12
her analysis of specific processing occurrences in the six translators’ protocols as well as the uncertainty occurrences and her analysis of descriptions of how
uncertainty is attached to the identified processing occurrences. The first difference lies on the subjects of the study. The subjects of Tirkkonen-Condit’s
study are professional translators. However, the subjects of the current study are university students. The second difference lies on the methods used to gather the
data. The researcher of the present study applies not only the TAP but also SRM. Tirkkonen-Condit, on the other hand, only employs the TAP.
3. Jääskeläinen’s “Focus on Methodology in Think-aloud Studies on
Translating”
Jääskeläinen states “the fact that thinking aloud has been applied successfully to elicit data on such tasks is not in itself a guarantee of similar
applicability to research on translating” 2000: 71. Therefore, she discusses some examples of the types of methodological questions on which TAP research on
translating should focus. It is because of the fact that TAP studies into translating “have borrowed their data elicitation method i.e. thinking aloud from cognitive
psychology where it has been used to study various problem-solving and decision- making processes” 2000: 71.
The foremost concern of Jääskeläinen’s research paper is that experimentation in translation studies including her own research seems to “suffer
from a lack of relevant methodological knowledge about experimental research” 2000: 71. She claims that the rationale behind this concern is thus
comprehensible in that translation studies have traditionally dealt with texts,
13
languages, and cultures, it is unnecessary to know how to study the human mind at work. One essential task is to identify relevant variables in translator behavior.
Jääskeläinen mentions that “although I am arguing for more experimental rigour in TAP studies on translating, I am also advocating caution and moderation
in doing that” 2000: 72. Accordingly, she takes up two problems in relation to research methodology into translation processes by means of thinking aloud. In
the first place, she elaborates the significance of pre-experimental testing of subjects. In doing the pre-experimental testing, four professional translators are
assigned to perform a translation task. Three of them work as freelance translators, while one of them works as a business correspondent at a large
Finnish company. In the second place, she explains the potential interference effects of thinking aloud on the task of translating. In order to attain the potential
interference effects, Jääskeläinen compares the eight translations produced in her think-aloud experiment with eight translations of the same text produced by
people who are not asked to think aloud while translating. Corresponding to the first problem, Jääskeläinen’s findings reveal that
there are differences in the subjects’ use of knowledge and their attitude towards the task at hand, but in the absence of more detailed background information
about the subjects, the explanations remain at the level of speculation. Firstly, the differences between the four professionals could also be
related to differences in the subjects’ personality traits, such as their tolerance of stressful situations. Secondly, the differences between the
professional translators in my experiment may also be related to their language skills. Since they all had a diploma in translation and were
earning their living by translating at the time of the experiment, their language skills can be assumed to be at a relatively high, but not
necessarily at the same level Jääskeläinen, 2000: 73.
14
In conclusion, in accordance with the above quotation, if the researcher as the observer lacks these types of information about the subjects who participate in
experimental translating situations, it is very difficult to draw reliable conclusions from TAP studies on translating.
As for the second problem, Jääskeläinen is able to carry out the comprehensive analysis of the formal correspondence degree in that her
experiment deals with a complete text, not just one sentence. Firstly, she compares the syntactic structure of the ST with its sixteen translations to see how the
translations closely follow the ST structure in terms of sentence boundaries as well as within-sentence order of presenting information. Secondly, she analyzes
the translations in terms of formal correspondence at the lexical level, i.e. she counts instances which indicate clear deviations from formal correspondence,
such as omissions, additions, and class-shifts. In summary, even though there is little evidence of systematic differences between the translations produced with or
without the need to verbalize at the same time, it is too early to draw the conclusion that no interference exists.
Similar to Jääskeläinen’s interest, this present study, which is also experimental research, employs the TAP to collect the data as well as to study
problem-solving and decision-making in translation processes. Furthermore, it is very helpful in the fact that Jääskeläinen not only provides some of the
methodological problems involved in TAP studies on translating but also recommends some techniques to improve the situation. It is essential to design a
systematic methodological investigation so as to specifically determine the
15
validity and reliability of different data elicitation methods in process-oriented translation studies. Nevertheless, in comparison to the method of monitoring the
translation processes without much less impact on the subjects’ usual behavior in performing a translation task, the present study and Jääskeläinen’s study differ
considerably. The researcher of the present study explicitly mentions the use of SRM to record the subjects’ writing processes when they are undertaking a
specified translation task, but Jääskeläinen does not mention any instrument usage to monitor the subjects’ writing processes. Moreover, in implementing the
experiments, four professional translators are assigned by Jääskeläinen to perform a specified translation task, whereas two university students are assigned by the
researcher of the present study to undertake a specified translation task. Based on all of the studies reviewed above, the stance of this study is to
improve the reviewed studies by employing the same methods, i.e. TAP and SRM in a different text, which is a literary text. By portraying the translation process of
each subject traced by the TAP and SRM, this study affirms the significance of TAP and SRM in revealing the subjects’ problem-solving and decision-making
during the process of translating the literary text.
B. Review of Related Theories 1.
