28.3844, Review: Applied Linguistics; Translation: Grucza, Hansen-Schirra (2016)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-3844. Tue Sep 19 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.3844, Review: Applied Linguistics; Translation: Grucza, Hansen-Schirra (2016)

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Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 15:12:19
From: Asmaa Shehata [asm.shehata at gmail.com]
Subject: Eyetracking and Applied Linguistics

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-5062.html

EDITOR: Silvia  Hansen-Schirra
EDITOR: Sambor  Grucza
TITLE: Eyetracking and Applied Linguistics
SERIES TITLE: Translation and Multilingual Natural Language Processing
PUBLISHER: Language Science Press
YEAR: 2016

REVIEWER: Asmaa Shehata, University of Calgary

REVIEWS EDITOR: Robert A. Coté 

SUMMARY

“Eyetracking and Applied Linguistics” edited by Silvia Hansen-Schirra and
Sambor Grucza is comprised of selected papers from the first International
Conference on Eyetracking and Applied Linguistics (ICEAL), which brings
together researchers who use eyetracking in their empirical translation and
corpora studies. In addition to the introduction (Chapter 1), this volume
includes three main parts: audiovisual translation (Chapters 2, 3, and 4),
post-editing of machine translation output (Chapters 5 and 6), and
comprehensibility and usability (Chapters 7 and 8).
 
In Chapter 1, Silvia Hansen-Schirra and Sambor Grucza underline that the chief
purpose of the volume is to shed light on the three major topics introduced in
the ICEAL by researchers in various disciplines: Applied Linguistics,
Translation Studies, and Computational Linguistics and Cognitive Science, in
an attempt to bridge the gaps between these four fields.  The chapter briefly
sketches, on one hand, the contents of the volume highlighting the main
research questions, and on the other hand, the significance and contribution
of each article.
 
Part One of this book comprises three articles on audiovisual translation
studies. In Chapter 2, entitled “Integrated titles: An improved viewing
experience?”, Wendy Fox tests the possible influence of subtitle placement and
design on viewers’ reading times and perception of an image. As defined by
Bayram & Bayraktar (2012), integrated titles refer to text information
incorporated directly into the picture. Using eyetracking and questionnaires,
the author compares the performance of native English speakers (N=14) and
native German (N=31) speakers in two groups. One group watches the English
film with traditional subtitles (N=15), and the other group watches the same
movie with integrated subtitles (N=16). The results display the positive
influence of the integrated subtitles that decrease viewers’ average reading
time than the traditional subtitles and also enable them to focus more on the
images in between titles. The article concludes with an illustration of the
results’ practical implications and directions for future research.
 
In Chapter 3, “Crazy Japanese subtitles? Shedding light on the impact of
impact captions with a focus on research methodology”, Minako O’Hagan and
Ryoko Sasamoto present an explorative study that examines the influence of TV
impact captions on the viewers’ reactions and responses using eye tracking
methodology. The authors start with a brief description of the impact captions
that refer to the use of multimodal and dynamic textual inserts to enhance the
viewer experience. This term was first introduced by Park (2009) and has
become an essential part of various Japanese entertainment TV programs
revealing their major benefits and previous eye-tracking studies.
Subsequently, O’Hagan and Sasamoto describe their pilot study in which 12
Japanese university students are instructed to watch an extract from a popular
TV Japanese program (Honme Dekka broadcast ‘Is It Really True?) that lasts for
22 minutes and 29 seconds while wearing an eye-tracker. Participants also
complete a questionnaire afterward in which they answer questions about their
viewing habits and preferences regarding the program content. The results show
fewer viewer fixations on the captions area and more fixations on the images
in the middle of the screen. The authors conclude with a discussion of
limitations and directions for future research.
 
In Chapter 4, “Subtitles vs. narration: The acquisition of information from
visual-verbal and audio-verbal channels when watching a television
documentary”, Juha Láng experimentally examines viewers’ reception of a
subtitled television documentary about Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian explorer
and Nobel Peace Prize laureate that lasts for about seven minutes.
Specifically, Láng looks at the efficiency of subtitles in comparison to
narration in two experiments. In the first experiment, 14 native Finnish
speakers with no knowledge of Russian and 20 native Russian speakers are asked
to watch a short Russian documentary narrative with Finnish subtitles and
answer questions about the contents of the video in the subsequent
questionnaire that includes 29 open-ended questions in Finnish. While Russian
speakers attained higher scores in all subtitle-related questions, Finnish
natives were better in the image-related questions. Experiment 2, however, 
examines how the two groups differ in information acquisition using the same
video and questionnaire. Unlike Experiment 1, the questionnaire is presented
in both Finnish and Russian, that are paired with eye tracking methodology
where the eye movements of 20 native Finnish speakers with no Russian
knowledge and 13 native Russian speakers are tracked with SMI (SensoMotoric
Instruments) Eye Tracking Glasses 2.0. The results indicate that the Russian
group makes fewer glances to the subtitle area than the Finnish group, and no
significant differences are found between the two groups regarding the image
processing. Láng concludes that subtitles are not distracting and could help
viewers acquire information from subtitled programs.
 
Part II discusses machine translation output post-editing. In Chapter 5,
“Monolingual post-editing: An exploratory study on research behaviour and
target text quality”, Jean Nitzke reports on her empirical study that examines
the monolingual post-editing (MPE) for English-German machine translation
using eye-tracking methodology. The author describes a number of experiments
that were done at the University of Mainz in which 12 semi-professional and 12
professional translators translated two texts from scratch, monolingually
post- edit and bilingually post-edit. In addition, all participants completed
a Likert questionnaire regarding their satisfaction about the post-editing
tasks in which each question was accompanied by five choices: highly
satisfied, somewhat satisfied, neutral, somewhat dissatisfied and highly
dissatisfied. While findings show some similarities between scratch, bilingual
post-edited texts and MPE translations regarding grammar and spelling errors,
MPE translations are found to use different research patterns and efforts.
 
In Chapter 6, “Investigating cognition effort in post-editing: A
relevance-theoretical approach”, Fabio Alves, Karina Sarto Szpak, José Luiz
Gonçalves, Kyoko Sekino, Marceli Aquino, Rodrigo Araújo e Castro, Arlene
Koglin, Norma B. de Lima Fonseca, and Bartolomé Mesa-Lao report on their study
investigating how post-editing tasks are influenced by the cognitive effort in
two web-based workbenches: interactive machine translation (IMT) and
non-interactive machine translation (MT). To this end, 16 Brazilian
translators post-edit into Brazilian Portuguese two source texts in English
about pharmacological products’ results. The eye tracking data display that
interactive and non-interactive machine translations involve different
cognitive processes. Alves and colleagues demonstrate that the facilitating
effect found in the interactive condition is related to the reduction in
cognitive processes on one hand and the reduction in mechanical operation of
typing on the other hand. Future research is encouraged to thoroughly explore
post-editors’ behaviour.
 
Part III includes two chapters that address the inquiries of usability and
comprehensibility. Due to the significance of eye tracking technology in
usability research, Chapter 7, “Eye tracking and beyond: The dos and don’ts of
creating a contemporary usability lab”, Christopher Rösener starts with a
presentation of several prevailing definitions of the term ‘usability’ in
order to clarify its meaning. The author prefers to use Jakob Nielson’s (1998)
broader definition that covers expansive range of potential research interests
for the existing usability lab. The chapter then focuses on introducing the
major challenges and difficulties in using eyetracking technology for
usability studies highlighting the fundamental common theoretical and
practical mistakes (such as experiment design, setup, and equipment issues) as
well as recommendations.  Rösener finally concludes with a brief description
of the usability laboratory at Flensburg University of Applied Sciences,
noteworthy concluding remarks and directions for future research.
 
In Chapter 8, “The impact of nominalisations on the reading process: A
case-study using the freiburg legalese reading corpus”, Sascha Wolfer examines
how jurisdictional texts, which are well known for their complex structures,
are processed by readers using eye tracking technology. In this regard, he
explores how nominalisations are pronounced and whether they are more
difficult to process than normal nouns. The results demonstrate that
nominalisations are associated with slower comprehension processes that can be
less challenging if nominalisations are replaced with verbal structures. In
his conclusion, Wolfer encourages further research that explores readers’
mental representation of jurisdictional texts as well as developing novel
tests that measure the comprehension processes’ outcome.
 
EVLUATION
 
This book presents an informative set of articles that provide a thorough
overview of recent eye tracking research. As the editors explain in Chapter 1,
the articles present  current empirical investigations that employ eye
tracking methodology. Each article is very detailed and provides sufficient
background information, clear definitions of all technical terms, and solid,
rigorous methodology. Therefore, the articles are easily understandable and
include extensive relevant references. All the contributions are not only
interesting reads; many of them, in particular Chapter 7, are very important
to translation and eye tracking research. At large, the chapters are mostly
stand-alone contributions that look at the use of eyetracking in translation
and post-editing research. Thus, the chapters can be read in any order.
 
One negative aspect of the book is its title, which I find misleading  because
it does not accurately present the book’s contents. In fact, most of the
articles (five out of seven) primarily focus on translation issues.
 
Overall, this book is a valuable source that both students and researchers can
consult for directions of current eye tracking research as related to
translation and text corpora. However, the reader should have a certain
familiarity with eye tracking before reading it.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Asmaa Shehata, is a faculty at the University of Calgary, Linguistics,
Languages and Cultures Department. Her research interests include second
language phonology with particular focus on cross-language speech perception
and production.





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