Towards a Finer-Grained Classification of Translation Styles Based on Eye-Tracking, Key-Logging and RTP Data

This research endeavors to reach a finer-grained classification of translation styles based on observations of Translation Progression Graphs that integrate translation process data and translation product data. Translation styles are first coded based on the findings and classification of Jakobsen (2002), Carl et al. (2011) and Dragsted & Carl (2013). The qualitative observations from TPGs are further triangulated with observations of quantitative data from the TPRDB tables (c.f. Carl et al. 2016). Findings are again triangulated with translators’ cued retrospective protocol data which also help explain our findings. Eye-tracking and keystroke logging data have been collected from 43 postgraduate Chinese students translating 2 texts from English into Chinese and 2 texts from Chinese to English, with 2 levels of source text difficulty in each translation direction. No time limit is set for the translation tasks. Each translation task is immediately followed by a retrospective protocol with the eye-tracking replay as the cue. We are also interested to see whether translation directionality and source text difficulty would have an impact on translation styles. We try to explore 1) the translation styles in terms of different ways of allocating attention to the three phases of translation process, 2) the translation styles in the orientation phase, 3) the translation styles in the drafting phase, with a special focus on online-planning, backtracking, online-revision, as well as the distribution of attention to ST and TT respectively, 4) the translation styles in the revision & monition phase with a special focus on end-revision.