Translators’ Resource Dominance and the Success of Finding the Target Terms in Human Translation and Post-editing of Machine Translation
Translators’ Resource Dominance and the Success of Finding the Target Terms in Human Translation and Post-editing of Machine Translation

Summary/Abstract: This study presents the first results of process-oriented research on the types of online translation resources used by first- and second-year translation trainees when translating and post-editing a legal text from English into Hungarian. Based on the screen recordings of the students’ workflow, the possible relations between resource dominance (termino-lexicographic or text-based), time on task and the success of finding the correct target terms were analysed. Our results indicate that students generally prefer termino-lexicographic sources to text-based sources. Interestingly, in most cases, the success of finding the correct target terms showed no significant correlations either with time on task or with resource dominance. The only exception was the post-editor group, where there was a significant correlation between the frequency of using text-based sources and the success of finding correct terms. In addition, evidence was found that post-editors worked more efficiently than from-scratch human translators in terms of time and search effort. The paper ends with possible explanations of the findings and suggestions for translator training.

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