study and to my sister, for her everlasting support. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to my cousin for proofreading my dissertation.

3 3 ABSTRACT This is an exploratory study into keystroke logging as a research method for the potential translation problem of NPAPARP structures. The focus of this study is the search for potential translation problems, and in particular, it investigates the extent to which the so-called NPAPARP structure raises translation problems. To reach this aim a translation experiment was organised where one master student's en one first-year student's keystrokes were logged using the screen recording programme Morae. In addition to pauses, the deletions which were made by the participants during the translation process were also examined as possible indicators of translation problems or difficulties. Furthermore, the experiment also delivered translation products which can be subjected to a quality assessment to see whether and how well potential problems were solved. The results were not always as would have been expected: it was discovered that both the trained and untrained student paused longer when translating paragraphs without NPAPARPs and that the majority of the deletions also took place in paragraphs without NPAPARPs. Moreover, some very good translations were found for the NPAPARPs by both the trained and untrained participants, and a wide range of other problems, which were more disturbing than the less good NPAPARP translations, were discovered in the translation product. However, due to its limited number of participants, this study can only inspire other research, call attention to its shortages and provide advice for better research methods.

4 4 Table of Contents 1. Introduction Focus Theoretical Framework Definition of a translation problem Detection of a translation problem Research into NPAPARPs Experienced versus inexperienced translators Research objectives and hypotheses Data and methods Participants Materials Experimental set-up Analysis of the data Results Time Pauses Deletions Quality of the translation Translation of the NPAPARP structure Change of content Grammatical errors Problems with collocations Quality and time Conclusions Bibliography Appendix A. Discussion of translation process per paragraph Trained Untrained... 43

5 5 Appendix B. English source material Trained participant one Untrained participant Trained participant two Appendix C. Dutch translations Trained participant one Untrained participant Trained participant two... 54

6 6 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Focus The teaching of translation was originally a part of the teaching of foreign languages, but in the 20th century translation became a separate topic for study. The training of translators is thus a relatively young discipline, which requires continuous research to ensure the most efficient teaching methods in the present environment. An example of an important topic which cannot be ignored during the training of translators and which is the subject of much research due to its many forms is the translation problem. To guarantee that the students will be as best prepared as possible for their task, the acquisition of methods to recognise and solve potential translation problems, which graduates may encounter later on in their lives, is essential, and research can deliver these useful indicators and strategies. This is an exploratory study into keystroke logging as a research method for the potential translation problem of NPAPARP structures. According to Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011: 68) an NPAPARP (non-prototypical agent 1 with a prototypical agent requiring predicate) is "the combination of an abstract or non-human noun that typically causes or helps cause the action expressed by the predicate, with a predicate that usually requires a human agent". The NPAPARP structure is thus an example of metonymic, i.e. figurative, language usage. Vandepitte and Hartsuiker also mention some examples to show what is meant with an NPAPARP structure and to clarify why they see it as a possible translation problem. One of those example sentences with an NPAPARP in Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011: 68) is "Money buys action and influence". The Dutch word-for-word translation "Geld koopt actie en invloed" is clearly unsatisfactory and gets a question mark in front of it. Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011: 71) states that "languages seem to have different degrees of tolerance with respect to [agent prototypicality] (...). English, for example, is fairly flexible and easily accepts non-human nouns that fulfil the Proto-Agent features to a lesser degree or not at all". The Dutch language, in contrast, favours a passive voice, a general subject or a prepositional phrase, which was applied in the second translation which was proposed for the example sentence: "Met geld koop je actie en invloed". 1 In this study agent is used in the same broad sense as in Vandepitte et al. (2011), which means it includes "both the person performing the action expressed by the predicate and the object that helps perform the action".

7 7 The focus of this study will be the search for potential translation problems, and in particular, it will investigate the extent to which the so-called NPAPARP structure raises translation problems. To reach this aim a translation experiment with keystroke logging will be organised. This study can be situated in the cognitive branch of Translation Studies, since its aim is to discover what is happening inside the minds of the translators when they encounter a specific translation problem and struggle to solve it. There will also be a quality assessment, which means the linguistic approach of Translation Studies will also receive some attention. Although this structure has already been at the centre of several studies, findings have been mixed. We wish to discover what information can be retrieved from new data and whether the analysis of this information supports the hypothesis of the NPAPARP structure as a translation problem. In addition, the results may show whether the present training suffices to handle the potential translation problem. Moreover, this pilot experiment could reveal other translation problems which deserve equal or even more attention in the training of translators. Before the experiment can be initiated, some questions must first be considered: "When can something be considered a translation problem and how can a potential translation problem be detected?", "What is already known about the translation of NPAPARP structure from English into Dutch?",and "Does the structure constitute a problem for all translation students alike?". To answer all of these questions an analysis of the state of the art is necessary. 1.2 Theoretical Framework This section contains information on how a translation problem has been defined in the past and which working definition will be applied in this thesis. In addition there will be a title dedicated to the different methods which can be used to detect translation problems. Of course, the research into NPAPARPs and the influence of experience cannot be omitted Definition of a translation problem Nord (2005) differentiates four kinds of translation problems: pragmatic translation problems, convention-related translation problems, text-specific translation problems and linguistic

8 8 translation problems. Pragmatic translation problems are mainly a consequence of a contradiction within the extratextual factors of the source text and target text, e.g. motive, medium, receivers, etc. and can occur during all translation tasks. Convention-related translation problems are the consequence of different customs in the source and target culture such as measurement units. Text-specific translation problems concern for example the style of a specific work and cannot be generalised. Finally, linguistic translation problems are caused by structural differences between languages, especially concerning lexicon and syntax and can occur during all translation tasks with a specific language pair and in both translation directions. The NPAPARP structure clearly constitutes a linguistic translation problem, when this classification of translation problems is applied, since it has to do with a different tolerance towards the violation of grammatical principles in English and Dutch. Nord (2005) also makes a distinction between translation problems and translation difficulties. She briefly explains the difference between general and personal problems: Nord sees translation problems as objective problems which the translator encounters during the translation process and which he/she will always encounter, no matter how much expertise he/she gains. Translation difficulties, on the other hand, are translator- and situation-bound problems. Krings (1986), on the other hand, did not yet have a clear separation between translation problems and difficulties. He explains a translation problem as a moment where the translation of a specific part of text becomes subjectively problematic, a definition which would better suit a translation difficulty according to Nord (2005). This subjective problem can be large or small, but the sense of an unbridgeable obstacle, jamming the translation process, is always present. It would seem that he believed he could identify translation problems by examining the translation difficulties of advanced language students through verbal data analysis. He wanted to create an overview of all occurring types of problems by scrutinising individual problems, i.e. translation difficulties. To this end he had developed a set of problem indicators, among which were the subjects explicit statement of problems, the use of reference works, untranslated parts and pauses. However, the detection of translation problems will be discussed more elaborately in the following section. When Krings had finally identified all problems he decided to categorise them into reception problems, production problems and reception-production problems: the first

9 9 originating from miscomprehension or lack of comprehension of the source text, the second ones being a consequence of the search to find the right words to express what had been understood from the source text and the latter being a combination of both others. Nord's theory on translation problems and difficulties will be the one applied in this study because it clearly states that not every issue during a translation process and/or with the translation product is necessarily a translation problem: the issue may be due to a translation difficulty. Moreover, she remarks that in some cases a translation problem may even turn into a translation difficulty, for example, if the translator lacks the tools or knowledge to solve a translation problem. When the translator does, however, possess the knowledge required to solve a translation problem, the manner in which he/she comes to this solution is not always clear: just like any other cognitive process, the cognitive process which follows the recognition of a translation problem cannot be seen with the naked eye; the mind is, as they say, a black box Detection of a translation problem Researchers have found several methods to attempt to peer inside the translation process since the 1980's. Many of the models and methodologies used in the cognitive branch of Translation Studies have been adopted from cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics, as is pointed out by Halverson (2008). The popular methods for data collection, which were introduced in those early days, were listed by Jakobsen (2006) as self-observation (introspection), interviews (retrospection) and think aloud vocalizations. Those methods became unpopular because it was assumed that the verbal data, collected both during and after the translation act, were incomplete and irrelevant to the study, and distorted the process. Jakobsen (2011) mentions that although Ericsson and Simon (1984) tried to address and refute those problems, experiments performed in Copenhagen contradict some of their claims and confirm the disadvantages of verbal data. Technological progress has opened new doors, enabling further exploration of the translator's mind. One of the new methods which has been made possible by the use of computers is keystroke logging. Keystroke logging is, as described by Spelman Miller and Sullivan (2006), the electronic recording of all actions performed by the writer or translator as he/she writes on a word processor. This includes keystrokes and mouse movements, together with an exact time record.

10 10 This method allows researchers to reconstruct the writing process (production, navigation and deletion) and subsequently to analyse the fluency of the writing process (where and when the writer or translator paused, and for how long). One advantage of keystroke logging, compared to the previously mentioned methods, is the lack of interference from the researcher, creating a more natural environment for the participants of the study. Another is the factual nature of the data, compared to those retrieved from for example the think-aloud method. Moreover, the exact "time stamp", which is impossible with the other methods, has proven to be very helpful in pausological studies, as is explained in the following paragraph. In the variety of information sources used in the cognitive branch of Translation Studies to discover cognitive processes, pauses are very popular. Göpferich (2008) refers to Séguinot (1989) Jakobsen (1998), Krings (2001), Hansen (2002), Alves (2006), O'Brien (2006) and Englund Dimitrova (2005;2006) as studies which assume that pauses during translation indicate cognitive processes. Pauses can be categorised as online retrieved indirect evidence. The fact that the information is not given directly by the writer or translator could be seen as an advantage, since subjectivity can be avoided. In addition, the real-time (online) registration of pauses eliminates misjudgements through forgetfulness afterwards. The key assumption with the study of pauses is that by analysing the pauses it will be possible to better understand the cognitive processes that are taking place during the translation. The duration and frequency of the pauses may indicate how much cognitive effort it costs the translator to translate a certain text. In the writing process, a pause can take place between every two keystrokes. There will, of course, always be a short period of inactivity between every stroke, but it would not be very meaningful to count all these inactive moments as pauses. Therefore, as a working definition, pauses can be defined as transition times which are longer than the median intra-word transition time, i.e. the "normal" transition time. As for the duration of this "normal" transition time, there are no official values so far, which means researchers have to decide for themselves which criterion they will apply. Wengelin (2006) pointed out that several researchers, including herself, had opted for a "normal" transition time of two seconds, considering all inactivity taking longer than two seconds as a pause. There are at least two advantages and one disadvantage to this approach of determining pause lengths

11 11 beforehand. First of all, the use of the two-second criterion improves comparability, since other researchers have used the same criterion and future investigators can also adopt it. Moreover, there can be no doubt that a pause is anything other than that, since two seconds is already a long time for even a slow writer to find the next key. The evidence for that statement can be found in Wengelin (2006), where reference was made to two corpora for native language writing of different types of texts, viz. a picture elicited narrative, a personal narrative, an argumentative text, a route direction and a job application in the first corpus and a personal narrative and an expository text in the second corpus. The maximum median intra-word transition time of a dyslectic writer is said to be 0.796s and 1.083s with a fourth grader. Göpferich (2008) mentions that Jakobsen (1998) also recognised that every interruption lasting over 1s could be a pause. He believed that any interruption shorter than 1s could be due to poor typing skills. Here also lies the disadvantage of using a pre-determined "normal" transition time for everybody: not everyone has the same typing speed. Ideally a pause should be defined individually. Every moment of inactivity which takes longer than the mean time the participant needs to find the next key is a pause. Whether this pause is a short one, a normal one or a long one should again be determined for each participant separately. However, in the experiment of this study the participants will all be students, i.e. young people who have interacted with others through typing on social network sites for the larger part of their lives, which means they can all be considered to be fast typists and should have similar mean transition times. In addition, according to Wengelin (2006), university students were also the fastest writers in both corpora with a respective mean median intra-word transition time of 0.247s and s. The mean median intra-word transition time for students thus lies around 0.200s and this seems to be the best standard to apply, because a normal transition of a little under two seconds is unimaginable and one second is apparently already abnormal for a dyslectic person. Concerning the location of pauses, it can clearly be concluded from Goldman-Eisler (1968), Swerts (1998) and Wengelin (2001,2002), all mentioned in Wengelin (2006), that both in spoken and written language the boundaries of larger linguistic units are more susceptible for pauses than those of smaller units. This alternation of typing and pausing could be seen as a pulse, a rhythm, which Schilperoord in 1996 suitably called the "cognitive rhythm", as is mentioned in Jakobsen (2006:104).

12 12 There appears to be a correlation between pause location and pause duration. Spelman Miller (2006) indicated that in 1993 Phinney and Khouri discovered that there is a general tendency for pauses to be shorter within words and at word ends, whereas with higher level units they become longer. Spelman Miller was able to confirm this in 2000, as is reported in Wengelin (2006). For this study, this means that a long pause in the middle of a word, for example which is part of the translation of the NPAPARP structure, is an indication of a problem Research into NPAPARPs Since the NPAPARP structure is more acceptable in the English language than in Dutch, Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011) aimed to show that this structure is a translation problem by means of an experiment. If the results confirmed their assumption, this would mean that this translation problem deserves more attention in the training of translators. The aim of the experiment was to identify at which speed untrained and trained students can translate sentences with prototypical and non-prototypical agents. During the translation the software Morae recorded all keystrokes and mouse clicks and provided them with a timestamp. The untrained participants were first-year students in the bachelor in applied language studies and the trained ones were students in the master of translation programme. The conclusion which could be drawn from the results is that NPAPARPs do constitute a translation problem, since both untrained and trained students needed more time to translate sentences with non-prototypical agents than with prototypical agents. In addition to investigating the process, the study also looked at the translations themselves. These showed that both untrained and trained students most of the time, respectively in 83.3% and 72.7% of the cases, could not resist copying the NPAPARP structure in Dutch. In his master's thesis, Delsoir (2011) performed a study to confirm that those Dutch NPAPARP structures which were produced by the students in Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011) are unacceptable for native speakers of Dutch. He concluded that, although nearly a fifth of the translated sentences were considered completely acceptable, the rest was deemed just acceptable or unacceptable. Using the data collected in Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011), a series of case studies were set up, of which one is quite relevant to the present study. The results of the particular case study, together with those of the other studies, were reported in an unpublished manuscript written by

13 13 Vandepitte, Hartsuiker and Van Assche. The case study was a quantitative and qualitative exploratory study into all pauses of one randomly selected student to see whether metonymic constructions slow down translation and cause longer pauses because they need more thought. Many results were revealed to be statistically insignificant. However, the duration of the pauses in the final position of the sentence proved to be significant and supported the hypothesis that metonymic sentences require more cognitive effort than non-metonymic ones: with the metonymic sentences, the total duration of final pauses is s and the mean duration per sentence 2.26 s compared to s and 1.25 s with the non-metonymic ones respectively. Moreover, it was observed that apart from metonymy some non-metonymic constructions also posed some difficulties to translate. Furthermore, the quantitative process findings were related to the quality of the translation and they found that there appears to be no relation between quality and time spent on the translation. Finally, it was concluded that although this participant's high number of final pauses and long final pause duration may already indicate that the NPAPARP structure deserves more investigation and that a well-designed experiment is required to compare the effects of the structure on both comprehension and text production. A study that researched the effect of the NPAPARPs on comprehension was Van Goethem's master's thesis (2012). She found that it was difficult to determine why the sentences with NPAPARPs in Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011) took longer to translate and were unidiomatically translated in Dutch. She assumed that the pauses and unidiomatic Dutch constructions were the consequence of an understanding problem that was caused by the abstract nature of the English sentences. In addition, Van Goethem wanted to create an experiment with higher ecological validity than in Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011), where the group of participants was asked to translate isolated sentences. A reading test with eye-tracking was set up, which would show where the participants, students from the master of translation and the firstyear bachelor in applied language studies, had trouble understanding, i.e. what their eyes focussed on. The material that was used was the same as in Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011), but this time incorporated into larger paragraphs. The first research question Van Goethem posed in her study was whether translation students would experience comprehension problems when confronted with NPAPARP structures during a reading task for comprehension. In the conclusion, the hypothesis that NPAPARP structures

14 14 would increase the workload on the brain was tested against the results of the reading test with eye tracking. It was found that both untrained and trained translation students seemed to experience processing trouble when reading NPAPARP constructions, compared to sentences containing prototypical agents. The presence of NAPARPs triggered an increase in first fixation durations in verb and end zones and an increase in the gaze durations in verb, noun and end zones, elevated dilation pupil sizes and a lower number of regressions into and out of the area of interest. Concerning the research question whether the availability of context would improve the ability of students to process NPAPARPs, the expected results were that both trained and untrained students woul have less difficulty processing NPAPARP structures embedded in a paragraph than when they occur in isolated sentences. The increase in processing ease will then be shown in fewer regressions, shorter gaze durations, first fixation durations and go past times and smaller pupil dilations. Van Goethem found that gaze durations, regressions into the area of interest and pupil dilations increased when participants were reading isolated sentences, i.e. when no context was provided. According to Van Goethem, the data analysis of these three measures is sufficient to suggest that context has a positive effect on the comprehension of NPAPARPs Experienced versus inexperienced translators In both the experiments by Vandepitte and Hartsuiker and by Van Goethem, there were two groups of participants: trained and untrained translators. These translators were first-year students of the bachelor in applied language studies and master of translation students and their participation was necessary to find out whether there is a difference between the two groups when it comes to comprehending and translating an NPAPARP. In Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011), it was discovered that both the trained and untrained experienced more difficulty when translating sentences with NPAPARPs than during the translation of those without the structures. Irrespective of training, the students all needed significantly more time to translate the sentences with non-prototypical agents than sentences with prototypical agents. Both groups also were tempted to translate NPAPARPs in English with NPAPARPs in Dutch, although this tendency was more pronounced in the untrained students.

15 15 The trained students more often searched for other solutions such as introducing a prototypical agent or leaving out the agent all together. In Van Goethem (2012) one of the research questions was whether trained students can process passages with NPAPARPs more easily than untrained students. In the matching hypothesis that was formulated Van Goethem stated that she expected trained students to experience less difficulty than untrained students when they encounter segments containing NPAPARPs. She subsequently expected the trained students to have a lower number of regressions, shorter gaze durations, first fixation durations, go past times and smaller pupil dilations. When compared to the experiment results it was discovered that the second hypothesis could neither be confirmed nor rejected. The fact that the trained translators did not have long first fixation durations could indicate that the presence of non-prototypical agents did not constitute an obvious translation problem for the students because of their higher level of expertise. However, the gaze durations of the trained participants did increase when they encountered sentences and paragraphs containing NPAPARPs, which would give a reason to reject the hypothesis. In an unpublished case study by Vandepitte et al. (2013), yet another group was introduced: students from secondary school education. From the study by Vandepitte and Hartsuiker in 2011, it can be concluded that master students do not differ much from first-year students of English concerning the translation process of sentences with metonymic and non-metonymic structures. The results of the study led to a case study to find the answer to the following question: were the untrained students not already a self-selected group, i.e. what if first-year students cannot be considered as an untrained group? The experiment which was subsequently set up involved submitting 13 students from secondary education (whose knowledge of English was considered as one year behind that of the average untrained student) to the same experiment which was performed by Vandepitte and Hartsuiker in The results indicate that the secondary school students also needed more time to translate a metonymic structure than its counterpart, supporting the conclusion of Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011): NPAPARPs constitute a translation process problem. Moreover, this group needed significantly more time to translate both the metonymic and non-metonymic structures than the university groups. A probable explanation is the higher level of language competence of the university students. Furthermore, also the standard deviation

16 16 was much larger with the secondary school pupils than with the university participants, supporting the idea that the university students are already self-selected group. Although the unpublished case study of Vandepitte et al. showed that the untrained university group was already self-selected and more competent than the secondary school group, it is still more relevant to compare first-year students to master students: the research into NPAPARPs has as a goal to see whether the current training is sufficient or whether improvement is possible in the training of translators. Considering the results of Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011) and Van Goethem (2012), and the fact that the Phinney and Khouri study (1993) revealed a link between foreign language proficiency, on the one hand, and the length and frequency of pauses and word processing during writing, as was remarked by Spelman Miller in 2006, on the other hand, expectations surrounding the influence of the degree of experience do not seem to be out of place. Both trained and untrained participants will most likely experience difficulties during the translation, viz. have more and longer pauses in the paragraphs containing NPAPARPs, but any difference discovered in the pausing behaviour may very well be due to the difference in experience. Moreover, the difference in experience may also be visible in the translation product where the trained students may have more acceptable translations. 1.3 Research objectives and hypotheses As was already mentioned, this study is an exploratory one. This means the research question is a broad one. Although it will focus on keystroke logging of the translation of NPAPARP structures in paragraphs in a pilot experiment, it will also evaluate the translation product.

17 17 Aspects which will receive special attention are: Abnormal pauses in the proximity of an NPAPARP structure, which are expected with the trained and untrained participant The number of deletions, which are expected to be higher in the paragraphs with NPAPARP structures, with both the trained and untrained participant Quality of the translation with the trained and untrained participant The difference between trained and untrained students concerning the translation of NPAPARPs, which is expected Which (already learnt) strategies the participants apply when translating NPAPARPs The idiomaticity of the translation of NPAPARPs The expected positive effect of context on the translation of NPAPARPs Other translation difficulties or problems which the students encountered and are equally or more pressing 2. DATA AND METHODS 2.1 Participants Unfortunately, the group of test subjects in this experiment was rather small, which means the only process data belongs to one master student en one first-year student and the available product data stems from two master students and one first-year student. The reason for this limited number of test-subjects lies in a late change in the nature of the experiment. The means by which the data would be retrieved was initially eye-tracking, in which case the amount of data from two test subjects, one first-year and one master student, would be large enough to analyse and discuss in a thesis. However, in February it became clear that the required equipment and guidance would not be available, which meant another research method had to be found: keystroke logging. If it had been known that keystroke logging would be used as a method in the beginning of the academic year a larger experiment with more participants could have been organised.

18 18 As a consequence of the restricted number of participants it will not be possible to present the results of this experiment as evidence. However, since this is an exploratory study the aim was never to prove that the NPAPARP structure poses a translation problem, but to find out more about the structure and its translation. The data recovered from this small group of test subjects may even suffice to see whether the NPAPARP structure is interesting enough to investigate with the eye-tracking method. 2.2 Materials To find a suitable source text to investigate and compare the translation processes of untrained and trained translators could be seen as quite a challenge: the trained translator may have prior knowledge about a text because of previous jobs with the topic or genre, causing him/her to be less overwhelmed with the task. For this reason experimental paragraphs, with an informative and entertaining character, will be used. The paragraphs will be picked from the list of paragraphs used by Van Goethem (2012), which each contain one sentence from the study by Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011). The use of the same material in all these studies enhances comparability. Another advantage of using these experimental texts is the assurance that the participants will not have to waste time throughout their translation process thinking about the target audience. Initially, two text documents were made, each containing six paragraphs, one for every participant. Every other paragraph contained an NPAPARP structure with PAPARP structures between them. The first-year student and master student either got the version of a paragraph with or without an NPAPARP. After the test with the master student those six paragraphs proved to be not as much work as was expected. This miscalculation on behalf of the researcher was caused by the sudden moving up of the experiment date for personal reasons of the participant. Therefore, four more paragraphs were added to the source text of first-year student, who still had to take the test. The four added paragraphs were actually two new paragraphs, but each once with and once without an NPAPARP structure. The advantage of this addition is the possibility to see whether the chance to compare both versions would alert the participant to the presence of the potential translation problem, i.e. whether the last two NPAPARPs will not be translated as NPAPARPs. Later, a third participant, again a master student, was asked to translate the source text of the master student supplemented with the four additional source paragraphs of the first-

19 19 year student. There is, however, no recording of the translation process of this last student due to an error which occurred during the saving process by Morae. 2.3 Experimental set-up The most popular logging software used in Translation Studies is Translog. The programme was developed by Arnt Lykke Jakobsen and Lasse Schou in 1995 and records all keyboard and mouse activity during the writing of a text or translation. In addition to showing the source text on the same screen, Translog also offers the researcher the possibility to gradually show the source text to the participants. In this study, however, there is no need for that. Moreover, since the 2010 version of Microsoft Office Word allows two windows to be placed neatly next to each other on one screen a Morae recording should deliver all the necessary data: pause duration, pause location, changes and deletions. No internet or dictionaries will be used, guaranteeing that the amount of retrieved information is manageable. The recordings made with the Morae recorder can be exported in several formats. In this case all keystrokes and mouse clicks were exported in an Excel table. Morae is a screen recording programme which runs in the background and records everything that is visible on the screen. With this technology it is also possible to record audio, but since there was no need for vocal data, this option was disabled. A significant advantage of screen recording is the high ecological value: the test subjects can forget that they are taking part in an experiment, because the software is invisible during the translation process. Ecologically valid results are very important in research, and according to Göpferich (2008) the only way to achieve such results when exploring the translation process is by organising tests which take place under similar conditions as when a translator normally translates. This includes the usual workplace with the typically available items, viz. CAT tools, dictionaries and the internet. As was already mentioned above, none of these items were at the disposal of the test subjects. The room where the experiment took place was, however, familiar to both subjects. Especially for the master student, who has many of his translation courses in this room, the location could be deemed a usual workplace.

20 20 The conditions of the experiment in this study could thus be called "artificial". However, Göpferich (2008) points out that laboratory conditions are reasonable and even necessary when a study focuses on research into specific aspects of translational behaviour, in this case how the translator deals with NPAPARPS and other translation problems. Englund-Dimitrova (2010) also recognised that laboratory conditions may strongly differ from a normal translation situation, but saw experiments as a sort of necessary evil to discover more about the fundamental aspects of the translation process. Moreover, she points out that experiments taking place at computers, enabling keystroke logging, increases the ecological validity as a translator's work is almost exclusively computer-based at present. The tests with the master students and the first-year student took place in the same language laboratory class at a PC with Morae on different dates: 14 February 2014 for the first master student, 27 February 2014 for the first-year student and 3 April 2014 for the second master student. The master students came to Ghent earlier to participate before lunch and the first-year student took part after a class in the afternoon. It might well be possible that these different dates and different times of the day influenced the translation process and the results of the tests. The master students may have been in a hurry to finish because they wanted to start with their lunch and the first-year student may have been tired after her classes that day. It was explained to the students in Dutch that they would get an hour to translate some paragraphs and that their data would be used anonymously in a thesis once the consent forms were signed. Then the students followed the Dutch instructions on their hand-outs in order to start the Morae recorder. They opened the Word document with the source text on the USB stick provided by the experimenter and opened a new Word document for the target text next to it on the same screen. At the end, both new files, the recording and the target text, were saved by the students onto the USB stick. 2.4 Analysis of the data Keystroke logging allows the collection of quantitative data such as the number of deletions, the pause frequency and the length of the pauses. These quantitative data require exact analytical criteria and since there are no official pause values, it is up to the researcher to set the bar. As was already mentioned before, ideally a pause should be defined individually, for every participant. However, since the participants will all be students, their mean transition time should be similar

21 21 and the handling of the same standard should not pose any problem. After comparing the mean transition time of the participants, there proved to be, as was expected, little difference between the students (0.54 s for the master student and 0.51 s for the first-year student). The standard which was applied, however, was lower than 0.5 s: in the experiment all pauses longer than 200 ms were marked as significant pauses. The reason for this is the fact that 500 ms to find the next key is already quite long, especially when comparing that transition time to the intra-word transition times found by Wengelin (2006) in two writing corpora: s and s. The mean transition times of the participants were most likely prolonged by long pauses between sentences. As was already pointed out in Spelman Miller (2006) and Wengelin (2006), long pauses are frequent before the start of a sentence or subordinate clause. For this reason the pauses at the boundaries will not be receiving much attention, since they are probably just time spent on reading the source text. The main areas of interest will be in the sentences with the NPAPARP and matching PAPARP structures, viz. before the agent, during the agent, after the agent, before the verb 2, during the verb and after the verb. A pause before the agent or verb is an interval of minimum 200 ms after the stroke of the spacebar and before the first letter of the first word of the agent or the first letter of the verb. A pause while typing the agent or the verb means all intervals of minimum 200 ms between the first letter and the last letter, in the case of the agent this will respectively be the letters of the first word and of the last word of the agent. Finally, a pause after the agent or verb is an interval of minimum 200 ms after the last letter of the last word of the agent or the last letter of the verb and before the stroke of the spacebar. A disadvantage of this method, i.e. not taking into account the pauses before a main clause or subordinate clause, is the loss of pauses which may occur before an agent or verb in an NPAPARP or PAPARP structure which are located at the beginning of the clause. However unfortunate this loss of data is, there is no clear way of determining at which point exactly in the pause or pauses the reading ceases and the thinking starts. 2 In this study the word verb is used to refer to the finite verb

22 22 In addition to the pauses, this study will also discuss the deletions which were made by the trained and untrained participant during the translation process, since these could be possible indicators of translation problems or difficulties. Furthermore, the experiment also delivered translations which can be subjected to a quality assessment. Göpferich (2008) quotes Strauss and Corbin (1998) to explain how qualitative data is good for exploring areas about which little is known or for gaining new insights, which seems quite applicable in this study. 3. RESULTS In this section references will be made to the English source text, which can be found in APPENDIX B, and to the Dutch translations, which were placed under APPENDIX C. 3.1 Time Pauses The trained student needed 29 minutes to translate his six paragraphs and the untrained student 59 minutes for ten paragraphs. The total pause duration for both translation processes, revision and saving included, is respectively 24.5 min ( s) and 51 min ( s). This means both students only spent 4.5 min and 8 min on the typing of the translation, i.e. pushing down the keys, and all the rest of the time (84.75% and 86.21%) was spent purely on cognitive activities. However, not all of those cognitive activities are a part of the translation process, which means that, for example, pauses during the saving process can be left out. Moreover, because no more changes were made at the end of the translation process, i.e. during the final revision and review, it could be assumed that the participants were no longer thinking of better translations or solutions to problems and only rereading their translation, which means these pauses can be excluded as well. This leaves a total pause duration of approx. 23 min ( s) with the trained student and approx. 50 min ( s) with the untrained one. The new total pause duration minus the total pauses in the proximity of and within NPAPARPs, which can be found in the following table, reflects the amount of time that was spent on all other parts of the translation: a little above 23 min ( s) with the trained participant and a little under 50 min ( s) with the untrained one.

23 23 Trained: 3 NPAPARP Paragraphs Trained: 3 PAPARP Paragraphs Untrained: 5 NPAPARP Paragraphs Untrained: 5 PAPARP Paragraphs Before Idea agent Idea During Idea agent Idea After agent Idea Idea 2 Before verb Idea Idea Idea 1b 5.24 During verb Idea Idea Idea 1b 0.22 After verb Idea Idea Total Table 1:The pauses (in seconds) in the proximity of and within the (N)PAPARPs are presented. The "Idea" rows represent the pauses belonging to the subsequent translations the participants came up with for a specific (N)PAPARP. In percentage, the share of pauses, i.e. of cognitive effort, put into the translation of the NPAPARPs is only 0.59% for the trained student and 0.89% for the untrained one. The translation of the PAPARP structures, on the other hand, proved to be more challenging for both the trained participant (2.41%) and the untrained one (1.46%). This result is surprising: not only does the translation of the PAPARP structure require more thought, the trained student also dedicated more of his time to finding translations that were acceptable to him. The reason for the trained student's extraordinarily high figure of pauses with the PAPARPs, as much as four times the total pause with the NPAPARPs, is long pauses in the second paragraph, with the longest one lasting over 15 s. With the untrained participant the PAPARP pauses were only one and a half times longer and it must be noted that the pauses of the ninth paragraph, which contained an

24 24 NPAPARP structure, could not be added to the total because the student simply copied the similar seventh paragraph without an NPAPARP Deletions Both the trained and untrained participant produced different types of deletions. Those were assumed to be: corrections of typing errors, corrections of translation errors and improvements to the Dutch sentences. The corrections of translation errors took place when the participants noticed that a part of the source text was not translated, wrongly translated or that the translation contained information which was not present in the original. The improvements to the Dutch sentences were introduced by the participants because they believed there were problems with the idiomaticity or because of personal preferences. The majority of the trained student's backspace strokes, viz %, as can be seen in the table on the next page, were corrections of typing errors. With the untrained participant, on the other hand, the corrections of typing errors only constitute 20.75% of all deletions. The share of deletions which were the consequence of translation errors is similar with both participants: 11.06% with the trained participant and 10.37% with the untrained participant. A major part of the deletions were apparently necessary for improvements to the Dutch text. The trained participant spent up to 43.78% of his deletions on improvements to his translation. In comparison, the untrained participants insecurity about the Dutch sentences was much larger and the improvements constitute 59.57%, the largest part, of her deletions. Some of the deletions could not be traced to a particular part of the paragraph because the participant used the mouse to change the position of the cursor and there is no indication in the Excel file as to where the participant now starts pressing the backspace key or why. This was the case with both the trained and untrained participant, although the untrained one performed this action more often: 7.17% compared to 0.92%. The untrained participant also had two types of deletions which were not found with the trained participant: when she could not immediately come up with the right translation she would type an ellipsis, slash marks or multiple (partial) translations, which would then all need to be deleted for the final version. 2.14% of her deletions could be considered as part of these "others".

25 25 Trained PAPARP Trained NPAPARP Untrained PAPARP Untrained NPAPARP Total trained Total trained in percentage 3 Total untrained Total untrained in percentage Total PAPARP Total PAPARP in percentage Total NPAPARP Total NPAPARP in percentage Of which corrections of typing errors % % % % Of which corrections of translation errors % % % % Of which improvements 4 to the Dutch sentences % % % % Of which untraceable % % % % Others % % % % Total % % % % Table 2: The deletions performed during the translation process are presented. 3 Rounded off to two decimal places 4 According to the participant