Directionality in translation: Throwing new light on an old question

Investigating directionality in translation from an empirical-experimental perspective has long occupied translation studies scholars. Most empirical studies about translating from L1 into L2 or from L2 into L1 use the time spent on the task as an indicator of processing effort. Whyatt (2019) is a notable exception which investigates not only time spent on the task but also the impact of text type on translation directionality. However, a combined focus on translation directionality and editing patterns observed over the course of the translation process as an indicator of processing effort has been rarely analysed (Alves & Gonçalves 2013). Against this background, two research questions guide the rationale of this experimental study: (1) Is there a difference in translation task execution when translating from L2 into L1 than when translating from L1 into L2?, (2) Does it differ in terms of text register, editing patterns, pause length or time spent on the task? To answer these questions, we investigated L1>L2 and L2>L1 translation task execution in the language pair English/German by means of keystroke-logged data. The results show that translations into the L1 in our data set involve a higher proportion of editing procedures as opposed to unchallenged translations than translations into the L2. Furthermore, results for inter-word pauses are register-specific. These findings suggest that the effect of directionality on translation behaviour is complex and requires a research design that accounts for this complexity.