Two decades of Swedish empirical process-oriented research on translation and interpreting

Birgitta Englund Dimitrova, Stockholm University

Presentation at TREC seminar, Barcelona, June 2013

Birgitta.Englund@su.se

Period 1, 1993-1997Beginning the beguine

• Several projects start (Englund Dimitrova, Jonasson, Williams)

• Data collection – TAPs, keystroke logging, recorded interpreting

• Data analysis – how to make sense of the data??

Semantic change in translation Englund Dimitrova

• Initial research question (rephrased and simplified): How is the translator’s semantic representation of the source text reflected in the target text?

• Russian>Swedish• Participants with different experience of

translation: professionals, translation students, language students

• TAPs, keystroke logging (Scriptlog), video recordings (not analysed), retrospective interviews (not analysed)

Development of translation competence over timeEnglund Dimitrova, from 1997 Azbel Schmidt

• Russian-Swedish

• Translation students, doing translation tasks that were part of their training; re-recorded 4 years after finishing their training

• TAPs, keystroke logging (Scriptlog)

Translation ability and translatorial competence - development of translation competence over timeKerstin Jonasson

• French-Swedish

• Professional translators, translation students

• TAPs

• Intended as a combined cross-sectional and longitudinal study, but is in effect a cross-sectional comparison between professional translators and translation students

• Published analyses of participants’ textual awareness

Processes in simultaneous interpretingSarah Williams (deceased 1996)

• Audio recordings of professional interpreters and of students in conference interpreter training over time

• English> Swedish

• Connecting theories from Second Language Acquisition with interpreting studies

Period 2, 1998-2002Increasing the pace: analysing data and networking

• 3 PhD students join their projects to the research environment (Azbel Schmidt 1997, Künzli 1997/1999, Norberg 1999)

• Dedicated PhD seminar for (general) Translation Studies 1999-2001

• Englund Dimitrova member of EXPERTISE network from 2000

Project Semantic change in translation (Englund Dimitrova)

develops in two directions

• Focuses on one type of ”semantic change”, explicitations

• Compares also more general similarities and differences in the translation process of participants with different translation experience, with a special focus on self-revisions

Publication of papers from international symposium on interpreting, 2000, Benjamins

Period 3, 2003-2007Fruit ripening – and some new sprouts

• Three doctoral dissertations published

• One monograph published

• Künzli has new project on other-revision (French>Swedish, French>German, TAPs), 2005-2006

• Master’s Thesis in bilingualism on process and product in simultaneous interpreting (Tiselius 2007)

2003 Ulf Norberg dissertation

• Prof. translators with long vs short experience

• TAPs

• Two different skopoi; German > Swedish

• Results:– Differences in attitude in

process– Short experience > even

better target texts!– Substantial individual

differences in process

2003 Künzli dissertation

• Prof. translators vs translation students

• French>German, French>Swedish, technical text

• TAPs

• Results:– Experience and language

combination influence choice of translation strategies

– Conflict between verbalized and actual translation principle in students’ processes

/

2005 Azbel Schmidt dissertation

• Longitudinal study of translation students in training and after 4 years

• Russian>Swedish

• TAPs, ScriptLog

• Results:– Individual conceptual

frame remains during training

– Writing skills in TL of importance for translation process and performance

2005 Englund Dimitrova

• Prof. translators, translation students, language students

• Russian> Swedish

• TAPs, ScriptLog

• Cross-sectional comparison of process of participants with different experience

• Elaborates method for combined process and product analysis

Period 4, 2008-2013 The new sprouts

• PhD thesis to be submitted, any moment now, June 2013…. Tiselius Experience and Expertise in Conference Interpreting. An investigation of Swedish conference interpreters

• MA thesis 2010 on text types in the translation process (Raphael Sannholm)

• MA thesis 2011 on idioms and fixed phrases in the translation process (Tanja Leirvåg)

And also…

• A continued interest in different research methods, e.g. retrospection (Englund Dimitrova & Tiselius)

• A continued interest in relating the process to the product (Englund Dimitrova)

And another publication (surprise, surprise…)

Taking stock and looking ahead - some characteristics of Swedish process-oriented research

• Mostly individual projects, designed and carried out by the resp. researcher

• Most have a combined process and product perspective, incl. analysis of textual aspects;

• Recurrent topics:– experience and expertise in the translation and interpreting

process, studied both cross-sectionally and longitudinally;– Revision (both self-revision and other-revision) important focus

for some projects;

• Also studies of the cognitive processes of interpreting.

• Methods include think-aloud-protocols, retrospection, keystroke logging and audio recordings (of interpreting);

Three years from now?

• Elisabet Tiselius will have results from her planned study on naïve translation, children as interpreters

• Birgitta Englund Dimitrova will have results from her project The translator’s individual space: a combined process and product study of translators working into their TL from more than one SL, linking elements of textual translator style to elements of their process profile

A bibliography of Swedish empirical process-oriented research can be found under Bibliographies at http://su-se.academia.edu/BirgittaEnglundDimitrova/Bibliographies

Thank you!

Birgitta.Englund@su.se