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translation. This stage is when the translator makes editing or corrections on the TT to make the final TT fully acceptable to the target readers.
3. Think-Aloud Protocol
Alvstad, Hild, and Tiselius opine that think-aloud protocol is “a method originally borrowed from cognitive psychology Ericsson and Simon, 1984. It is
an introspective method in which subjects are expected to verbalize their mental processes while they perform a task” 2011: 1. In brief, TAP is one of many
introspective methods in which Jääskeläinen further elaborates that it includes traditional introspection, where the subject of the experiment carries out
a self-analysis of his or her own thought processes, and retrospective verbal reporting, which takes place after rather than during the
performance of a given task for the experiment. In contrast, thinking aloud is concurrent takes place simultaneously with the task
performance and undirected subjects are not asked to verbalize specific information. As a result, TAP data are considered more complete and
more reliable than introspective or retrospective reports: more complete because there is less likelihood of forgetting or omitting information, and
more reliable because there is less likelihood of distortion Ericsson and Simon, 1984. In other words, the method of thinking aloud in data
collection attempts, as far as possible, to elicit unedited data; it is then the task of the experimenter to investigate whether – and if so which –
regularities appear in the data 2001: 266.
In essence, TAP involves subjects’ thinking aloud as they undertake a set
of specified tasks. Therefore, in order to employ this method in the translation
process research, the subjects are essentially asked to verbalize whatever comes into their minds as they accomplish the translation task. Their verbalizations are
recorded on audio or videotape, which are later on transcribed. The recordings might include what they are looking at, thinking, doing, and feeling. The written
transcripts of the recordings are then scrutinized to observe what is actually happening in their minds during the translation process.
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Hansen recommends that “the observers should be present during the TA experiments, but they should remain invisible” 2013: 90. To put it differently, he
suggests that, in the process of conducting a research employing the TAP, the interaction between the subjects and observers should be eliminated during the
experiments, i.e. while the subjects are undertaking a translation task and verbalizing their thoughts. Through this technique, the data could not be distorted.
Notwithstanding that Ericsson and Simon mention that “social verbalizations may be quite different from the sequences of thoughts generated by
subjects themselves while solving problems, performing actions and making evaluations and decisions” cited in Hansen, 2013: 90, they argue that, in order to
enhance the verbalization data, the observers may prompt the subjects with expressions like “keep talking”, “what are you thinking about?”, etc. Such
expressions might be uttered whenever the subjects stop talking due to the fact that these reminders might only have a very small consequence on the data.
To sum up, by conducting this research applying the TAP, it provides the researcher as the observer insight for the subjects’ cognitive processes rather
than only their final products in order to make thought processes as explicit as possible during the translation task performance.
4. Screen Recording
