Correlating Translation Product and Translation Process Data of Professional and Student Translators

The paper presents an exploratory study of the translation processes for 12 student and 12 professional translators. We relate properties of the translators’ process data (eye movements and keystrokes) with the quality of the produced translations, using BLEU scores and human evaluation scores for fluency and accuracy to assess translation quality. We also investigate how BLEU scores correlate with human scores, and how BLEU scores depend on the number of reference translations. We segment the translation process into skimming, drafting and post-editing phases, and show that the translation behavior of student and professional translators differ with respect to how they use the translation phases. We also show that students and professionals differ mainly with respect to produced translation fluency.