Metacognitive strategies in translation: a comparative study of student and professional translators

Translation expertise significantly influences how translators manage cognitive resources, yet the specific ways in which professional and novice translators differ in their metacognitive strategy use remain incompletely understood. This gap is particularly evident in specialised contexts such as academic translation, where complex terminology and intricate syntactic structures pose unique cognitive challenges. This study investigated how professional and student translators deploy metacognitive strategies when translating academic texts from Chinese to English, focusing on differences in cognitive resource allocation across translation stages. The study compared 30 professional translators and 30 graduate students in translation studies as they translated two academic article introductions. Using keystroke logging, we recorded detailed temporal data about participants’ translation processes, including thinking time, writing time, and resource consultation patterns. Quantitative analysis revealed that professional translators demonstrated significantly shorter thinking times compared to students, while maintaining higher writing-to-thinking ratios. Analysis of cognitive resource distribution showed that professionals maintained more consistent engagement across translation stages compared to students’ more variable patterns. These findings suggest that translation expertise manifests not merely in faster processing times, but in qualitatively different approaches to cognitive resource allocation. Professional translators demonstrated greater flexibility in switching between automatic and controlled processes, adapting their strategies according to textual challenges. These results refine our understanding of translation expertise while offering practical implications for translator training, suggesting specific ways to help novice translators develop more efficient cognitive strategies. The study contributes to translation process research by providing empirical evidence of how expertise shapes metacognitive strategy use in specialised translation contexts.