Observing Translators Interact with

their Translation Environment

Tools: the CRISTAL Project

A. JOSSELIN-LERAY, A.PICTON, E. PLANAS Brussels,

Translating Europe 10.27.16

1. Background & Objectives 2

CRISTAL [ANR-12-CORD-0020] : Knowledge-Rich Contexts for Terminological Translation LINA, Nantes (Computing research team)

CLLE-ERSS, Toulouse (Linguistics research team)

FTI-TIM, Geneva (Translation Technologies team)

Lingua et Machina (firm)

Automatically retrieve and integrate KRCs in CAT-tools from bilingual comparable corpora Understand the use and usefulness of KRCs in translation

2. What is a KRC? 3

Définition: « By knowledge-rich context, we designate a context indicating at least one item of domain knowledge that could be useful for conceptual analysis (Meyer, 2001: 281) » Examples: Conceptual KRC Tephra is any material ejected explosively from a volcano (ash, lapilli, cinder, and spatter) Linguistic KRC Entre deux plaques divergentes, se trouve une zone d'accrétion où s'épanchent des laves fluides et denses, de type basaltique

An « ecological » interface (Argos) 42 participants

Master’s students (Angers & Toulouse)

Task : A 150-word long text to translate

(EN>FR)

The recording scheme

Keylog software

Screenshot recording (Bbflashback)

Questionnaires and interviews

Group interviews+ cue-based retrospective

verbalization

Online questionnaire (Limesurvey)

3. Overall Protocol 4

4. Data used for the study (1/2) 5

Focus on one term: (basalt) cinder cone Main topic of the text to be translated

Title (cinder cones) + 1st sentence

Considered by the participants as a word hard to translate (cf. data from

the questionnaires)

Specific translation problems:

Does basalt qualify cinder or cone? (French: has to agree in gender

and number)

Cinder (EN) and cendres (FR) are false friends in the field of

volcanology

Basalt cinder cone not found as such in any of the traditional

resources (term banks, GBDs, specialized bilingual dictionaries),

while several equivalents are provided for cinder cone.

4. Data used for the study (2/2) 6

Focus on 3 participants: 3 trainee translators – Master’s programme.

2 different universities: Angers (A06) and Toulouse (T08 & T18)

March 2014

Type of data analyzed First 16’ of the videos

Final translations

Transcripts of post-translation interviews (CBRV)

Processed logs

Complementary data analyzed through triangulation (Alves, 2003) « the combined use of different methods of data elicitation »

Warning: a trial run 7

Focus mostly on videos: Usefulness of videos

Type of data that can be gathered.

Provisional results

T08

http://research.planas.eu/EP_docs/201610_DGT/trad_01_08.html

http://research.planas.eu/EP_docs/201610_DGT/trad_01_08_cut.m4v

T18 http://research.planas.eu/EP_docs/201610_DGT/trad_01_18.html

http://research.planas.eu/EP_docs/201610_DGT/trad_01_18_cut.m4v

5. Time-related results 8

A06 T08 T18

Target text first keyed in 3’41 3’19 2’13

Translation of title and

first term completed

9’58 14’10 15’32

1st term look-up 1’54 1’33 2’13

5. Resource-related Results 9

A06 T08 T18

Total # of resources

used

5*/6 5/6 6*/6

Unused resources 1 : Robert & Collins

(GDT)

1 : Robert & Collins

0 (Robert & Collins)

# of resources used

more than once

2 4 4*

1st resource used Source KRCs Source KRCs Termium

Resource most used Termium

Target KRCs

Target KRCs Target KRCs

Use of the notepad no yes no

5. Term-related Results 10

A06 T08 T18

1st term looked up :

cinder cone or basalt

cinder cone

cinder cone cinder cone basalt cinder (no result)

basalt cinder cone

Final equivalent chosen

for cinder cones (title)

Les cônes de cendres Les cônes de scories Les volcans stromboliens

Final equivalent chosen

for basalt cinder cones

(1st sentence)

Les cônes de cendres Les cônes de scories d'origine basaltique

Le strombolien

# of intermediary

equivalents for cinder

cone

1 : les cônes de débris

1. les cônes de débris

(but 2 typed in the notepad : c.

de débris, c. de cendres)

0

# of intermediary

equivalents for basalt

cinder cone

0 1 : cône de débris basaltiques 0

Similary of final equiv.

with equivalent provided

by resources

+

(Termium +DST+target

KRC)

+

(cône de scories in GDT ; basaltic

collocation in target KRCS)

+/-

Not as such, but « strombolien » found in

some of the selected target KRCs +

+ « volcan strombolien » found in GDT (*)

6. What we have learnt 11

Problems linked with the experiment settings

Interferences due to the mandatory validation of KRCs

Part of the process hard to identify, only takes place in

the translator’s mind

E.g. « strombolien »

On the translation process and the use of resources

Very diverse and complex strategies

Compound nouns in LSPs: a real challenge for translators

How to divide up the word

Formulation of the query Hard to predict what a useful KRC is (cf. Bowker 2012)

7. What needs further investigation 12

Identify resource chain consultation patterns: E.g.: SBD 3 times + target text ; SBD 2 times + Termium

E.g.: Source Text+ source KRC+ SBD+ target KRC+ Termium + target

text

This could be used to customize the translation interface most used resources more accessible

most used sequences side by side (e.g. SBD + Termium)

Implications for translator training Cf. Massey & Ehrensberger-Dow 2011