An investigation of the relevance-theoretical approach to cognitive effort in translation and the post-editing process

Authors

  • Kyoko Sekino Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais/Brazil

Keywords:

relevance theory, conceptual encoding, procedural encoding, post-editing, cognitive effort

Abstract

The present study presents findings from an experiment that investigates the cognitive effort of eight translators and eight students during translation and post-editing (PE) tasks from Japanese to Brazilian Portuguese. Relevance theory is used as a theoretical framework to contextualise the object of study—namely conceptual and procedural encodings—and interprets the use of these encodings as the exertion of cognitive effort by participants to infer the intended message. This study replicates Alves & Gonçalves’s (2013) methodology and applies it not only to translation but also to post-editing. The results show that participants mainly edit procedural encodings. However, post-editing appears to require participants to exert greater effort since both encodings are edited. No time difference is observed between the two tasks.

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Published

2015-03-27

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2015): Translation & Interpreting

Section

Articles

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