Readers have to work harder to understand a badly translated text: an eye-tracking study into the effects of translation errors.
Texts are translated to be read and provide access to otherwise inaccessible information or experiences. Scant empirical interest in how translations are read and received by readers is surprising in the context of our knowledge about the features of translations, and the systematic ways in which th...
| Published in: | Perspectives: Studies in Translatology Vol. 33; no. 5; pp. 1085 - 1106 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Oct2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=189083944&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 189083944 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0907676X S2F jtl: Perspectives: Studies in Translatology issn: 0907676X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2025 vid: 33 iid: 5 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 189083944 10.1080/0907676X.2024.2418016 ppf: 1085 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 705KB tig: atl: Readers have to work harder to understand a badly translated text: an eye-tracking study into the effects of translation errors. aug: au: Whyatt, Bogusława Tomczak-Łukaszewska, Ewa Witczak, Olga Lehka-Paul, Olha affil: Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland su: Translating & interpreting Eye tracking Cognitive load Reading comprehension sug: subj: Translating & interpreting Eye tracking Cognitive load Reading comprehension keyword: cognitive effort eye-tracking reading process translation errors Translation quality translation reception ab: Texts are translated to be read and provide access to otherwise inaccessible information or experiences. Scant empirical interest in how translations are read and received by readers is surprising in the context of our knowledge about the features of translations, and the systematic ways in which they differ from originally written texts. In this paper, we explore the impact of translation quality on the reading experience by analysing the cognitive effort involved in reading and text comprehension. Two groups of participants (n = 64) were eye-tracked as they read either a low-quality translation (with errors) or a high-quality translation (without errors) of the same source text. Overall, the errors contributed to longer dwell time when reading the entire text but did not significantly affect the participants' comprehension scores. A more in-depth analysis of the impact of translation errors on the reading experience shows that it depends on the amount of confusion errors cause to the reader when building a coherent model of the entire text. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Perspectives: Studies in Translatology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Perspectives: Studies in Translatology holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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