Modern Approaches to Translation and Translation Studies

Introduction

The translation process starts before the act of translating has begun. From the moment translators receive a translation project, several (meta)cognitive operations are performed in their mind, including acceptance or rejection of the job. After acceptance, (meta)cognitive processes continue to increase. This is particularly so in the case of interpretation since the interpreter’s cognitive burden becomes more sizable because oral translation requires the effective use of both short-term and long-term memory. Researchers have examined the cognitive processes of the translation act from different points of view, but metacognitive processes have been studied less frequently. This study focuses on ←11 | 12→the metacognitive aspect of the translation and aims to reveal the metacognitive levels of translator candidates. Research questions are as follows:

Metacognition has been usually referred to as thinking about thinking and may be defined as “the processes that choose and work on cognitive strategies related to learning and remembering¹” (Altındağ, 2008). In other words, metacognition manages all cognitive processes until the input is transformed into performance. It is the individual’s awareness of his own metacognitive processes, monitoring and evaluating of his own cognitive processes (Flavell, 1979; Senemoğlu, 2007; Vallotton & Fischer, 2008).

John H Flavell (1979) who coined the term metacognition, divides it as metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experiences, goals and strategies. Metacognitive knowledge is the “knowledge or beliefs about what factors or variables act and interact in what ways to affect the course and outcome of cognitive enterprises” (p.907). In other words, it is being aware of her/his cognition processes, and metacognitive learning strategies. The student knows what to do with the information and how to make use of strategies to attend the objectives.←12 | 13→

The TransComp group researchers, who proposed a multidimensional translation competence model, states explicitly that the strategic sub-competence ←13 | 14→is a metacognitive competence: “As a meta-cognitive competence² it sets priorities and defines hierarchies between the individual sub-competences […]” (Göpferich, 2009b).

Having examined translation competence models of several researchers, Akdağ (2020a, 2020b) agrees with TransComp that strategic competence is composed of skills foreseeing the use of metacognition. The abilities that the strategic competence encompasses i.e. “to evaluate what is already decided, to compensate for shortcomings, to redefine translation objectives and to adopt a new strategy if the current one becomes ineffective, to organize the translation process from the beginning to the end, and to supervise every step” (2020b, p.30) require the effective use of metacognition.

Problem-solving, which plays an important role in the translation process (Angelone, 2010; Göpferich, 2009a; Mellinger, 2019), has also been considered as part of the metacognition. In fact, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive experiences not only facilitate problem solving but also “helps students to be strategic” in the problem-solving processes (Essletzbichler & Rigby, 2002, p. 25). To put it another way, problem-solving activates metacognitive abilities in academic disciplines (Artzt & Armour-Thomas, 1992; Essletzbichler & Rigby, 2002) as well as in the translation process (Nietfeld & Schraw, 2002; Shreve, 2009). Göpferich (2009b) qualifies the identification of the translation problem by expert translators as a ‘higher metacognitive competence’.

Methodology

In survey method based studies the participants’ opinions about a subject or event or their characteristics such as interest, skill, ability and attitude are determined (Büyüköztürk, Çakmak, Akgün, Karadeniz, & Demirel, 2017, p. 184). In this research, the survey method was used to determine the metacognitive skill levels in Translation Studies students. Specifically, the correlational survey method was used to determine the relation between variables.

Participants

213 translator trainees participated in the research conducted at a state university in the 2018–2019 academic year. Tab. 1 shows the characteristics of participants.