A cognitive inquiry into similarities and differences between translation and paraphrase: Evidence from eye movement data

Abstract

Intralingual translation has long been peripheral to empirical studies of translation. Considering its many similarities with interlingual translation, also described as translation proper, we adopted eye-tracking technology to investigate the cognitive process during translation and paraphrase, an exemplification of intralingual translation. Twenty-four postgraduate students were required to perform four types of tasks (Chinese paraphrase, English-Chinese translation, English paraphrase, Chinese-English translation) for source texts (ST) of different genres. Their eye movements were recorded for analysis of the cognitive effort and attention distribution pattern. The result demonstrated that: (1) Translation elicited significantly greater cognitive efforts than paraphrase; (2) Differences between translation and paraphrase on cognitive effort were modulated by text genre and target language; (3) Translation and paraphrase did not differ strikingly in terms of attention distribution. This process-oriented study confirmed higher cognitive efforts in inter-lingual translation, which was likely due to the additional complexity of bilingual transfer. Moreover, it revealed significant modulating effects of text genre and target language.

Comparing product quality between translation and paraphrasing: Using NLP-assisted evaluation frameworks

“…In sum, our findings suggest that there are shared grounds and divergences regarding the product quality between translation and paraphrasing. This conclusion echoes previous studies discussing their similarities and differences from a process-oriented approach (Whyatt et al, 2016;Whyatt and Naranowicz, 2020;Ma et al, 2022). More importantly, the difference in the cognitive load The NLP-assisted Evaluation Framework for TQA.…”

“…We made minimized modifications to the texts to ensure reliable comparability in key textual features. The manipulated texts were confirmed equal in the level of readability, textual coherence, and translation difficulty by the ratings of four PhD students in Translation Studies (refer to Ma et al (2022) for the details of the textual information of the source texts).…”

“…Several empirical studies have explored the similarities and differences between translation and paraphrasing (Whyatt et al, 2016(Whyatt et al, , 2017Kajzer-Wietrzny, 2019;Whyatt and Naranowicz, 2020;Ma et al, 2022). A seminal study in this area is the work of Whyatt's team in 2016, which compares the cognitive rhythm and processing effort between translation from English to Polish and paraphrasing in polish using eye-tracking and key-logging (Whyatt et al, 2016).…”

“…Research on other language combinations also comes to similar conclusions. A recent study by Ma et al (2022) focused on comparing translation between English and Chinese and English/Chinese paraphrasing. The results again confirmed a more intense cognitive effort in translation, accompanied by a similar pattern of attention shifts in the two tasks.…”

“…As defined by Jakobson (1959), interlingual translation and intra-lingual paraphrasing are two typical types of translation activities. A number of studies have been conducted to explore the overlaps and divergences between these two activities (Whyatt et al, 2016(Whyatt et al, , 2017Whyatt and Naranowicz, 2020;Ma et al, 2022). However, most of the attention has been paid to the comparison from a cognitive perspective.…”