Many roads lead to Rome: an empirical study of summarizing translation processes

Abstract Summary translation is a regular practice in the government, commercial, and industrial sectors, yet it has received little attention in Translation Studies. Summary translation differs from “normal full translation” in the level of deliberate semantic reduction and linguistic compression or expansion relative to the source text (ST), the extent of ST–target text (TT) correspondence and the differential weighing of content. This qualitative study investigated the cognitive processes involved in summarizing translation. For this study, keystroke logging data were collected from 26 third-year BA students of Applied Linguistics who were asked to translate a Spanish opinion piece into Dutch by reducing the ST word count by more than 50 %. An analysis of the keystroke logging data, the researcher’s observational notes and paper copies of the ST showed that summarization takes place in all the phases of the translation process. During the pre-writing phase, ST content weighing and selection could be observed in the highlighting of keywords, phrases and/or sentences in the ST. Moreover, outline planning could be observed, indicating a hierarchical organisation of the discourse. These ST markings and TT outlines seemed to serve as cognitive artefacts, since the students used them both to start and to guide their TT drafting. During the TT drafting, two major translation strategies could be observed: literal patchwork translation and paraphrasing. Summarization during TT drafting was carried out through omission, deletion (through online revision), generalization, and construction strategies – the latter two being especially present among those students who employed the paraphrasing strategy. Interestingly, eight students did not engage directly in summarization but started to translate the first ST paragraphs in full, although they subsequently switched to a more summarizing approach. Summarization through the deletion of TT content and/or the reduction of the TT word count was also observable in the post-writing phase. A certain interplay could be observed between planning and TT production strategies.