Power of Context: Cognitive Acts and Social Events Meet Proceduralized Translations

Abstract

Andrew Chesterman (2015) elaborates on Toury (1995) and then revised in 2012 the notion of the two planes of translation process (act and event) by proposing a third plane, namely translation practice, to designate the process at the historical level. I believe that this tripartite can be further expanded to envelop other designations. For this end, we seek to find descriptive evidence for two hypotheses; {1} initial hypothesis: translation can be contextualized when it is affected by external factors (pedagogical settings in our context), and {2} supporting hypothesis: translations can be considered proceduralized when tested, and then assessed performances of translation trainees do not mirror the actuality of students’ translation competence. I seek descriptive evidence to confirm and describe both hypotheses to designate and describe translation process at the pedagogical level. 13 students majoring in translation have participated and were required to submit four assignments alongside monologue audio reports for their translations to mirror the cognitive acts and narrative feedback for the social events. We utilize think aloud protocols, narrative theory of Bennett and Feldman (1997), and Mezirow’s theory of transformationalism (2000) in the study design and implementation. Results yielded evidence for contextualized translation and proceduralized translation.,two terms that we will describe in the study. Future research may advance our hypotheses to, possibly, answer questions such as what we are testing in translation exams, why some students’ errors so frequent, and how to reduce the negative impact of exams and more.