Cognitive Load of Translators: Theory vs. Practice

Abstract

This thesis examines the cognitive load of translators. Since translation involves a multitude of demanding cognitive processes and the exertion of effort, one could conclude that translation can be cognitively very straining, and that translators would experience cognitive load often. To find out whether this theory is supported by translators’ practical experiences of cognitive load, I conducted a questionnaire to which 59 translators responded. The respondents of the questionnaire were fulltime translators from various branches of translation, with different working languages, and with experience ranging from less than 10 years to over 30 years. The questionnaire included the following questions: In your experience, is translation cognitively straining? Does cognitive load sometimes manifest itself physically? What means do you use to alleviate cognitive load during work? What do you do to recover from work? The first two questions included a Likert scale and a voluntary supplementary section. The last two questions were open ended questions. I was able to analyze all the responses both qualitatively and quantitatively, by categorizing the voluntary responses and the open-ended responses into themes and hypernyms. I then compared the data of the results to the theory presented in the study. For the theoretic section, I mostly applied literature from Kahneman (2012), Huotilainen & Saarikivi (2018), Niemi-Murola (2018), Rojo (2015), Lupien (2005, 2007), and Ferreira (2017). I also presented two relating studies; one on translators’ occupational stress by Courtney & Phelan (2019), and another on translators’ cognitive ergonomics by Ehrensberger-Dow et al. (2015). For the most part, the results of the study do support theory. Most of the participants felt that translation is quite (31) or at least little (17) straining. This differs to some extent from the assumptions made based on theoretical knowledge of translation. Most of the participants (36) did feel that cognitive load does sometimes manifest itself physically. The physical symptoms listed were shallow respiration, excessive perspiration, muscle tension, headaches, irritation, fatigue, stress, accelerated heart rate, hunger, difficulty to sleep, and difficulty to wake up in the morning. These responses are in-line with theory. The most popular means of alleviating cognitive load listed by the participants were working strategies (32), breaks (31), and exercising (16). For this question, practice does support theory, since all the same means listed by the participants are also recommended by theory. Finally, the responses support theory in that recovery from work occurs when doing activities that do not require cognitive effort or analytical thinking. More vast studies should be conducted on the cognitive load of translators. For instance, does cognitive load increase with the number of working languages? Are there substantial differences of cognitive load between branches? Cognitive load can be studied by different questionnaires and by different psycho-physiological response-based methods.