Presentation sequence of source texts

A randomised presentation sequences of the ST were introduced in order to minimise the risk that significant observations had to do (in part) with a repeated presentation sequence. In the presentation sequence design used in this study, each of the three experimental texts under each of the three translation editing environments conditions was systematically presented an equal number of times in different positions. The design used in the present study was decided heuristically after testing and rejecting other potential presentation designs. The first design that was tested was the so-called

‘default’ design:

Participant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...

Initial T1 T1 T1 T1 T1 T1 T1 T1 T1 T1 ...

Medial T2 T2 T2 T2 T2 T2 T2 T2 T2 T2 ...

Final T3 T3 T3 T3 T3 T3 T3 T3 T3 T3 ...

Table 5.4: Default presentation sequence for a full set of 18 participants

Colour codes: white background = E1,light grey background = E2,dark grey back-ground = E3. Character codes: T1 = text 01, T2 = text 02, T3 = text 03.

In the ‘default’ design shown in Table 5.4 above, all participants would translate T1 first (task 1) and finish by translating T3 (task 3). The translation editing environment conditions would be introduced so that the first text would always be translated in E1, the second under E2 and the third under E3. This design was rejected since the three experimental texts would always be translated under the same environment and it would be impossible to evaluate how the use of different translation editing environments affects the translation of the same ST. Under this design it would also be impossible to control potential confounding variables derived from translating always under the same environment in the same position. Another design was therefore considered. The model below illustrates the presentation sequence in which the text order presentation was rotated: each text was rotated clockwise one step from one participant to the next, and each translation editing environment was rotated counter-clockwise on step from one participant to the next.

Participant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...

Initial T1 T3 T2 T1 T3 T2 T1 T3 T2 T1 ...

Medial T2 T1 T3 T2 T1 T3 T2 T1 T3 T2 ...

Final T3 T2 T1 T3 T2 T1 T3 T2 T1 T3 ...

Table 5.5: Rotation of individual presentation sequences for a full set of 18 participants

Each experimental text as well as each translation edition environment would now be presented in initial, medial and final positions a number of times. This design was nevertheless also considered flawed as each translation editing environment is not distributed evenly across initial, medial and final positions. For instance, Text 01 translated under E1 would always be presented in initial position, Text 02 translated in E2 would always be presented in medial position, etc.

A third design was therefore considered, which takes into account this flaw; ‘blocks’

of 18 translators were rotated clockwise as illustrated in Table 5.6. In this design, texts/environments interactions would occur not only in initial, medial or in final positions, but also occur in the three possible positions. In order to control the environment-order and the text-order variables, a complete environment-order combination was trialled in the pilot study (a total of six) and a simplified text-order combination (a total of three).

Not all possible text-order combinations were tested for two reasons: texts are not our independent variable and a full text-order randomisation would have made impossible to handle such a large sample of participants in the study. Thus the number of participants in the pilot study (see 1.3.4 Participants) was determined by the minimum number required to work with all the six possible combinations of translation editing environments (E1/E2/E3) and a minimum of three possible text combinations (T1/T2/T3), i.e. 6x3 (n=18).

Participant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...

Initial T1 T3 T2 T2 T1 T3 T3 T2 T1 T1 ...

Medial T2 T1 T3 T3 T2 T1 T1 T3 T2 T2 ...

Final T3 T2 T1 T1 T3 T2 T2 T1 T3 T3 T2

Table 5.6: Rotation of groups of presentation sequences

By applying the above design, Tex 01 under E1 would then occur in initial position twice, in medial position twice, and again twice in final position for every block of 18 translators. Text 01 under E2 would occur twice initial, medial and final position, etc.

Ideally, each combination of text and environment would have occurred in each position three times. However, the current design is considered sufficiently reliable in providing a general framework in which combinations of texts and translation editing environments used to translate are randomised across all participants. This experimental design is expected to yield comparable data when it comes to environment and text interactions.

5.4 Task

The participants in the present study were each tasked with translating three texts under three different translation editing environments (see Section 5.3.2). The participants were informed that data from all three texts would be subjected to analysis by the Translation Service of the university looking for potential contacts to add to their database as well as by researchers at the Department of Translation and Interpreting for research purposes.

A factor which might have contributed negatively to the validity of the data collected would had been to make translators think that their translations would only served as material for the analyses of the present study. As pointed out by Dragsted (2004: 126), this potential problem is probably less of an issue with student translators, who are used to translating for the purpose of having the translation evaluated by a teacher. With respect to professional translators, it could be the case that they feel less responsible for producing a translation that meets their usual quality criteria knowing that their translations would not be applied in a real-life setting. However, the fact it was going to be a paid assignment used also as a translation test by the Translation Service Bureau at the university seemed to be two good reasons to motive participants to come to university to take part in the experiment.

No warm-up texts were introduced in the translation task so as not to increase the time of the whole translation sessions in the interest of the overall ecological validity of the experiment. Furthermore, the choice of not using any warm-up text was reinforced by the fact it was on our own interest not to introduce any translation editing environment prior to the three ones being tested in the experiment. The use of a warm-up text could have certainly acclimatised translators to translate under experimental conditions, but would have also introduced the possible confounding variable of prioritizing one translation editing environment prior to the translation task.

None of the three experimental texts were translated with a time constraint. Each translation session lasted a maximum of one hour and a half and it was more than enough for participants to complete each translation without time pressure regarding the length of the ST. Table 5.7 below show the time schedule for each of the translation sessions that we had to replicate a total of 6 (sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon) in order to run the experiment among the 90 participants in the final sample under study.

Morning sessions Afternoon sessions Agenda (venue)

09:30 h 15:30 h Welcoming and presentation(common room) 10:00 h 16:00 h First translation task (computer lab)

11:10 h 17:10 h Coffee break (common room)

11:30 h 17:30 h Second translation task (computer lab)

12:40 h 18:40 h Coffee break (common room)

13:00 h 19:00 h Third translation task (computer lab) 14:10 h 20:10 h Signing of informed consent/Payment form

and post-translation questionnaire

Table 5.7: Time schedule and task distribution for every translation session

No specific online or offline translation aids were introduced in the task, but they were made available for potential use in the computer. It was assumed that the accessibility to Internet and online dictionaries was part the naturalistic work environment that the translators needed to translate as if they would have done under no experimental conditions.

Translators were only advised not to use webmail services during the translation session, because the session was being monitored both in the form of screen recording and key-logging (see Section 5.5.3) and we would have had access to personal data from the participants in the form of passwords and private information in e-mails.