An Eye-tracking Research Of Translators’ Information Processing Modes During Translation Between English And Chinese

Research on translation processes has been conducted for more than 30 years,focusing on various issues and using a variety of research methodologies.Most recently,scholars have started to use eye tracking as a methodology for research on translation processes,applying insights from eye-movement research to study translation.However,only a limited number of pioneering eye-tracking studies on the way cognitive resources varies with different translation tasks.Against this background,this study is an empirical investigation of translators’ information processing modes,namely,automatic and controlled processing in two different translation directions,that is,Chinese-English translation and English-Chinese translation during translation process,which has been divided into three translation phases(eg.reading,draft,revision).This study based its analyses on quantitative eye-tracking data and qualitative screen recording,retrospective interviews and questionnaires collected from translation experiments for the purpose of exploring translators’ mental activities and processing pattern in translation,as well as deepening the understanding of translation process in general.This thesis is intended to answer the following research questions:(1)What are the differences between C-E translation and E-C translation in terms of automatic and controlled processing?(2)How do the differences between automatic and controlled processing of different translation directions affect the translation quality?(3)What factors can trigger the differences between automatic and controlled processing of different translation directions?The findings are summarized as follows:(1)first,on the whole,student translators presented both more automatic and controlled processing during C-E translation than during E-C translation,which implies that C-E translation is more cognitively demanding than E-C translation;second,in comparison with E-C translation,student translators performed more controlled processing on the draft phase during C-E translation,while less on the reading and revision phase,and this finding also applies to automatic processing.It indicates that for E-C translation,the reading and revision phase are more cognitively demanding while for C-E translation,the draft phase are more cognitively demanding.(2)Firstly,on the whole,the translation quality of C-E translation was significantly better than that of E-C translation;while for both translation directions,the higher quality group performed less controlled processing and automatic processing than the lower quality group,which means that the translation quality is not in direct proportion with the amount of controlled and automatic processing.Secondly,for E-C translation,the higher quality group performed less controlled processing and automatic processing than the lower score group both during the draft and revision stage,but the former performed more controlled processing and automatic processing than the latter during reading phase;for C-E translation,the higher quality group performed less controlled processing and automatic processing than the lower score group both during the reading and revision stage,but the former performed more controlled processing and automatic processing than the latter during draft phase.This implies that student translators are required to allocate sufficient resources on ST comprehension when translating English into Chinese and on TT production during C-E translation.(3)The differences between C-E translation and E-C translation in terms of automatic and controlled processing seem to be a result not only of student translators’ different language proficiency,but also of their translation experience and attitudes towards translation directionality as well as the asymmetry in L1 and L2 translation transformation.