Modeling (Un)Packing of Meaning in Translation: Insights from Effortful Text Production

This paper introduces a proposal aimed at enriching the framework of translation process research with a systemic-functional linguistics perspective for investigating instances of effortful translated text production. Drawing on the concept of grammatical metaphor and its potential for modeling both monolingual and multilingual text production, it examines ongoing meaning construction in translation as a special type of language processing which involves unpacking and repacking meanings construed in the target texts upon reading the source text. By analyzing logs recorded through key logging and eye tracking, we attempt to investigate phenomena that can shed a light into human translators’ cognitive processes and which are potential sources for modeling meaning construction at play during the translation process.