Finnish literary translators' use of translation technology and tools: processes, profiles, and purposes

Authors

• Minna Ruokonen University of Eastern Finland
• Leena Salmi University of Turku

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61200/mikael.136432

Keywords:

literary translation, translation technology use, computer-assisted literary translation (CALT), translation memories, machine translation

Abstract

While Translation Studies has started investigating the potential of translation technology in literary translation, the research has largely focused on optimizing product quality and bypassed the experiences of literary translators. This study contributes to filling that gap by means of a survey (n=72) and interviews (n=7) among literary translators with Finnish as a working language. Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, we investigate what tools are used by literary translators, at what stages of the translation process, and for what purposes, and what factors are linked to technology use. We identify three types of translation processes (“from scratch”, “TM use”, and “MT post-editing”) with some individual and source-text-specific variation, and observe that translation technology use is more likely for translators who also use it for non-literary translation. The results also draw attention to literary translators’ different processes and the variety of purposes for which the different tools are used. The results have implications for publishers’ workflows, usability, and literary translators’ agency and profession.

References

Benaissa, Mina 2023. Förlag har börjat använda robotar för att översätta böcker [A publisher has started using robots to translate books]. Sveriges radio [The Swedish Broadcasting Company]. Available at: https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/forlag-har-borjat-anvanda-robotar-for-att-oversatta-bocker [accessed 9 June 2023].

Borg, Claudine 2022. A Literary Translation in the Making: A Process-Oriented Perspective. New York: Routledge.

Daems, Joke 2022. Dutch Literary Translators’ Use and Perceived Usefulness of Technology: The Role of Awareness and Attitude. In: James Hadley, Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov, Carlos S.C. Teixeira & Antonio Toral (eds) Using Technologies for Creative-Text Translation. New York: Routledge, 40–65. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003094159-3

Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK 2019. The Ethical Principles of Research with Human Participants and Ethical Review in the Human Sciences in Finland. Available at: https://tenk.fi/en/ethical-review/ethical-review-human-sciences [accessed 9 June 2023].

Hansen, Damien & Emmanuelle Esperança-Rodier 2022. Human-Adapted MT for Literary Texts: Reality or Fantasy? In: Sheila Castilho, Rocío Caro Quintana, Maria Stasimioti & Vilelmini Sosoni (eds) Proceedings of the New Trends in Translation and Technology Conference. Rhodes, Greece: NeTTT, 178–190. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2268/293270 [accessed 27 June 2023].

Hansen, Damien Emmanuelle Esperança-Rodier, Hervé Blanchon & Valérie Bada 2022. La traduction littéraire automatique : Adapter la machine à la traduction humaine individualisée. Journal of Data Mining & Digital Humanities, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.46298/jdmdh.9114

Mellinger, Christopher & Thomas A. Hanson 2017. Quantitative Research Methods in Translation and Interpreting Studies. New York: Routledge.

Ruffo, Paola 2022. Collecting Literary Translators’ Narratives: Towards a New Paradigm for Technological Innovation in Literary Translation. In: James Hadley, Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov, Carlos S.C. Teixeira & Antonio Toral (eds) Using Technologies for Creative-Text Translation. New York: Routledge, 18–39. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003094159-2

Salmi, Leena 2021. A good servant but a bad master: Finnish Translators’ Perceptions on Translation Technology. Revista Tradumàtica 19, 112–130. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/ tradumatica.287

Slessor, Stephen 2020. Tenacious Technophobes or Nascent Technophiles? A Survey of the Technological Practices and Needs of Literary Translators. Perspectives 28:2, 238–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2019.1645189

Swedish Broadcasting Company 2023. “AI kan inte ersätta språkkänsla” [“AI cannot replace a sense of language”]. Available at: https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/ai-kan-inte-ersatta-sprakkansla [accessed 9 June 2023].

Toral, Antonio & Andy Way 2014. Is Machine Translation Ready for Literature? Translating & the Computer 36, 174–176.

Toral, Antonio & Andy Way 2015. Machine-Assisted Translation of Literary Text: A Case Study. Translation Spaces 4:2, 240–267. https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.4.2.04tor

Toral, Antonio & Andy Way 2018. What Level of Quality Can Neural Machine Translation Attain on Literary Text? In: Joss Moorkens, Sheila Castilho, Federico Gaspari & Stephen Doherty (eds) Translation Quality Assessment: From Principles to Practice. New York: Springer, 263–287.

Voigt, Rob & Dan Jurafsky 2012. Towards a Literary Machine Translation: The Role of Referential Cohesion. Proceedings of the NAACL-HLT 2012 Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Literature. Montréal, Canada: Association for Computational Linguistics, 18–25.

Youdale, Roy & Andrew Rothwell 2022. Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) Tools, Translation Memory, and Literary Translation. In: Sharon Deane-Cox & Anneleen Spiessens (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Memory. London: Routledge, 381–402.