Working styles of student translators in self-revision, other-revision and post-editing
Jin Huang · Benjamins translation library · 2018
Abstract Drawing on theories from translation-related studies and cognitive psychology, this study triangulates eye tracking, keystroke logging and retrospection to probe into student translators’ cognitive processes in self-revision, other-revision and post-editing, and to categorize their working styles within and across tasks. Eighteen student translators from Durham University, with Chinese as L1 and English as L2, were invited to participate in the experiment. Three revision phases (planning, drafting and final check) were defined and four types of working style (Macro-Micro-Macro, Micro-Macro, Macro-Micro, and Micro) were recognised. By comparing the participants’ personal working styles in all three tasks, it was found that 38.9% of them were habit-oriented revisers, 22.2% were task-oriented, and 38.9% were habit/task-oriented revisers. This study proposes a tentative model of student translators’ cognitive processes in self-revision, other-revision and post-editing, and also compared their working styles with that of professional translators.