Eyetracking and Applied Linguistics (original) (raw)
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With eye-tracking technology the eye is thought to give researchers a window into the mind. Importantly, eyetracking has significant advantages over traditional online processing measures: chiefly that it allows for more ‘natural’ processing as it does not require a secondary task, and that it provides a very rich moment-to-moment data source. In recognition of the technology’s benefits, an ever increasing number of researchers in applied linguistics and second language research are beginning to use it. As eye-tracking gains traction in the field, it is important to ensure that it is established in an empirically sound fashion. To do this it is important for the field to come to an understanding about what eye-tracking is, what eye-tracking measures tell us, what it can be used for, and what different eye-tracking systems can and cannot do. Further, it is important to establish guidelines for designing sound research studies using the technology. The goal of the current review is to begin to address these issues.
Using eye-tracking in applied linguistics and second language research
Second Language Research, 2016
With eye-tracking technology the eye is thought to give researchers a window into the mind. Importantly, eye-tracking has significant advantages over traditional online processing measures: chiefly that it allows for more ‘natural’ processing as it does not require a secondary task, and that it provides a very rich moment-to-moment data source. In recognition of the technology’s benefits, an ever increasing number of researchers in applied linguistics and second language research are beginning to use it. As eye-tracking gains traction in the field, it is important to ensure that it is established in an empirically sound fashion. To do this it is important for the field to come to an understanding about what eye-tracking is, what eye-tracking measures tell us, what it can be used for, and what different eye-tracking systems can and cannot do. Further, it is important to establish guidelines for designing sound research studies using the technology. The goal of the current review is t...
The emerging eye-tracking technique has opened a window of opportunities not only in medical research but also in Translation and Interpreting Studies. In recent years this research method has been used to trace the processes of reading, translation and interpreting. Eye-tracking has recently become a popular technique to examine cognitive effort involved in written translation, audiovisual translation and conference interpreting. Thanks to the use of an eye-tracker one is able to investigate the whole process and not limit oneself to analysing the quality of the output. To be more precise, by means of eye-tracking experimenters may investigate moment-by-moment changes in the cognitive effort necessary to perform a given translation/interpreting task. Useful as the eye-tracking technique may be, researchers must often face methodological and apparatus-related challenges. The present paper is intended to discuss the eye-tracking methodology and then to address the potential problems of applying this method to investigate the processes of translation and interpreting. Among the notions to be discussed are: the types of eye-trackers and their usability, accuracy vs. ecological validity, accommodation (O'Brien 2010), sampling, the use of inferential statistics for small experimental groups as well as ethics. I will also refer to my own research on the notion of language-pair specificity in sight translation (Korpal 2012) as well as a collaborative work on numerical data processing in simultaneous interpreting (Korpal and Stachowiak, manuscript in preparation).
This article serves as an introduction to the special issue of Perspectives: Studies in Translatology entitled 'Corpus linguistics and Audiovisual Translation: in search of an integrated approach'. The purpose of the volume is to illustrate and discuss the use and limits (if any) of corpus-based investigation into audiovisual dialogue and audiovisual translation. This special issue also seeks to investigate the development of corpus-based approaches to AVT that are able to take into account the multiple dimensions of audiovisual translation, the technical and professional constraints that are specific to the medium, as well as the social factors affecting the translational act (e.g. target language and culture norms, selfcensorship, patronage, etc.). This is achieved through seven contributions, intended to offer a wide range of perspectives on the application of corpus linguistics methodologies to different AVT modalities. As the contributions in this volume suggest, an integrated approach is needed to account for the complex semiotic fabric of audiovisual texts, their hybrid nature and multiple codes.
Usually, colloquial oral features in audiovisual fiction disappear when the oral language is transferred into written text by means of interlingual subtitles. Expressive devices and colloquial items are often omitted for the sake of condensation; standard forms generally substitute non-standard units; and grammatical mistakes are often corrected. However, not all the agents involved in the subtitling industry tackle this issue in the same way. For instance, at the Catalan Television (TVC), there has been an internal debate concerning the use of non-standard forms in subtitles, particularly concerning colloquial pronominal clitics. Moving away from this debate, by using eyetracking technologies and questionnaires, this exploratory study aims to investigate whether using non-standard colloquial pronominal clitics instead of standard pronominal clitics alters the reception of the audiovisual product, and whether this approach is effective in transmitting the colloquial flavour of the dialogues.