School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
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ItemFatal flaws? Investigating the effects of machine translation errors on audience reception in the audiovisual context(Taylor & Francis, 2024-03-13)This study reports on an experiment where machine translation errors in subtitling are evaluated from the perspective of nine viewers who did not know the source language and seven viewers who were studying the source language. Screen recordings, think-aloud protocols, comprehension tests, and interviews were employed to explore participants’ responses and reactions to erroneous subtitles and to investigate how specific errors impacted comprehension and immersion in the viewing experience. The analysis identifies which errors were most noticed and to what extent those errors affected viewers’ trust in the subtitles. Errors causing significant misunderstanding and distrust are initially considered ‘fatal’, as they may halt viewer immersion and prompt disengagement from the audiovisual product. However, the findings highlight a remarkable tolerance of the uncertainty that results from errors, as viewers filter out misinformation or draw on other sources of information to construe and rectify their interpretations. This tolerance is explained in terms of a general trade-off with the enjoyment of the viewing experience, which varies in accordance with the viewer’s knowledge of the source language.
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ItemActive Translation Literacy in the Literature Class(Cambridge University Press, 2023-09-12)Imagine you are spying on your town or city, peering into malls, homes, computers, bookshelves, electronic devices carried on public transport. Where is literature? And if you can find it, where are liter- ary translations? Where might they be read, talked about, or pro- duced, if at all?
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ItemTranslation policies in times of a pandemic An intercity comparison(JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING CO, 2023-07-06)Abstract In 2020–22, multilingual vaccination communication became an urgent priority around the world, requiring trusted communication in non-official languages. In Brussels, Melbourne and Shanghai, quite different legal frameworks and language policies were challenged by the need for behavior-change communication in a wide range of culturally and linguistically diverse communities. In all three cases, practices were developed that showed the limitations of existing translation policies. Here we use policy analysis to explore the nature of those challenges, to compare the different solutions found in the three cities, and to propose how policies might be developed and adjusted to enhance time-pressured trust-building communication.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableOn Recent Nationalisms in Translation Studies(Korean Association for Public Translation and Interpretation, 2021-11-30)ABSTRACT: If the intercultural were ever neatly opposed to the national as a frame for translational action and thought, then it would seem to be losing. Nationalist frames have gained new-found energy in various forms: translation is seen a weapon because nation-states support and manipulate it (Sapiro), the ethical aim of translation is to advance one’s national interests and priorities (Ren and Gao), and each country’s “translation capacity” can be quantified and ranked on a league table of competing nations (BFSU). Translators thus become foot-soldiers in battles to gain prestige on the world stage. Such manifestations of nationalism appear to run counter to the causes of intercultural positions and the ethics of cooperative communication between unequal parties. The need for translation nevertheless now lies more urgently in the culturally and linguistically diverse communities within and across national borders, where successful social inclusion is inseparable from the use of translation not as a weapon, but as a means of cooperation. 논문초록: 번역행위 및 사고의 프레임으로서의 상호문화주의가 민족주의와 대척점에 있는 개념이라면, 지금 상호문화주의는 민족주의에 기세가 밀리고 있는 것으로 보일 것이다. 민족주의 프레임은 다양한 형태로 새로운 동력을 얻고 있으며, 번역은 그 무기로 인식된다. 민족국가에서 번역을 지원하고 조작(Sapiro)하고 있고, 국가의 이익과 우선순위를 증진하는 것이 번역의 윤리적 목적(Ren and Gao)이며, 서로 경쟁하는 국가들의 리그 순위표 상에서 각국의 ‘번역능력(translation capacity)’을 계량화·순위화(BFSU)할 수 있기 때문이다. 이에 따라 번역사는 세계 무대에서 명성을 얻기 위한 전투에서 보병 역할을 하게 되었다. 이러한 민족주의의 발현은 상호문화주의적 입장의 대의, 그리고 불평등한 세력 사이의 협력적 소통의 윤리에 배치되는 것으로 보인다. 그럼에도 불구하고, 오늘날 각국의 국경 안팎에 자리한 문화적·언어적으로 다양한 공동체에서 번역의 필요성은 더욱 시급해지고 있다. 이들 공동체에서 사회적 포용의 성공 여부는 번역의 활용과 불가분의 관계를 가지며, 이때 번역은 무기가 아닌 협력의 수단으로 기능한다.
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ItemEnhancing COVID-19 public health communication for culturally and linguistically diverse communities: An Australian interview study with community representatives(Det Kgl. Bibliotek/Royal Danish Library, 2022-01-25)Background: Public health crises present challenges for providing accessible, timely, and accurate health information to culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. Aim: The aim of this qualitative project was to explore strategies used by CALD community organizations to improve communication about COVID-19 for their communities; we also aimed to identify gaps and challenges. Methods: We interviewed 16 representatives from Greek, Italian, and Chinese CALD organizations in Melbourne, Australia. The interviews were analyzed thematically. Results: Community leaders played a significant role in engaging their community members with accurate key health information. There were differences between language communities about preferred channels for receiving information. As the pandemic intensified, there was a shift from written communication to more interactive exchanges between authorities and community leaders. Discussion: The findings suggest effective public health communication is enhanced by the mediation and outreach strategies adopted by CALD community organizations; further, stakeholders need to be cognizant of heterogeneity of needs and preferences. This may optimize information dissemination to meet specific needs. Conclusions:The CALD organizations have developed communication strategies involving different kinds of mediation to reach specific sub-groups, especially the most vulnerable. These strategies can inform future public health engagement.
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ItemIn Search of a New Rationale for the Prose Translation Class at University Level(Brussels Translation School, 1992)In view of labour-market demands, greater flexibility is required of translators. This includes active translational competence in their foreign language(s), especially in domains where oral communication is more important than written communication. The present study investigates how to give a new rationale to prose translation classes, in the wake of a long-standing tradition whereby prose translation was given an ancillary status as a didactic means in foreign-language teaching. The increasing presence of foreign exchange students in translation classes creates an excellent opportunity to increase the importance of A-B directionality. The prose class (thème, traducción inversa, Hinübersetzung) is ostensibly involved with teaching translation from the students’ mother language to the students’ second language (A-B). However, it has traditionally been little more than a rather laborious way of checking on B language acquisition, surviving as a relic from the days when translation was itself taught as little more than a mode of language learning. This traditional background creates serious problems when, as in Spain, prose classes exist in specialist translation institutes at university level. Although the old model would appear to be no longer valid (since translation students are now supposed to learn translation, not just languages), little thought has been given to the development of a new rationale. Indeed, most contemporary theories talk about translation as if directionality were not important; even theoretically developed syllabus projects like that of Amman & Vermeer (1990) give scant attention to directionality, preferring instead to consider “the translational problems of language pairs” where exercises are presumably to be carried out indifferently both to and from the mother language. This indifference on the level of theory might itself indicate the demise of the traditional rationale. But it leaves three very basic questions unresolved: [74] 1. Should one conclude that the prose class within the university translation institute has permanently lost its traditional specificity? 2. What relation might such classes have to the professional practice of trained translators? 3. Is there any correlation or contradiction between these two aspects? If a new rationale is possible, it will depend on coherent answers to all three questions.
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ItemHOW MUCH OF AUSTRALIA FITS INTO SPAIN(MEANJIN, 1989-06-01)
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ItemCooperation, risk, trust: a restatement of translator ethics(Ljubljana University Press, 2021)Within the general approach known as translator ethics, complementary roles are played by the concepts of cooperation, risk, and trust. Cooperation, as a technical term, describes the attainment of mutual benefits as the desired outcome of an interaction, indeed as the foundation of social life. In translator ethics, the aim is more specifically to enhance long-term cooperation between cultures. The concept of risk is then used to think about the probabilities of that general aim not being obtained and what kinds of strategies and efforts can be employed to avert that outcome by increasing mutual benefits. Trust, finally, characterizes the relationship that translators must have with those around them in order for them to contribute to cooperation, such that the most critical risk they face is that of losing credibility. Together, these concepts are able to address some of the thornier issues in translator ethics and provide a frame for ongoing discussion and research.
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ItemLa confianza de los estudiantes de traducción en la traducción automática: ¿demasiado buena para ser verdad?(Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 2021)Cuando el traductor corrige o “posedita” una traducción automática, no solo trabaja más rápido sino también suele producir una terminología más consistente. Por ello, la mayoría de los programas de formación de traductores incluyen cursos de posedición. Sin embargo, muchos traductores profesionales se oponen al uso de la posedición, lo que da lugar a un conjunto de opiniones negativas sobre la traducción automática que se reproducen en el aula. En este artículo se exponen dos actividades con estudiantes de traducción que incluían posedición y evaluación de traducción automática. Se analizan las actuaciones de los estudiantes en las dos modalidades (traducción totalmente humana frente a la posedición de la traducción automática), para luego compararlas con los comentarios de los propios estudiantes sobre la traducción automática y su experiencia personal tras la interacción. Si bien la mayoría de los participantes reconocieron una mayor eficacia cuando se usa posedición, se posicionaron en contra de la traducción automática, lo que indica un grado significativo de resistencia en el seno de la comunidad de aprendizaje. Translation: Advances in neural machine translation have reached the point where professional translators can work faster and produce better terminology when post-editing machine translation as opposed to fully human translation. Most translator-training programs thus include courses in how to post-edit machine translation. Many professional translators, however, are opposed to the use of post-editing rather than fully human translation, resulting in a suite of negative opinions about machine translation within the teaching situation. Here we report on two cases in which classroom activities with translation students involved the post-editing and evaluation of machine translation.