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This research project investigates the function and potentiality of translation technology - including computer assisted translation tools, electronic corpora and internet search engines - in the teaching of scientific and technological translation. English into Chinese is the language pair under discussion in this study. The research is conducted on the basis of empirical methodology, which in this particular case consists of the following procedures: discussing and highlighting the key features of scientific and technological texts; analysing the ways in which translation technology are used in the teaching of translation; positing hypotheses on how the training in the use of translation technology influences the student's ability to translate; conducting experiments with control and experimental groups in order to test the validity of these hypotheses. The author designed and implemented a controlled experiment on two groups of Master's students of Translation, in which the experimental group was trained with access to computer-assisted translation tools while the control group was not. Before their training, a translation test was given to students from both groups so as to define their level of translation competence at that time. Afterwards, the experimental group was trained with access to computer-assisted translation tools for four months, while the control group was not exposed to such training. On finishing the training, the students from both groups sat another test which was of approximately the same difficulty as the first test. In addition, a questionnaire was attached to each of the two tests in order to understand the factors behind the students' performance. The scores obtained for both tests were collected and analysed across horizontal and longitudinal dimensions, with the horizontal analysis comparing the scores of the same test between the two groups and the longitudinal analysis comparing the scores of the two tests done by the same group. The horizontal analysis yielded two major and some minor findings, while the longitudinal analysis led to three major and two minor findings. The ultimate purpose of the thesis is to investigate the impact of translation technology training on the students' translation competence when dealing with scientific and technological texts.

This highly interdisciplinary research, carried out by a practitioner, explores the outsourced legal translation environment, with a view to optimising key aspects of commissioning and performance. The results of a global survey are analysed: participants comprised 84 principals, for the most part from leading law firms and corporations, in 33 countries and 5 continents, and 303 legal translation practitioners from 41 countries and 6 continents. Concepts from corporate agency theory are used to shed light on market dysfunctions, such as a tortuous chain of supply, while perspectives from genre theory, comparative law and functionalist Translation Studies are applied to offer a theoretical model for legal translation performance and foreground its risks and constraints. Fitness-for-purpose is examined as a workable quality criterion associated with translation briefs supplied. Professionalisation and empowerment are raised as key factors with potential to significantly improve target text quality. Two practical tools have also been developed for legal and translation professionals. The first is a briefing template specifically developed for the outsourcing of legal translation, set to benefit commissioning clients by increasing the fitness-for-purpose of translated texts. The second tool, the genre-based NIFTY specialised corpus methodology, seeks to provide terminological support for translators, with particular relevance for collocations. Extensive fieldwork carried out-has brought to light 'hot spots' for risk such as severely impeded . information flows and insufficient interaction between market actors. The groundwork for dissemination to practice has already been laid, and is to be pursued forthwith. The types of legal texts outsourced prove in many instances to be highly sensitive, which further emphasises the gravity of the problem and the need to take action.

A sizable number of studies have examined various aspects of translation norms. Yet, these studies mainly focus on the theoretical aspect of norms, while neglecting the complementary aspect. This thesis sets out to study the complementary aspect of norms. It builds upon Toury’s model of norms by providing a methodology to identify norms in Arabic translations. Norms are defined as the general values shared in a society regarding what is right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. They should be understood as an explanatory tool, not simply as a prescriptive tool. Examining norms as an explanatory tool requires investigating the issue of the agency of the translator. Translators’ agency can direct the translation process and can also be led by norms dominating the culture in which translations are generated. This thesis examines the Arabic translations by Kamal abu Deeb and Mohammed Enani of Edward Said’s Orientalism. The cultural scene in the Arabic world, where the translations were produced, encompasses different ideologies that can be reflected in literary works, including translations. Additionally, in some regions, religion can play a guardian-like role as a point of reference upon which authorities rely to monitor different forms of cultural borrowings. This thesis exposes the influence of the norms driven by ideology and religion on the translations of Orientalism. It does so by applying a textual method, as suggested by Toury, which observes regular translational behaviour. This method relies on the pragmatic notion of implicature and Grice’s maxims of conversation to trace the changes in the meaning between the source and target texts.

Discourse particles are known to be of significance to discourse management and organization. Much work has been devoted to understanding the use of discourse particles in Chinese spontaneous speech (SP). However, in the field of simultaneous interpreting (SI), they have remained under-researched. This thesis sets out to fill this gap and to investigate differences in particle usage between Chinese SP and English-to-Chinese SI. Literature on discourse markers, pragmatics, information processing, and interpreting studies is reviewed with an attempt to provide a holistic view of the research framework of the present study. A pilot study was first carried out to find any different tendencies in the use of discourse particles between SP and SI. The main subject population was interpreting students at Newcastle University. In my mixed-method approach of the main study, data was collected and analyzed through on-line parser, interviews, a mock-conference, and questionnaire surveys. Both the frequency count and the qualitative analyses were carried out to explore the reasons behind the different tendencies in use initially found, and the effects of using the surveyed discourse particles for perceived fluency in Chinese SP and English-to-Chinese SI for comparison. The findings show that the most frequently utilized type of discourse particles in Chinese SP are conjunction particles (e.g. Ranhou), whereas in English-to-Chinese SI, they are quantifier particles (e.g. Na). The discourse functions of the surveyed particles are very context-sensitive. These findings are generally in line with previously reported findings about particle usage in SP, and the present study is the first empirical study to report particle usage in SI. As regards the perceived effects, the overall fluency rating of sentences in which surveyed particles were identified is higher in SI than in SP perceived by all listeners from two different backgrounds (i.e. interpreting vs. non-interpreting students). Implications of the present study for interpreting studies and discourse analysis, followed by suggestions for possible future research, are discussed.

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Distinguished from conceptual metaphor, linguistic metaphor refers to metaphor in fixed linguistic form (words, phrases or sentences) of expression. (Lakoff 1993, pp. 202-203) With the development of modern technology, researchers started to investigate the translation process of linguistic metaphor from empirical approaches (e.g. Sjørup, 2013; Zheng and Xiang, 2011 etc.). However, one critical issue remains unexplored: the relationship between translation directionality and the process of linguistic metaphor translation. To fill this gap on the language pair Chinese and English, this study is designed to investigate the impact of linguistic metaphor on cognitive effort, and whether this impact is affected by directionality. Thirty-eight novice translators performed a series of translation tasks (first language (L1): Chinese; second language (L2): English), and their performances were recorded by eye tracking, key logging and cue-based Retrospective Think Aloud devices. For objective description, four eye-key combination indicators are calculated in Generalised Linear Models to demonstrate translators’ allocation of cognitive resources, namely, Total Attentional Duration (TA duration), AU count, AU duration and pupil dilation. The findings suggest that: for the sequential and parallel coordination of Source Text (ST) processing and Target Text (TT) processing, TT processing receives significantly more cognitive effort than ST processing and parallel processing, which partially confirms that Carl and Dragsted (2012) and Hvelplund (2011)’s views on translators’ allocation of cognitive resources are valid for the language pair English and Chinese. Furthermore, it is discovered that the qualitative data from the subjective reflection vary with the quantitative results in this study. For metaphor’s impact on cognitive effort, expression type (linguistic metaphor) can significantly affect participants’ allocation of cognitive resources in both translation directions (Sjørup, 2013; Dagut, 1987; Newmark, 1988), but the results of different indicators are not consistent. And there is also a significant difference between eye-key data and participants’ subjective self-reflections. For the translation directionality, the results partially confirm that the “translation asymmetry” (Chang, 2011) is valid on metaphor related processing: at some perspectives, the translation directionality can significantly affect the relationship between metaphor related expression types and attention-distribution pattern of translation process.

This thesis investigates perceptions of competence held by graduates, translator trainers, and employers. Previous research in Jordan had revealed that graduates struggle to secure a job in translation because translator training programmes do not prepare them sufficiently enough to meet the market requirements (Shunnaq, 2009; Yousef, 2004, Al-Hamad, 2014). This research takes these initial studies further by using the PACTE multi-componential translation competence model (2000, 2003, 2011). The study was conducted at two different phases in consequential procedures, combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. It revealed that while the graduates mildly agree on the development of their translation competence, the teachers and the employers disagree on this development and perceive several ‘core competences’ as lacking in graduates. The study contributes to translator pedagogy in Jordan by providing detailed data on the competences that are underdeveloped in graduates relating them to the suggestions of the teachers on what needs to be stressed in the curriculum. Furthermore, it unveils the competences that are required the most by the employers versus those that are lacking in graduates. Based on the findings, the curriculum design can be amended to ensure more efficient programmes and thus a better development of translator competence. This study also contributes to research into translation competence development by arguing that competence is not only a defined notion or a multi-componential model. Competence is a perception that is governed by a socio-cultural and academic context. In a context where the experts themselves are lagging behind in research and where the stakeholders are working out of sync, the concept of translation competence still seems to be basically determined by the bilingual competence. Furthermore, the study also contributes to translation pedagogy by revealing that when the students’ role is suppressed, the students show poor ability to assess their development, thus over-estimate themselves.

Video game localisation has received increased academic attention over the past few years. Despite the call for user-oriented research, few researchers have chosen to focus on issues that are central to end-user experience and its relation to the localised text. With the increased connectivity of gaming in general, and certain game genres in particular, gamers’ language use has become an integral aspect of the game experience. As a result, gamers have become innovative, creating and re-appropriating language, often using non-standard forms to coordinate their gameplay. This innovative and non-standard language, that I call gamer-speak, is the object of my research. In particular, the focus is on the gamer-speak generated by French gamers during group play of two localised Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs): World of Warcraft and WildStar. The main aim is to investigate the phenomenon of gamer-speak in MMORPGs and examine its significance for MMORPG localisation. I achieve this through a linguistic analysis and comparison of gamer conversations, analyses of localised texts and its original counterparts, and from survey data collected from active MMORPG gamers regarding their language use. In this thesis I devise an interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological framework for the study of gamer-speak and its influence on MMORPGs which draws principally from Translation Studies and Games Studies. This framework is used to describe the salient features of gamer-speak generated by French gamers when playing the two MMORPGs chosen in the context of Polysystem Theory and Descriptive Translation Studies. The familiarity with and knowledge of French MMORPG players of gamer-speak is determined through surveys. I also examine localised MMORPG text, translated from English into French, paying attention to the role of gamer-speak. Finally, I address the social and cultural implications that gamer-speak has for the target audience of localised MMORPGs. This work adds to our understanding of gamer culture and has implications for game localisation and translation studies.