Set of general hypotheses

Resulting from the descriptions and discussions presented in the three first chapters, a set of hypothesis have been generated concerning the potential effects on the final translation of integrating a TM system is the translation process.

The hypotheses presented below are motivated in part by the empirical findings presented by the different research studies presented in section 4.6 and in part by the overview on explicitation shifts in translation presented throughout Chapter 3. They have been formulated in the form of null hypo-theses so they can undergo verification to determine whether they should be accepted or rejected in favour of an alternative proposition. These hypotheses will constitute points of departures for the analyses presented in chapter 7.

General hypothesis

H0: The integration of a TM system into the translation process has no impact on translation-inherent explicitation traces in TTs (null hypothesis).

Bearing in mind the kind of interaction taking place when working with a TM system and the set of general assumptions presented in Chapter 3.11.1, the following additional hypotheses will be hold in this study.

The use of TM systems has important implications in terms of text re-use and handling of different TM matches retrieved by the system. As mentioned in section 4.4.5.4, the TM suggestions presented to the translator can be accepted, adapted or rejected at the translator’s discretion. Since the focus of this study is on translation-inherent explicitation and the possible effects of the integration of a TM system in the translation process, no text-reuse was included in the experimental task proposed to the translators so they could base their translation options on their own translational criteria, being able to evaluate the actual role played by the TM system and they way they introduce explicitation traces in the translation. For this reason, Among the possible features of TMs for which it could be hypothesized to have an impact on the target texts they produced, only automatic text segmentation and access to visual context have been selected to formulate further hypotheses.

Automatic text segmentation

The strong focus on the sentence while translating associated with the use of a TM to translate can be expected to have different text-related effects.

One of this effects could be expected to be observed in the form of different

explicitation shifts as shown in the TT. To investigate whether the TT is indeed affected by the automatic segmentation proposed by a TM system at the sentence level the following hypothesis will be evaluated:

H1: The automatic text segmentation associated to the integration of a TM system into the translation process has no impact on translation-inherent explicitation when it comes to theaddition of implicit to explicit cultural and contextual references in the TT.

H2: The automatic text segmentation associated to the integration of a TM system into the translation process has no impact on translation-inherent explicitation when it comes to thespecification of phoric elements by their actual reference (replacement of pronouns) in the TT.

H3: The automatic text segmentation associated to the integration of a TM system into the translation process has no impact on translation-inherent explicitation when it comes to theaddition of newly cohesive devices in the TT.

H4: The automatic text segmentation associated to the integration of a TM system into the translation process has no impact on translation-inherent explicitation when it comes to the specification of lexical items (replacement of hyperonyms by hyponyms nouns) in the TT.

Access to visual context

Different TM systems cope differently with the degree of visual context that they offer to the translator, i.e. removing the layout information of the ST and replacing it by tags surrounding the segment being translated. In order to examine how translators actually handle this when they translate using low visual context translation editing environments the following hypo-theses will be evaluated:

H5: The loss of visual context information associated to the integration of a TM system into the translation process has no impact on translation-inherent explicitation when it comes to the addition of implicit to explicit cultural and contextual references in the TT.

H6: The loss of visual context information associated to the integration of a TM system into the translation process has no impact on translation-inherent explicitation when it comes to the specification of phoric elements by their actual reference (replacement of pronouns) in the TT.

H7: The loss of visual context information associated to the integration of a TM system into the translation process has no impact on translation-inherent explicitation when it comes to theaddition of newly cohesive devices in the TT.

H8: The loss of visual context information associated to the integration of a TM system into the translation process has no impact on translation-inherent explicitation when it comes to the specification of lexical items (replacement of hyperonyms by hyponyms nouns) in the TT.

The first two research questions (R1 and R2), which asked: ”Is explicitation is a feature of English into Spanish technical texts (software user guides and marketing collaterals)?” and ”do patterns of explicitation vary depending on the translation editing environment used to translate?”, will be examined by testing theses hypotheses.

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This and the previous chapters have presented the theoretical framework on which our empirical study is based. Resulting from the descriptions and discussions of previous research, a set of hypotheses have been generated concerning the effect of integrating TM systems into the translation process and how this integration may have an impact on explicitation patterns in translation. These hypotheses have been tested in an empirical investigation, whose design and results will be presented in the following chapters.