[boot-camp] Invitation to participate in a boot-camp on empirical Translation Process Research (TPR)

The project Modelling Parameters of Cognitive Efforts in Translation Production organizes a four week boot-camp in empirical TPR between 8th July and 5th August 2018 at the University of Macau. The boot-camp aims to investigate and develop new ways of assessing, analyzing and measuring translation process data and to explore possibilities to integrate translation product and process research in novel ways. It focuses on the conceptualization of translation processes with a view to investigate what metrics we need to describe the various translation sub-processes based on translation process data. The boot-camp is of interest for advanced students, PhD students, post-docs and senior researchers, covering different fields of expertise, including translation studies, psychology and psycho-linguists, as well as computer science students with an interest in machine learning, data analytics and artificial intelligence. TPR data will be collected and legacy data will be made available to implement and test novel approaches for measuring the translation process in different modes of translation, including written translation, post-editing, sight translation and interpreting. Participants will form small ad-hoc working-groups to brain-storm questions, including the following:

• Reading
  • How can we isolate and compare gaze paths in the translation data?
  • How can eye movement data be used to infer higher level coherence processes during translation/post-editing beyond the sentence level?
  • Which factors determine the transition from target text reading to source text reading in different translation modes?
• Writing
  • How can we classify and formalize patterns of translation production?
  • What is the behavioral correlate of paraphrasing as opposed to a stricter, literal translation?
  • What is the impact of the translation brief on translation and writing behavior?
• Speaking
  • Which dependent variables can be used in order to compare spoken language translation (sight translation and interpreting) with written translation?
  • How can the segmentation of the source text during sight translation and simultaneous interpreting be predicted on the basis of the properties of the source text?
  • How can the transition from reading ST items to speaking a translation during sight translation be predicted on the basis of process and product data?
• Product and process
  • What are the typical patterns of gaze/typing interaction?
  • How can the cognitive translation unit be inferred from both keyboard and eye movement data?
  • How can reading and writing patterns be identified which are indicative of problem identification and problem solution during translation/post-editing?
  • Which factors determine the transition from source or target text reading to target text typing during translation?
• Effort
  • How can cognitive effort be predicted on the basis of the produced final target texts?
  • How do known aspects of the source and target texts that have an effect on cognitive effort during translation affect the cognitive translation unit?
  • How are traces of translation universals realized during the translation process? For example, are there typical behavioral patterns for simplification, generalization, conventionalization, etc.?
  • How can the raw MT output be annotated to predict cognitive post-editing effort?
• Strategies
  • Which aspects of the behavioural data can predict the need to interact with external resources such as dictionaries?
  • What kind of monitoring processes can we distinguish in the translation process and the translation process data?
  • How can the role of monitoring processes during the different modes of translation be compared and investigated?
  • What is the role of working memory in the different modes of translation?

Please send usual applications electronically to Prof V Lei at fah.translation@umac.mo