IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v11y2024i1d10.1057_s41599-024-03187-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of text type on Chinese-English translation effort: an investigation with reference to translation entropy

Author

Listed:
  • Xiao Liu

    (Shandong University)

  • Ying Cui

    (School of Interpreting and Translation Studies, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies)

Abstract

Various factors affect translation effort. This research aims to explore the impact of source text type on Chinese-English translation effort with reference to translation entropy. An eye-tracking and key-logging experiment was conducted. Thirty-one student translators translated four text types, namely legal, advertising, news, and poetic texts. Data analyses show that there is a significant difference in participants’ effort of translating the four texts, which can be seen in such indicators as subjective ratings, fixation, pause, translation time, and edits. We further studied participants’ translations and calculated the translation entropy for each text type, which is a measure of uncertainty in translation. Analysis shows that there is a significant difference in translation entropy among the four text types, which provides evidence that source text features affect translation uncertainty and, hence, translation effort to search for appropriate options. The discussions are intended to provide further insight into the impact of text type on the translation process, and the result confirms the reliability of translation entropy as a predictor of translation effort.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiao Liu & Ying Cui, 2024. "The impact of text type on Chinese-English translation effort: an investigation with reference to translation entropy," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:11:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-024-03187-y
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-024-03187-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-024-03187-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-024-03187-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ying Cui & Xiao Liu & Yuqin Cheng, 2023. "A Comparative Study on the Effort of Human Translation and Post-Editing in Relation to Text Types: An Eye-Tracking and Key-Logging Experiment," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:11:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-024-03187-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.