JAIS

論文

A Comparison of Task Management and Lexical Search Mechanisms in
Novice and Professional Translators/Interpreters
Eddie Ronowicz and Kyoko Imanishi(Macquarie University)
There is a fair amount of evidence available from past studies on the way language andtranslation students’, i.e. ‘novice translators’ handle the task of translation. The paper firstexamines this evidence in an attempt to summarise typical novice-translator behaviours inmanaging a translation task and lexical searches. We then present the results of aqualitative analysis of two professional translators/interpreters, who were subjects in athink-aloud study of 14 subjects in 2002 focusing on the way they manage lexical searches
during a translation task as well as the time and manner of processing the source language
text and target language text. Finally, the performance of the two professionals is comparedwith the performance of novice translators with the aim of identifying differences thatmight be responsible for higher speed and quality of target text output by professionals.

1. Task management and lexical search mechanisms in ‘novice translators’
1.1 Time management
Following Jakobsen (2002: 192-193) we will divide the translation process into threephases: (1) orientation―time between the moment the source text is seen by thetranslator and the moment s/he starts writing the first version of the target text; (2)drafting―until the final word of the first version of the target text is produced; and (3)revision―until final revision of the target text is completed. We will now examine how
novice translators manage the orientation and drafting phases of a translation task on
the basis of available evidence.
Kiraly (1995) found that all of his subjects “read through the entire source text before
beginning to translate. (…) Only four of the subjects verbalized a translation expectation

Eddie Ronowicz and Kyoko Imanishi, “A C o m p a r i so n o f T a sk M a na g e me n t a nd Lex i c a l S e a r c h
Mec ha ni s m s i n N o vice a n d Pr o fe s sio na l T r a n sla tor s/I n ter pr et er s .”Interpretation Studies, No. 3, December 2003, pages 16-34.
(c) 2003 by the Japan Association for Interpretation Studies

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structure at the beginning of the task. Several subjects identified particular translation
problems after the first reading, but none looked up any words in the dictionary before
beginning to translate, and none produced tentative translation solutions to problem
units before initiating the translation with the first source text unit” (Kiraly 1995: 87).
This is confirmed by Jensen’s (1999) and Jakobsen’s results. Jensen found that “Allinformants read the source text before beginning to translate. However, no pattern
could be found as to how much time was spent on reading before they started
translating. This varied from 2-5 minutes.” (Jensen 1999: 111). Jakobsen confirms that“(…) the group of student translators (…) devoted between 1% and 3% of their total
production time to the initial orientation phase, the average being 1.7%. Between 73%
and 85% was allocated to the drafting phase.” (Jakobsen 2002: 193-194).

1.2 Progression through text in the drafting phase
Two of the above mentioned studies looked at the way novice translators progressed
through the text in the drafting phase. Both Kiraly and Jensen found that “The subjects
progressed through the text in a basically linear fashion, producing translation
solutions to individual elements as they appeared sequentially in the text.” (Kiraly
1995: 87-88).

1.3 Lexical search mechanisms
1.3.1 Frequent Lexis Store
Every translator and interpreter has a fair amount of linguistic knowledge in at least
two working languages, including lexical knowledge. Some of this lexical knowledge
and links between lexical items of the two languages is available for immediate accessin what Bell calls a Frequent Lexis Store (FLS) which is a kind of ”(...) mental (psycholinguistic) correlate to the physical glossary or terminology database, i.e., an instant
look-up facility for lexical items both words and idioms.” (Bell 1991: 47). This lexical
knowledge covers a core of most frequently used general vocabulary and, depending
on experience, one or more areas in which a translator or an interpreter specialises.
One would expect a much more diversified and richer content in a professionaltranslator’s/interpreter’s FLS than in novice translators. And, indeed, a vocabulary test
we administered to our subjects demonstrated that, on the average, novice translators
had less than half the FLS content than experienced professional subjects and, as aresult, novice translators needed approximately twice as many dictionary consultations

17

than the professionals. (cf Ronowicz et al. forthcoming). This is confirmed indirectly byJensen (1999:113) reporting 45 dictionary consultations in novices as opposed to 18 byexpert translators working on the same text.

1.3.2 Lexical search strategies
Unfortunately, the fact that novice translators consult dictionaries more frequently
than professional translators, does not necessarily lead to good solutions as evidencecollected by researchers seems to indicate. Krings (1986:270) reports that most of his
student subjects “immediately made use of dictionaries when they encountered lexical
items they didn’t know.” As for decision-making strategies Krings says “the subjects
tended to resort to specific types of decision-making strategies that might be labelled‘translation principles’. (…) They are reducible to imperatives such as: ‘If all competing
potential equivalents turn out to be equally appropriate or inappropriate, take themost literal one!’ or alternatively: ‘Take the shortest one!’ A further principle is concernedwith reference books stating: ‘If all equivalents concerned are in the dictionary, take theone that precedes the others!’ ” (Krings 1986: 273).
The use of principles like those mentioned above provides a good explanation why
Livbjerg and Mees (1999 and 2002) concluded that even though novice translators use
dictionaries more frequently than professionals, they do not make good use of them as“for 98 cases out of 121, the solution chosen was not changed by the dictionaries (81%).”(Livbjerg and Mees 2002: 162). Jääskeläinen summarises novice translators’ strategies
rather well: “Genuine novices in translation problematise relatively little. As a result,they translate quickly and effortlessly (and perhaps wrongly, depending on the
difficulty of the task), i.e. novices are blissfully unaware of their ignorance.”(Jääskeläinen 1996: 67). As the results of our analysis of professional translators/
interpreters demonstrates, this is not the case with professionals translators/interpreters.

2. Experimental design
2.1 Think-aloud protocol methodology
There are a number of publications discussing think-aloud methodology, its
advantages and shortcomings, in great detail (for theoretical foundations of the method,see Ericsson and Simon 1984 (rev. 1993), for discussion and criticism, see Toury 1991,
Jääskeläinen 2000 and Bernardini 2001, Ronowicz et. al. forthcoming). The method is
one of several introspective techniques aiming at tapping the translator’s mind while18

s/he is at work. This is done by asking subjects to verbalise everything that comes totheir mind while performing a translation task―hence the name of the technique―thinkaloud. The whole session is recorded, usually both audio and video, and transcribed in
the form of a protocol, which is then analysed by the researcher assisted by the video
that shows the translator’s behaviours and can assist in explaining both theverbalisations and moments of silence (e.g., when the subject is checking a dictionary or
writing the target text).

2.2 The subjects
The two subjects are professional translators/interpreters, one Japanese (PJ), one
Korean (PK), both very experienced―16 and 17 years experience respectively, andaccredited to translate and interpret both ways: from and into English. However, PK
holds a higher level of accreditation (conference interpreting) and interprets moreregularly and at the highest level (including international conferences, state leaders,business meeetings) in and out of Australia. PJ has a full-time job involving, among
others, translation from Japanese into English and, as a result, interprets less frequently
and mainly within Australia.

2.3 Vocabulary pre-test
A short vocabulary test was administered to the subjects before they saw the text tobe translated, in which they were shown 40 words taken from the text. The words weredisplayed in a random sequence on a computer screen for seven seconds each. The
subjects were asked to read out each word aloud and write down its translation into
Japanese/Korean while it was on the screen. Our third semester students, who were coinvestigators in the project, identified 20 words from the text as potential translation
problems; the problem words were then mixed with 20 easier words (see Appendix 1, p.
33) The vocabulary pre-test was designed to find out if our subjects had those potential
problem words readily available for immediate use to assist us in understanding betterthe nature of their processing during translation.

2.4 The task
The subjects were asked to translate a 377 words long economic text taken from The
Economist (see Appendix 2, pp. 33-34) and verbalise all their thoughts while translating.
After the vocabulary pre-test, a demonstration video and a short explanation subjects

19were given a 10 minute practice session to get them used to the task and the environment,
followed by test proper, in which they were given a maximum of 90 minutes totranslate the text. The whole session was audio- and video-taped.

2.5 References available
As required by the think-aloud methodology, we tested our subjects in anenvironment which was as close as possible to their normal working environment; that
is, a collection of dictionaries was available on the desk for their use:•

Japanese subject: 9 dictionaries ranging from small to large: Shogakukan’s Trend:
Dictionary of Current Terms (Japanese-English), Kenkyusha’s Reader’s (EnglishJapanese), Kenkyusha's Shin-eiwa-chuu-jiten (English-Japanese), Shunjusha’s New
Dictionary of Economic and Business Terms (English-Japanese), Sanseido’s Shinmeikaikokugo-jiten (Japanese-Japanese), Kokuminsha’s Gendaiyougo-no-kisochishiki: Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words 2002 and Kadokawa’s New Thesaurus (Japanese-Japanese),
Oxford English Dictionary (English-English) and Cobuild Dictionary (English-English).

•

Korean subject: 8 dictionaries: New Oxford English Dictionary, Collins Cobuild
English Dictionary, 2002 Economics New Word Dictionary, Minjung’s Essence KoreanEnglish Dictionary, Minjung’s Essence English-Korean Dictionary, Minjung’s Essence
Korean Dictionary, Dictionary of Business Terms (Korean version), Prime English-Korean
Dictionary.

3. The results
3.1 Results of the vocabulary pre-test
Both the professional subjects scored extremely well in the vocabulary pre-test. PJ got
all the 40 words right, PK got 39 right in the pre-test and did not provide a translationfor one. In other words, unlike student subjects in the larger study (the range for new
students, last semester students and young, inexperienced professionals was from 7 to
30 correct answers), both our subjects had all or all but one of the potential problem
words readily available before they saw the text. This difference has significantly
influenced work in both the orientation and drafting phases of the process as will beshown below.

3.2 Management of the orientation and drafting phases of the task
Both our professional subjects read or scanned the whole text, which took them20

approximately three minutes. Due to the fact that they scored extremely well in the
vocabulary test, one can assume they reached general comprehension of the content of
the text as a whole by the end of this silent reading period. In other words, once thefirst reading of the text was accomplished, our subjects were processing smaller chunksof the text within the context of the whole text. We have marked this in the diagrams
below by wrapping the context of the text as a whole around each activity undertakenby the translator like this: { }The two professional translators then proceeded to analyse the text by sighttranslating and identifying and researching problematic parts of it, with one difference
between them. PJ worked paragraph by paragraph (four in all) following exactly thesame pattern: sight-translation of the paragraph and lexical searches followed by linear
translation of the paragraph in question. He completed the whole task in 80 minutes.
PK on the other hand, began by sight-translating the whole text, also marking
potential problems, but then she spent about 20 minutes deliberating or searching
through dictionaries to resolve all the problems. Having done that, she translated thewhole text at remarkable speed and managed to produce a high quality target text injust 56 and a half minutes.

3.3 Lexical search mechanisms
Quite a few of the strategies employed by the two professionals followed the same orsimilar pattern and hence, rather than analyse a long list of all the 37 sequences ofprocessing of every problematic item, we will present below all the patterns (orstrategies) of processing we were able to identify with specific examples from either
one or the other subject’s work with the text. The list of processing strategies presented
below is based on our data alone, i.e. it is not a complete list of all strategies used byprofessionals. The ideas for names and definitions, which we felt free to modify,
narrow down or expand as our data required, are based on lists produced by a numberof researchers in the past, which we have indicated by bibliographical notes wheneverapplicable.

3.3.1 Automatic processing
If a lexical item and its target language equivalent are available in the Frequent Lexis
Store (FLS) and do not pose a problem, that item will be processed automatically. This issubconscious activity, unavailable for analysis on the basis of our data and hence we21will not deal with those words and phrases. The way these unproblematic items aredealt with can be illustrated as follows:

3.3.2 Acceptability Judgement
As mentioned above, if a word or phrase and their equivalents were readily available
in the Frequent Lexis Store (FLS), the translator would process them automatically. If,
however, the FLS contained more than one equivalent, or the equivalent raises doubts, thetranslator makes an intuitive conscious decision as to whether any of the available target
language equivalents fit the situation (cf. Kiraly 1995:78). This can be illustrated asfollows:

We do not have a properly documented example of positive acceptability judgement
alone leading to a correct translation in our data. This is probably caused by the fact that, incase of a positive acceptability judgement, the process is almost instantaneous and notverbalised.
3.3.3 Dictionary consultations
PJ needed to resort to researching of 27 words and phrases and made 32 dictionary
consultations. PK needed to process 10 items and made 17 dictionary consultations.

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Some of the differences between the two professionals may have been caused byindividual differences in translator competence levels in the area of business, others bydifferent problems posed by translating into Japanese and Korean. Moreover, as thenumber of consultations indicate, dictionary checks were not always accepted as the
final solutions, they were part of a systematic and well organised process of achieving
the best possible comprehension of the item in context and/or finding the rightequivalent in the target language.
In case of our two professionals, dictionary consultations were always the result of
problem identification―identification of a difficulty with source language comprehension or finding an adequate equivalent in the target language. (cf. Gerloff 1986: 253).
Problem identification was always proceeded by either a negative acceptability
judgement or realisation that a particular item was unavailable either in the FLS or inlong term memory. Here is an example relating to comprehension of the source
language text, and subsequent production of a target language equivalent involving an
acceptability judgement, problem identification and dictionary consultation leading toa solution. PK had a comprehension problem with the word “meddling” in the context
of ‘sceptical of government meddling’. She resolved it by checking its meaning in an
English-English dictionary and commenting: “…Yi ‘meddling’ yiran maree yugieseo
ouimihanumge… Naega akka sangakhan ghe matnun gu katne. (this ‘meddling’ here, I think
what I thought was right)” and proceeded to use the word she had in her FLS. Her
intuitive acceptability judgement and reference book check pattern leading to a
successful solution can be illustrated as follows:23

3.3.4 Spontaneous association“Spontaneous association (…) resembles brainstorming. The translator is well awarethat she is faced with a problem and she operates on the basis of associations whichcome to her spontaneously; She scans the field and may retrieve several possibilities that
she has to choose from” (Mondahl and Jensen 1996: 103). Spontaneous association is theresult of searching Long Term Memory (LTM) for possible solutions based on previous
experience. In other words, the translator uses linguistic and external knowledge
accumulated in the past (cf. Gile 1995: 83-85). We have a good example of this from PJ’s
tackling the translation of the word “institution” in the context of ‘Stanford’s Hoover
Institution’. The subject’s answer in the vocabulary test is soshiki (organization). He
obviously knew of Stanford University (external knowledge) and made a spontaneous
association reflected in his comment, “It must be the research centre attached to theuniversity”. He then decided soshiki was not acceptable and checked the word institutewith an English-Japanese dictionary, and quickly translated it as kenkyūjyo. Thissequence can be illustrated as follows:

3.3.5 Linguistic and/or Cultural Adaptation
Compensation for linguistic and/or cultural differences between two languages on
the basis of personal experience or results of a search (cf. Jensen 1999: 110). We have twogood examples of this strategy leading to a linguistic and cultural adaptation provided
by PJ’s work. The first one is from processing of the word “restructuring” in thefollowing context: ‘When companies default on their debts there is a clear procedure to
guide a restructuring’.

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In Japanese, restructuring has become a loan word. It is written in katakana script andis generally referred to simply as risutora. This is such a common word that the subject
answered it in the way we had expected in the vocabulary test. However, after a dictionary
consultation, risutora proved to be a false friend, as it means redundancy. PJ realised thatand he adapted his translation by using a different word: rebuilding. The process can beillustrated as follows:

PJ also selected the strategy of adaptation in translating the word “appointees” in thephrase ‘Two Bush appointees…’. His answer in the preceding vocabulary test was
Ninmei sareta hito (the person who is appointed). He commented that “Ninmei sareta
hito does not make sense in Japanese,” thus indicating a negative acceptability
judgement. He then consulted an English-Japanese dictionary, which did not provide
him with a satisfactory answer either: he was confronted with a non-equivalence.
The next phase of his work involved a search for a synonym and a good Japaneseequivalent by means of a series of spontaneous associations which are reflected in his
recorded behaviour and comments. The term hi-ninmeisha that he found in the
dictionary

was

not

satisfactory.

He

then

mentioned

shimon kikan (advisoryorganization) as one possible equivalent, but realised appointee is not an organizationand finally settled for the word komon. The above sequence of action involves a
combination of several strategies leading to cultural adaptation and can be illustrated
as follows:25

3.3.6

Parallel attendance to more than one problem using different strategies

simultaneously
PK provides a good example of this as she works on the following two sentences
containing several problems: ‘Bonds governed by New York law traditionallyencourage rogue creditors. Improving the procedure for sovereign defaults means
finding ways to bind in the rogues’. Similarly to all other translators, PK had a problem
with the word ‘rogues’ and the phrase ‘rogue creditors’, as well as with the phrase‘bind in’ which was not included in the vocabulary test, but which she did notunderstand.
When PK encountered the term rogue, (translated as Mubupdgashik), she started
looking up Collins dictionary, then moved on to an English-Korean dictionary. Using
the dictionaries she went through the set phrases related to rogue. When she realisedthat her dictionary search did not help, she went back to the text and read out thewhole sentence where the word was used, then the next one, where the expressions
bind in and rogues were used, and checked bind in in a dictionary (translated as
Kusokhada). Even as she was looking through the dictionaries, her mind was briskly at
work on rogue: she did not stop verbalising alternative solutions for rogue and rogues
and used dictionaries mainly to confirm her predictions, then to find the equivalent forbind in. Once she found the equivalent for bind in, she was also ready to decide on thetranslation of rogue and translated both sentences. This multi-layer process can beillustrated as follows:26

4. Discussion ― a comparison of novice and professional translators’ task management
and lexical search mechanisms.
The evidence we have presented indicates major differences between novice andprofessional translators that influence the outcomes of the orientation and drafting
phases of the process. These differences have been summarised below:

1)

Professional translators have a large number of lexical items stored for
immediate use in the FLS and an even larger store in long term memory (LTM).
This cannot be said about most novice translators: their knowledge of generaland specialised vocabulary is poor compared to professionals.

2)

Professional translators are capable of reading general texts and texts in theirareas of specialisation with ease and full or almost full comprehension after the
first reading, while novice translators gain little from the first reading of the text
to be translated. They encounter vocabulary problems too frequently to be able toform a general idea about the content of the text they are reading.

3)

As a result of the orientation phase, professional translators gain knowledge ofthe context of the whole or selected larger chunk of the text to be translated,27

while novice translators, due to shortcomings in vocabulary knowledge gain atbest a rough idea of the source language text content.
4)

Professional translators work by first analysing, then drafting larger chunks oftext (e.g. paragraph-by-paragraph or even the whole text, if it is not too long),
while novice translators work in a linear fashion, word-by-word, phrase-byphrase, at most, sentence-by-sentence.

5)

Professional translators identify comprehension and translation problems in thecontext of the SLT as a whole and before they begin drafting, while novice
translators, at least initially, work out of the context of the whole text and, as aresult, they often fail to identify translation problems relating to the whole text.

6)

Professional translators use their considerable linguistic and world knowledge tomake conscious acceptability judgements, spontaneous associations and to
identify problems requiring special attention, while novice translators reach for adictionary each time they have a comprehension or production problem.

7)

Professional translators use dictionaries in deliberate and diversified ways, whilenovice translators use dictionaries in haphazard, often inconsistent ways.

8)

Professional translators do not have absolute faith in dictionary solutions, they
check and re-check difficult items more than once if necessary and use their own
good judgement when making the final decision, while novice translators have ahigh degree of trust in dictionary solutions and hardly ever check them.

In a recent publication Séguinot points out that “all translation cannot be accounted
for by a theory which likens the process to the biting off of a piece of text, chewing it,
and spitting it out transformed.” (Séguinot 2000: 146). On the basis of the evidence wehave presented above, one might say that it is novice translators that often subscribe tothis philosophy. They do not seem to realise that professional translation is a deliberate
process based not only on extensive linguistic and extralinguistic knowledge, but also
on the ability to apply creatively and deliberately specific routines or strategies ofsolving translation problems as they arise and on good management skills.
Séguinot based her conclusions on a study of two professional translators working
together as a team on the same text. Our study, which was conducted on two
professional translators working independently, seems to confirm her finding that,while working on one problem, a translator may have another part of their mind
continue processing some other problem, making guesses about a solution, often on the28basis of information unfolding as they read the source language text or produce a target
language output. In other words, translation is a non-linear task and involves amanagerial function. (cf. Séguinot 2000: 147). Our evidence, however, does not support
her statement that “translation involves a managerial function rather than a series ofprocedures.” (ibid.) We would suggest that translation involves both.
The timing of the different phases of the translation task by our subjects does indeed
suggest mainly a managerial function, but the lexical search mechanisms we identified
in our data are clearly procedures. In this instance, the managerial function would be
the creative combination of such procedures depending on the nature of problems
identified by the translator. This is, clearly what our two subjects did: they not only
demonstrated flexibility in ordering the various procedures while solving the task, theyalso demonstrated the ability to pursue two or three pathways to a solution simultaneously.
Finally, apart from translation experience, our two subjects have had extensive
experience in both translating and interpreting and this seems to have influenced theirmanner of work:

1)

Both our subjects sight-translated the text paragraph by paragraph (PJ) or thewhole text (PK) marking potential problems – something interpreters might do ifthey receive a written version of the speech they are to interpret early enough toprepare themselves like this. Professional translators usually perform this tasksilently.

2)

They both marked and attempted to resolve potential problem words andphrases within the chunk of text they were dealing with prior to attempting awritten translation. None of the studies known to us report this pattern of work
– translators, students and professionals alike, usually read the text forcomprehension in the orientation phase, then they translate it in a linear fashion,sentence by sentence even if, like PJ, they take some time to read again theparagraph they are about to translate.

3)

Our two subjects did not feel they needed a revision of the final version of thetext.

Summing up, it seems that both our subjects’ timing and manner of work in thetranslation task was influenced by their interpreting skills and that these have benefitedthem in terms of the speed of translation: our two subjects were the only ones of all 14

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subjects in the larger study, who managed to produce a high quality full translation of
the text well ahead of the time limit and PK, who sight-translated and researched thewhole source language text before writing the translation, needed less than 65% of theallocated time to finish the job to a very high standard. Since we do not have access toadequate comparative data, we cannot say whether time spent additionally on revision
would have improved the already high quality of the target text even further.
Professional translators do not usually sight-translate the text―they read it silently
for comprehension, then proceed to the drafting phase. In this context, it would beinteresting to conduct further quantitative studies on a larger number of subjects,
testing whether sight-translating and researching potential problems in the orientation
phase have a positive effect on the speed and quality of translation. Should this beconfirmed, we would gain empirical evidence supporting the current practice of some
programs of requiring translation students to do at least one semester of interpreting.

5. Conclusion
While there are obvious differences between translating and interpreting situations,both require good task management skills and use of individual lexical resources andoutside sources of reference. In case of simultaneous and consecutive interpreters, thisis often done during preparation for the job, rather than on the job. Translators, on theother hand, deal with these matters on the job and with less time constraint. But thenature of the task is similar in many respects and skilful use of lexical searchmechanisms is of crucial importance in both lines of work whenever a written text is
involved. Hence our findings may be of interest to students and teachers of bothtranslation and interpretation.
Our results have clearly demonstrated that it is not enough to know routine lexical
search procedures applied by experienced professional translators and interpreters(and described in many textbooks) in order to achieve good comprehension andproduce a high quality target text. The main advantages of professionals over students
and inexperienced translators/interpreters in this area seem to be:

1)

Extensive knowledge of general and selected specialised vocabulary. There aremany ways in which young translators and interpreters can improve on this, but
in particular, they should be encouraged to do a lot of intensive reading in boththeir native and working languages.

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2)

Knowledge of a variety of lexical search procedures and ability to combine themcreatively depending on the nature of the problem. One way of teaching thismight be to ask students to read research-based papers like this one and follow
them with hands-on exercises that would illustrate to students how they canapply different combinations of search procedures to specific problems selectedby the teacher.

3)

Appreciation of the importance of, and ability to use the orientation phase in,acquiring an understanding of the context of the whole source language text.
This could be taught by setting up translation exercises in a manner that forces
students to write down their text analysis before they are allowed to translate
it―this could easily be done if, at least initially, a translation task is worked on
during three meetings with students rather than two, which is usually the case.

Finally, periodical empirical assessment of student behaviour during translation,
which can easily be done with tools like Translog (cf. Jakobsen 1999) might be helpful
in giving advice on possible improvements to individuals on the basis of evidencecollected from them in an objective way (by a computer software).

Eddie Ronowicz is a coordinator of the postgraduate translation and interpreting
programs in the Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney. His researchinterests include translation studies, cross-cultural communication and bilingualism.
Kyoko Imanishi was a 2002 research methods student and contributed significantly tothe project presented in the paper.

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professional, paraprofessional and novice translators.
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and Interpreting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Toury, G. (1991). Experimentation in Translation Studies. Achievements, Prospects andSome Pitfalls. In: Tirkkonen-Condit, S. (ed.): Empirical Research in Translation andIntercultural Studies. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, pp. 45-66.

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Appendix 1 List of words to be used in the word-translation test
1.

sovereign

21. negotiations

2.

bankruptcy

22. market

3.

appointee

23. attraction

4.

institution

24. jurisdiction

5.

reform

25. collective

6.

eminent

26. creditor

7.

conservative

27. debtor

8.

economist

28. payment

9.

sceptical

29. rogue

10. meddling

30. asset

11. administration

31. legal

12. fund

32. radical

13. treasury

33. proposal

14. insolvent

34. international

15. similarly

35. court

16. debt

36. adjudicating (E-J)

17. restructuring

37. undermine

18. crisis

38. rights

19. vacuum

39. contend

20. protracted

40. co-ordination

Appendix 2 Source text used in the experiment
Economic Focus: Sovereign Bankruptcies
Two Bush appointees are at loggerheads about how best to reform the international
financial system.
Anne Kreuger and John Taylor share remarkable similarities. Until recently both werecolleagues at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Both are eminent conservative economists,
generally sceptical of government meddling. Both were picked for public service by theBush administration: Ms Kreuger as number two at the International Monetary Fund and
Mr Taylor as the top international man at the Treasury department. This week the two hada public split over how best to deal with insolvent countries.
When companies default on their debts there is a clear procedure to guide a restructuring.
Not so with countries. In the debt crisis of the 1980s, the resulting vacuum meant protracted
negotiations with banks. Since the 1990s, when emerging market bonds became popular,
the situation has only worsened. Organising the disparate owners of diverse bonds in
different jurisdictions has proved a nightmare. Though sovereign restructurings are
possible-Russia, Ukraine and Ecuador have all recently restructured their debts -the process33

clearly needs improvement. For conservatives the idea holds particular attraction, since, in
their view, it might lessen the need for IMF rescues.
A big challenge is how to encourage collective action among creditors. Although it may bein the interest of creditors as a whole to co-operate with each other and the debtor country
in a restructuring, it can be in the interests of an individual creditor to hand on and demand
full payment―the last-man syndrome. Bonds governed by New York law traditionallyencourage rogue creditors. Improving the procedure for sovereign defaults means finding
ways to bind in the rogues. Ideally, agreements would be binding across different asset
classes and jurisdictions, and would provide a legal framework for countries to tap new
debt.
More radical proposals for sovereign-debt reform involve changing international law, either
by creating an international bankruptcy court or by giving the IMF adjudicating powers.
More cautious reformers are leery of statutory solutions and of undermining creditor rights.
They contend that creditors should still control the terms of restructuring and they propose
reforms that improve co-ordination among creditors. A popular proposal is to encouragecountries to adopt “majority-action” clauses in their bond contracts. Theses clauses preventrogue creditors subverting a restructuring. (Total 377 words/99min)
Extract: The Economist, April 6, 2002.

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