The effect of translation difficulty on eye movement behavior during written translation, sight translation and simultaneous interpretation

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M. Schaeffer

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Three tasks

Written translation (T)

sight translation (S)

simultaneous interpretation (I)

Do participants engage in the same kind of processes in these three tasks?

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• If so, what do these processes share?
• If not, what are the differences?

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• One fundamental difference between (I) and (T) & (S) is the input/output modality: written vs. spoken

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Agrifoglio (2004)

• “…why does Sight Translation seem to be a more demanding task for the interpreter?” (Agrifoglio 2004: 46)
• Viezzi (1989) found that recall is better after Simultaneous Interpreting than after Sight Translation
• Oral language facilitates instant comprehension of ideas, and its short-livedness makes it easier for the interpreter to remember meaning and forget surface forms (Seleskovitch & Lederer 1989)
• Readers tend to differentiate inferences from what the text actually said while interpreters do so to a lesser extent -> “higher risk of source-language interference in [sight translation]” (Agrifoglio 2004: 48)

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Agrifoglio (2004)

Product analysis:

% meaning (e.g. omission, mistranslation) vs. expression errors (syntax, style)

Sight Translation:

• 75% expression / 25% meaning

Simultaneous Interpreting:

• 37% expression / 63% meaning
• “greater linguistic interference from the source text in Sight Translation” (Agrifoglio 2004: 52)
• Sight Translation: “Most [errors] were syntactic or grammatical” (ibid)

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Agrifoglio (2004)

• “Although it may seem that there is almost no Memory Effort in Sight Translation because source-text information is always accessible, our results indicate that the sight translator has to rely on short-term memory to retrieve information from the beginning of sentences, or the formulation s/he has already embarked on, especially where grammatical structures differ markedly between the two languages.” (61)

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• Sight translation very similar to Simultaneous Interpretation in this regard

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Shlesinger & Ordan (2012)

• We find that “Simultaneous interpreting exhibits far more similarities to original speech than to written translation.”
• “…one may see interpreting as, in a sense, an extreme case of translation, one in which those features that have been found to distinguish between translated and original texts are found to be all the more salient.”
• “It appears that… greater orality as well as greater resemblance to translation may” be the case. (54)

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Shreve & Lacruz (2010)

• “cognitive challenges of sight translation:

the visual interference emerging from the written message and the tendency to focus on words rather than meanings” (Shreve & Lacruz 2010: 64)

• production effort smaller in sight translation than in written translation.
• if production is not prioritized, then comprehension in sight translation should receive a greater allocation of cognitive resources.
• tendency to focus on written words rather than meanings -> greater sensitivity to syntactic, lexical, or other linguistic disruptions. (Shreve & Lacruz 2010: 67)

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Shreve & Lacruz (2010)

Sight translation

• Complex vs. non-complex syntax (subordination)
• No significant effects (eye tracking)

Translation

• Complex vs. non-complex syntax (subordination)
• Keylogging (total production time, total pause duration etc. for AOIs (complex vs. non-complex))
• No significant effects

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The current study

Participants & task:

• 9 professional interpreters: simultaneous with text interpretation (English-Chinese)
• 25 translation students: written and sight translation (English-German)

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Materials

• Speech presented by Australian Foreign Minister
• 6 texts (each ~ 150 words)

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Cross

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Cross

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Translation probability

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Translation probability

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Word translation probability

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HTra

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HTra

HCross

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The product

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Ear-voice span / Eye-key span

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Sequential numbering of segments and Span

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Raw and absolute Cross

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The effect of HCross and HTra on Span

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Interaction between Task and HCross/HTra

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HCross/HTra and First Fixation Duration

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HCross/HTra and Gaze Duration

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HCross/HTra and Regression Path Duration

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HCross/HTra and Total Reading Time (Source)

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HCross/HTra and Production duration

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Summary

• Interpreters' WM capacity increases as they progress in the task - much more so than during sight translation or written translation
• Broadly similar effect of HTra and HCross on Span with subtle differences:
• Syntactic choices affect Simultaneous Interpretation more than Sight translation
• Lexical choices affect Simultaneous Interpretation more than Written Translation
• Likely explanation: the effect of lexical/semantic choice during Simultaneous Interpretation is stronger because less WM capacity is available resulting in a longer span

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• Subtle differences should not overshadow broad similarities in terms of span! Are these essentially comparable processes?

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Gaping holes….

On the same scale: Sight translation comes out on top

• This also applies to all eye movement measures
• Is Sight translation the most effortful activity?
• Because of the involvement of two different modalities rather then just one?
• On the same scale: production duration per word slowest for Simultaneous Interpretation
• Gaining time while not losing touch?
• Technologically possible to compare written and spoken translation
• Gaping holes in our knowledge about the differences in behaviour associated with different modalities....

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• Agrifoglio, M. (2004). Sight translation and interpreting A comparative analysis of constraints and failures. Interpreting - International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting, 6(1), 43–67.
• Viezzi, M. (1989). Information retention as a parameter for the comparison of sight translation and simultaneous interpretation: An experimental study. The Interpreters’ Newsletter no. 2, 65–69
• Seleskovitch, D. & Lederer, M. (1989). Pédagogie raisonnée de l’interprétation. Paris/ Luxembourg: Didier Érudition/OPOCE.
• Shlesinger, M., & Ordan, N. (2012). More spoken or more translated ? Exploring a known unknown of simultaneous interpreting. Target, 24(1), 43–60. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.24.1.04shl
• Shreve, G. M., Lacruz, I., & Angelone, E. (2010). Cognitive effort, syntactic disruption, and visual interference in a sight translation task. Translation and Cognition, (May 2017), 63–84. https://doi.org/10.1075/ata.xv.05shr

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