EST Congress 2016
Aarhus, 17 September 2016
Panel 17. Ergonomics of translation: methodological, practical and educational implications
Recent advances in translation tools from a cognitive ergonomics perspective Sharon O’Brien
[email protected]
Carlos Teixeira
[email protected]
Centre for Translation and Textual Studies (CTTS) ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology Dublin City University (Ireland)
Motivation Translators express dissatisfaction with CAT tools, despite the fact that it is more than two decades since the appearance of the first TM tools. For example:
feelings of dehumanisation and devaluation lack of control and ownership lower translation rates and tighter deadlines a hindrance to creativity ergonomic issues o user interface o technical performance
(ErgoTrans, Connolly 2015, Hasler 2015) C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
2
Cognitive ergonomics ILCEA special issue on Translation and Cognition (Lavault-Olléon 2011): “Far exceeding the restricted notion that limits it to the study of table heights or button shapes, ergonomics focusses primarily on the prevalence of the human factor and on the need to adapt the work to the individual and not the opposite” “the translator’s activity involves a set of complex cognitive operations” “we perform better when we feel better” (“on est meilleur quand on est mieux”) – the ergonomic compromise C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
3
(Extended) cognition “Cognition is not just an information manipulation process in the brain, it is contextualised action embedded in a body and increasingly mediated by technologies and situated in its sociocultural environment” (Risku & Windhager 2013) Why focus on tool interfaces and interactions?
“external representations are not simply inputs and stimuli to the internal mind; rather, they are so intrinsic to many cognitive tasks that they guide, constrain, and even determine cognitive behavior” (Dragsted 2006)
C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
4
New trends in translation tools Main trends:
focus on MT post-editing on-line, minimalist interfaces new ways of visualising and interacting with the MT output interactive and adaptive MT (indicators of confidence estimation) smarter handling of tags
Examples:
C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
6
Motivations behind ‘innovations’ Spence Green (Lilt), in a proZ.com webinar: translators not happy with post-editing (cites Moorkens & O’Brien 2015) UI design based on TPR & eye tracking (cites Carl 2010) attempt to “minimize gaze shift” editor is designed to be operated mainly from the keyboard uses models of human cognition (cites John 1996) Phillip Koehn (Casmacat), at AMTA 2015: “Cognitive studies of translators leading to insights into interface design” tests with professional translators → increased productivity C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
7
Open questions (1) Are we getting “Beyond Post-Editing”? (Green 2015) “Translation […] tool of a different kind”? (Zetzsche 2016) (In other words, is there anything disruptive or innovative?) Tools might be more productive, but also more ergonomic? _________
New tool features still need to be tested more extensively We still do not have the answers some usability questions C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
8
Open questions (2) Main question: How to optimise the CAT tool (usage) for the translator’s needs, i.e. how to improve ergonomics?
C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
9
Cognitive friction (Tentative) Definitions “the resistance encountered by a human intellect when it engages with a complex system of rules that change as the problem changes” (Cooper 2004)
“the mismatch between the way in which translators expect information to be presented and the way in which the tools actually present that information” (Teixeira, working definition) “a state of being when ‘flow’ is disturbed” (Ehrensberger-Dow and O’Brien 2015)
C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
“being fully immersed in an activity such that it energizes the person involved in the task and provides them with a feeling of enjoyment” (citing Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi 2002)
10
Cognitive friction Current working definition: “cognitive friction is any interruption to translation flow, defined as a ‘pure’ transfer of the source message to the target”
The ‘flow’ is broken if: - the translator does a concordance search in the tool - the translator does terminology searches
- the translator is interrupted by other tools on the computer - features in the tool being used to produce the translation cause disruption (but how to identify disruption between activities?) C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
11
Open questions (3) From our current study: o How do translators use the information available in the tool (e.g. fixations on different UI elements)? o Different cognitive actions when handling TM and MT? o Patterns of terminology search? o How often do they switch between different tools? o How do they use the two screens? o How do they deal with interruptions?
C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
12
Moving towards an answer Interdisciplinarity HCI
Usability
Personalisation
Perhaps translating will look like this someday…
C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
13
EST Congress 2016
Aarhus, 17 September 2016
Panel 17. Ergonomics of translation: methodological, practical and educational implications
Thank you!
Sharon O’Brien
[email protected]
Carlos Teixeira
[email protected]
References Connolly, Megan. 2015. An investigation into the causal factors of cognitive friction experienced by professional translators when using computer-aided translation tools. Masters dissertation. Dublin: Dublin City University. Cooper, Alan. 2004. The Inmates are Running the Asylum: Why Hi-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity. Indianapolis: Sams Publishing. Dragsted, Barbara. 2006. “Computer-aided translation as a distributed cognitive task”. Pragmatics & Cognition 14 (2): 443–464. Ehrensberger-Dow, Maureen & Sharon O’Brien. 2015. Ergonomics of the translation workplace: Potential for cognitive friction. Translation Spaces 4 (1), Special Issue: 98-118. Green, Spence. 2016. Lilt: machine assistance, not machine translation, to optimize your productivity. proZ.com webinar. 10 February 2016. Hasler, Marcel. 2015. Negative Aspects of Computer-Assisted Translation Tools: Analysing CAT Tool Features from a Cognitive Ergonomic Perspective. Masters dissertation. Winterthur: ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Lavault-Olléon, Élisabeth. 2011. “L’ergonomie, nouveau paradigme pour la traductologie”. ILCEA 14: unpaginated. Nakamura, Jeanne, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 2002. “Flow theory and research”. In Handbook of Positive Psychology, C. R. Snyder and Shane J. Lopez (eds.) Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 89–105. Risku, Hanna, and Florian Windhager. 2013. “Extended Translation: A Sociocognitive Research Agenda”. Target 25 (1): 33–45. Zetzsche, Jost. 2016. Lilt: Translation environment tool of a different kind. Multilingual magazine. January/February 2016. 15-17 C. Teixeira & S. O’Brien
EST 2016
16
