Tracking the professional translators

process in retranslation tasks

Cristiane Silva Fontes
cristiane.fontes@ifmg.edu.br
LETRA/FALE/UFMG

INTRODUCTION

PURPOSE

First translations tend to be more target-oriented than recent translations.

Berman (1990) Retranslation Hypothesis claims that retranslations get
closer to the source text, resulting in a more accomplished target text. Very
little is known about the decision making process in retranslation and to
what extent previous translations bear an impact on the target text.

Testing the validity of Retranslation Hypothesis, we investigate,

procedurally, the return to the source-text proposed by the RH;
We check the impact and influences of first translation and retranslation
on the decision-making process and the cognitive effort required on the
shifting focus to different texts.

METHODOLOGY
Through Tobii T60, and Translog II we mapped the retranslation real-time
processing of six professional translators;
Areas of interest were defined;
This analysis was done by observing the eye movement, the attention distribution
given to the source text and the supporting ones.
The participants data were separated into two groups.
Group 1: participants who had TRAD.A displayed on the left side .
Group 2: participants who had TRAD.A on the right side on the screen

TASK
Firstly, we cleared up all the doubts about the process.
Then, participants did a copy activity just to become acquainted with the keyboard
and for checking their skills on typing.
After, the task was applied. The instructions appeared on the screen and the
participant could begin whenever they wanted.

RESULTS
Through the software R we found the mean of the
cognitive effort of ST, TT, TRAD.A and TRAD.B.
Applying a statistical test; test T, we could get accuracy
on the outcomes. The achievements were:
TRAD.A: Non-significant
ST: Non-significant;
TRAD.B: Non-significant;
TT: Significant but on the
limit.
In summary, the results were not very significant. The
power of the test was very low. It means that group 1 and
group 2 had similar effort on the development of the task.
In this case, the RH is refuted. Maybe because of the
small amount of participants.

AVERAGE FIXATION DURATION PER AOI - GROUP 1

PARTICIPANT
ST
TT
TRAD.A
TRAD.B
P02
342,56
601,44
241,78
276,94
P03
311,63
417,17
275,03
265,59
P05
404,26
472,2
380,74
334,9
TOTAL
352,817
496,94
299,18
292,47667
AVERAGE FIXATION DURATION PER AOI - GROUP 2
PARTICIPANT

ST

TT

TRAD.A

TRAD.B

P01
P04

309,11
343,73

491,11
461,47

253,4
278,33

275,72
290,61

P07
TOTAL

292,05
314,96

615,65
522,74

265,61
265,78

261,64
275,99

References
BERMAN, Antoine. La retraduction comme espace de traductions, Palimpsestes, v. 13, n. 4, p. 1-7, 1990.
Software R Available on http://www.r-project.org/
Tobii - http://www.tobii.com/en/eye-tracking-research/global/landingpages/portuguese/
Translog II - https://sites.google.com/site/centretranslationinnovation/translog-ii
Contributors: Rodrigo Castro e Cristiane Cond