Think Aloud Protocols or Non-Think Aloud Protocols in Translation:

Which Court is the Ball in?

Maryam Sharifian

MA in Translation Studies, The University of Isfahan, Email: maryamsharifian1985@gmail.com

Alireza Akbari

MA in Translation Studies, The University of Isfahan, Email: dictogloss@gmail.com1

Mohammadtaghi Shahnazari

Ph.D., Assistant Professor, The University of Isfahan, Email: m_t_shah@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

Since three decades ago, Think Aloud Protocol (TAP) has been operated in process-oriented translation research, its achievements having been praised by different scholars. However, there is little research available on the effects of TAP on translation process. This study aims to investigate the impacts of concurrent verbalization on both translation process and translation product. To do so, the mean figures of TA and non-TA translation of two groups of four translator trainees were compared via t-test. The results obtained from quantitative analysis indicated that TAP interferes with translation process and negatively affects translation product. Moreover, the preliminary qualitative analysis supported the quantitative results. The study also highlights that in spite of TA interference with natural translation process; it still can provide a valid source of data about the cognitive aspects of translation and can be considered as a fully-fledged method in, for instance, pedagogically-oriented research.

Key Words: Empirical Translation Research, Think Aloud Protocols, Translation Product, Cognitive Process, Translator Trainee, Pedagogically-oriented Research

1Corresponding author Tel: +98 938 272 8440

1-Introduction

In the last three decades, the growing interest in empirical research in TS as well as the increasing curiosity for uncovering the cognitive aspects of translation has brought about the shift in Translation Studies from product-oriented approach towards process-oriented studies. So far, various data collecting methods including retrospective interviews, Think Aloud Protocols, video recording and various software programs have been adopted by researchers for indirect observation of cognitive processes of translation. Of these methods, more often than not, Think Aloud Protocols seems to have been favored more by scholars in the field.

Think Aloud Protocols (TAPs) or concurrent verbalization was firstly introduced by the work of Ericson & Simon (1984) as a method of data collection in psychology and cognitive sciences. This method was imported into Translation Studies in the late 1980s and heretofore, has been adopted by scholars with different background and interest for investigating different facets of translation processes. The early TAP studies were concerned with translation strategies and problem solving techniques adopted by translators (e.g., Jääskeläinen 1993, Krings 1986, Löscher 1986, and Séguinot 1991). The next generation of TAP studies focused on more specific dimensions of translation process such as translation units (Gerloff 1986 & Jääskeläinen1990), automaticity (Jääskeläinen & Tirkkonen-Condit 1991), and affective factor (Kussmaul 1991, Laukkanen 1996, Tirkkonen-Condit 1997 & Hansen 2005).

Over time, there have been two lines of arguments surrounding the utlizability of TAP reports as reliable data in investigating the translation processes. Several researchers like Jääskeläinen (2000) and Bernardini (2001), underpin the methodological issues in the studies with TAP. They summarize the flaws and methodological deficiencies of previous TAP research and then offer valuable suggestions for ameliorating the validity and reliability of TAP experiments.

The second line of argument alludes to the effectiveness of Think-Aloud Protocols reports in illuminating the natural translation process. This issue has been disputed by a number of scholars from the first days of TAP introduction in Translation Studies (e.g., Hansen 2005, Jackobson 2003, &Toury 1991 &1995).

Should TAP have any effects on thought process, its footprints will be emerged in translation product. Toury (1991:60-61, 1995:234-237) points out that concurrent verbalization is likely to interfere with natural cognitive translation processes in ways and the results of its interference might be observable in translation products. Toury claims "Think Aloud translations lucidly exhibit a greater tendency towards formal correspondence than Non-Think Aloud translations"(Jääskeläinen, 2000:79).

In another seminal study conducted by Hansen (2005), she avers that TA definitely influences translation processes and translation products. She underscores that the influence of emotions and individual experiences on translation processes cannot be disregarded. Hansen (2005:516) argues that while a translator is translating, "a myriad of impulses in the form of images, experiences, associations and emotions immediately and inevitably emerge and influence the process". On the word of Hansen (2005), in TAP experiments, the translators not only have to verbalize their thoughts which comprising restructuring them, but also have to choose among simultaneous countless of them, the ones which have to be verbalized. It implies that if the translator tries to verbalize, only a minimum of all these components of thought can be caught affected firstly by the translator's emotions and secondly by TA

condition. To put it in a nutshell, Hansen (2005) suspects the validity of TA experiments in investigating translation processes.

And eventually, this paper opens up the new insight in translation in that it clarifies and expounds the real nature of Think Aloud Protocol in New Translation Studies to corroborate the hidden and concealed idea of TAP in translation. This area in translation spots the similarities and differences existed in New Translation Studies. It is suggested that this area pays much heed to the intention and attention capacity of learners (Paneuf, 2009:2), interaction, feasibility, and practicality of translatorial items and decision making processes between the source and target language context (Munday, 2012:17).

2-Literature Review

Think aloud protocol (TAP) is an empirical method of data collection that has its roots in psychology and cognitive sciences. The theoretical framework for TAP research is primarily based on the influential work of Ericsson and Simon (1984 & 1993).These scholars work with a "model of human cognition as information processing". According to this model, information is retained in different memory stores [faculties] with different types of accessing to information and span capacity characteristics. Short-term memory (STM) presents easy access but severely limited storage capacity, whereas long-term memory (LTM) is characterized by more difficult access and greater storage space (Bernardini, 2001:242).Ericsson and Simon (1993) point out that the information present in STM, which is under the subjects' consciousness, can be directly accessed and verbalized. In contrast, since the cognitive processes of LTM are unconscious and dynamic, the direct access to them is impossible and they need to be inferred by the researcher.

The goal of TAP is to elicit information about the underlying cognitive processes needed to do a given task. To meet this goal, subjects are asked to verbalize whatever goes on in their minds while completing the task they are given. Their verbalization is recorded on audio or video tapes and later will be transcribed. As the final step, written transcripts which are called Think Aloud Protocols need to be analyzed and coded by the researcher.

Ericsson and Simon (cited in Charters 2003:71) warned that cognitive processes which "are not naturally verbal such as physical actions or visual images may be distorted when they are translated to the words for meeting the requirements of a Think Aloud task". However, they believe that such interference would not occur in verbalization of the thought patterns which are naturally encoded in verbal forms since they can be reported without any need to re-encode them to the language form. In that case, the only effect of think aloud on the structure of thought processes is slowing down. To put it in a nutshell, it is inferred that TAP can be exploited in studying the sequences of the thought structures that are naturally verbal such as translation process.

In 1980s, the product-oriented studies were losing its popularity among scholars who aspired to uncover what actually happens in translator's mind rather than what is assumed to happen. In order to get more in-depth insight into cognitive process of translation, many scholars tried to adopt methodologies for gaining access to the process of translation. Since it is impossible to directly observe what's going on in the translator's mind while doing a translation task, the researchers in this field resort to methods allowing them to indirectly gain access to that black box. Since then, they have applied different data collection methods as Think-Aloud

Protocols (TAPs), retrospective interviews, video cameras and different computer programs in their translation process studies.

Think aloud protocol (concurrent verbalization of thoughts while doing a given task) was introduced to Translation Studies in the late 1980 by pioneer scholars such as Krings (1986), Löscher (1986 &1991) and Jääskeläinen (1993) whose prime concern was to detect the translation strategies that translators adopt for doing translation as a problem solving task.

Löscher (cited in Bernardini 2001:245) distinguished a number of translation strategies and argued that in spite of the discrepancies among individuals as well as their inherent varied translation process, certain regularities are distinguishable suggesting that establishing taxonomies of translation strategies is not far-fetched.

In another TAP study, Krings (cited in Bernardini, 2001:246) classified translation strategies with regard to the strategies adopted by the participants in break downs of automatic processing as comprehension, equivalent retrieval, equivalent monitoring, decision-making and reduction.

Jääskeläinen (cited in Bernardini, 2001:248) also put forward another classification of translation strategies. She distinguished between local strategies and global strategies. While the former one refers to strategies applied to the specific items the latter one alludes to the strategies applied to the whole task.

Later on, the researchers mainly concentrated on issues such as translation (or attention) units, “those instances in the translation process in which the translator’s ‘unmark processing’ is interrupted by shifting the focus of attention onto particular task relevant aspects” (e.g. Gerloff, 1986, Jääskeläinen 1990 & Séguinot 1996), automaticity, “the outcome of experience and proficiency in a task” (e.g. Ericsson and Simon 1984, Toury 1988, Jääskeläinen &Tirkkonen-Condit 1991), and affective factors, “relaxed atmosphere and self-confidence” (e.g., Kussmaul 1991, Tirkkonen-Condit 1997, Laukkanen 1996, Tirkkonen-Condit & Laukkanen 1996, Hansen 2005).

Notwithstanding the fact that TAP studies have yielded interesting results about translation processes, some researchers have challenged the legitimacy of them for various reasons since the first days of its introduction to the translation studies. The less critical comments are centered on methodology of the studies with TA. Jääskeläinen (2000) and Bernardini (2001) highlighted the methodological limits of TAP experiments in Translation Studies. A number of more suspicious scholars such as Toury (1991 & 1995) and Hansen (2005) cast doubt on the usefulness of think-aloud experiments in divulging the translator's mental states.

Jääskeläinen (2000) discuses a few questions posed on the methodology issues of TAP research. Jääskeläinen (2000:73) argues that in the research done in this area "the subject's various personality traits have been less or more neglected". Jääskeläinen (2000:81) also suggests that in addition to clear enunciations of TA task for participants, a warm up task is required before performing a translation task to make the subjects more familiar with TA experience and to answer their possible upcoming questions.

Besides, Silvia Bernardini (2001) addresses the issues of experimental, theoretical and environmental validity of TAP methodology in Translation Studies. She outlines the achievements of TAP research and substantiates the utilization of TAP in Translation Studies

as a more empirical approach than those speculative approaches grounding on translation product analysis. On the other hand, she underlines the importance of establishing a more rigorous experimental methodology, taking into account issues of experimental and theoretical as well as environmental validity, (both in the collection and in the analysis of data). Bernardini (2001:251) notifies that "the lack of an established research paradigm, resulting in a rather loose treatment of methodological issues (research design, data analysis, research report) and in a host of studies setting their own categorizations in a theoretical void".

The second group of scholars has prompted a general critique of applying TAP to study translation processes. They challenge the applicability and workability of TAP in translation research since it might hamper with natural translating processes or because it bestows only a retrospective fraction of information from human's complex thought structures throughout translation.

Toury (1991:60-62, 1995:234-237) doubts the idea that thinking aloud does not hinder with natural translating processes. In his attitude, thinking aloud would alter the normal cognitive process of translation in translator's mind and the result of this interference would be an impact on translation products. Should it happen, the conclusions drawn on the basis of concurrent verbalization is undermined (Jääskeläinen 2000:78). He argues that while a subject is doing a written translation task and simultaneously verbalizing his/her thought, two modes of translation (oral and written) may interfere with each other. Jääskeläinen (2000:79) argues that the results of Toury's first study are not generalizable [replicable] since his example only consists of translation of one statement. Moreover, the subjects were incomparable in terms of their level of language knowledge and experience (a teacher and a student). The findings of Jääskeläinen's study (2000:80) "supports Toury's concern at the lexical, but not at the systemic level".

Hansen (2005) also questions the possible impact of concurrent verbalization especially Think Aloud on the structure of cognitive processes encompassed in translation. Hanson (2005:516) declares that with regard to the speed of neural activation in each millisecond during translation process, "a myriad of impulses in the form of images, experiences, associations and emotions immediately and inevitably emerge" in translator's mind. Hence, should the translator try to verbalize; only a minimum of all these components of thought can be caught (Hansen 2005). She believes that forcing translators to verbalize adds to this cognitive overload since they have to single out what is to mention and what is not. She ultimately concludes that, due to the cognitive overload in each millisecond and the time needed for deciding on what is to be chosen for reporting verbally, all introspection methods such as TA are irrefutably retrospective. Therefore, just like the other retrospective methods, TA reports are prone to the forgetfulness, interpretation and shortly deviate from natural processes.

It is widely warned by the scholars that during TAP experiments, the interaction between the researcher and the participants must be limited to a minimum and except for a few reminders to think aloud, the researcher must not have any contraction with the subjects. The rationale behind this is the fact that if the subjects feel that they are participating in a social event, they try to adopt their verbalization to the social norms.

Hansen (2005:517-518) also views the neutral effect of reminders with suspicious. In her opinion, each reminder makes the subjects aware of the fact that they are participating in an

experiment and there is a researcher waiting for some kind of results. In short, the subjects are reminded that they are in a kind of social situation and have to observe the social norms in their verbalization. She claims that "such reminders must act as a thought-provoking impulse and their impact on the translation process cannot be evaluated and by no means controlled" (Hansen 2005:518). To sum up, Hansen (2005) provides robust evidence about the possible effects of Think Aloud on translation processes and consequently on translation product and then again questions the validity of TA as a tool for investigating the translation process.

At present, the usefulness of the TAP in Translation Studies seems to be on a shaky ground. While some scholars consider TAP as a reliable mean of extracting data for indirect observation of translator's mind, some other researchers vent sever reservations about its usefulness in translation studies. The previous literature suggests that there is a need for a thorough investigation specifically designed to determine the possible impacts of concurrent verbalization on the translation process. The present research was designed to shed more light on the possible effects of thinking aloud on the translation process and products by translator trainees.

3-Methodology

3-1- Research Questions

The present study was set out to address the following questions.

1-What are the possible effects of TAP on translation products yielded under this method?

2- Is there any evidence in recorded data that shows cognitive processes of translation are deviated from its natural way in TAP experiments?

3-2-Research Design

To put the ideas into practice, the present research was designed to find out whether thinking aloud would affect the translation processes and therefore the translation product negatively or not. According to Hansen (2005), it is envisaged that the results of translation quality assessment (TQA) would not be in favor of TA translation products in comparison with non-TA translation products. It was tried to adopt newly refined methodologies in Think Aloud studies to improve empirical, theoretical and environmental validity in this experimental study.

3-3-Participants:

Eight senior BA students studying translation at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Isfahan participated in this study. All participants were female

and with the mean age of 22. The reason for selecting these participants was mainly related to their major “translation”, since translation students seem to be a better choice for investigating on “Think Aloud Protocol” projects. They randomly were assigned in two groups, one as the experimental group and the other as the control group. For their participation, these trainee translators received 30 dollars as their participation. The mean score of their second translation tasks (not done under TAP condition) ensured the researchers that they had gained the same courses in translation and were more or less at the same proficiency level. The results also showed that the mean scores of the subjects’ translations were very similar.

3-4- Material:

One of the main encounters of this research was finding two comparable pieces of texts. Two source texts need to belong to the similar genre and be about equal in their level of difficulty. It is noteworthy according to the literature a very difficult text will lead to less verbalization due to the high cognitive load and this phenomenon will also be true for a very easy text. This is owing to the fact that the automaticity of translation process plays the key role in degree of text difficulty.

Bearing these issues in mind, the materials which were used for eliciting data were two short narrative texts, taken from a short story written by Sherman Alexie (1993).The reason for selecting these texts as translation tasks was of twofold. Firstly, the text was segmented by the author in fairly equal parts in size and while all the parts belong to the same genre with almost equal degree of difficulty, each part has its own independent story. Secondly, Sherman Alexie is a poet and writer in that much of his writing draws on his experiences as a Native American so the theme of his writing is considered as non-routine for Iranian translators.

It is noteworthy that the difficulty level of all the three texts used in this research (warm-up task, TA and non-TA task) were measured via Pearson Reading Maturity Matrix (Pearson RMM) which is a new computer-based technology measure reckoning overall difficulty and complexity of the text about 30 percent more accurately than traditional readability formulas. As reported by Pearson RMM, the overall RMM score for the warm-up task, TA task and non-TA task was 6.5, 6.3 and 6.1 respectively. TA task included 128 words with 12 sentences and non TA task contained 116 words with 11 sentences.

3-5- Data Collection

The data collection process was a four step procedure:

1. Preparing and informing the subjects2. Actual translation process3. Scoring translation products4. And Transcribing and coding

In the preparation phase, TA as a data collection method was introduced to the participants. Then, they were asked to perform a short warm-up task and verbalize whatever comes to their

mind. They were also encouraged to ask their questions since there were supposed to be no contacts with them in the actual translation process.

The second phase was concerned with the actual translation process. In this phase, the participants were engaged in translating the tasks. Their voice, their facial expressions, body language [gestures and postures] and all their work away from the translation task were recorded by one of the researchers. In this period, it was tried to behave as a strict observer and apart from a very few reminders to verbalize; there were no interactions with them. Furthermore, to diminish the effect of the researcher's presence, a face-to face position was avoided. After completing the TA task, the subjects were asked to translate the second text in a way they always took and worked with.

Just the same day, the same translation tasks were administered to the control group. They were asked to perform two translation tasks separately in the usual manner. It is bear mentioning that the participants of experimental and control group had no interaction in the interval.

In the third phase of the study, the translation products (TA and non-TA translations for each subject in experimental group and two non-TA translations for control group) were scored. To avoid subjectivity and increase reliability of the scores, the translation tasks were scored by two other raters who were experienced in translation and the mean scores were used for further analysis. Afterward, t-test was taken up to compare the performance of the experimental group and control group separately on the first and second task to see whether there are any significant differences between these two group's performances.

The last phase was transcribing the data, coding the transcriptions, and categorizing the data having yet to be completed, but had been to look for any clues suggesting an interference of TA with translation processes or invalidating the data obtained with TA method.

It bears mentioning that in order to reduce the artificiality of condition and ameliorating the environmental validity the participants were asked to perform the task in their own places and around the time they usually work. They were also free to use dictionary, databases, electronic and traditional reference materials. Finally, while it is widely recommended to use videotapes rather than audio ones in conducting TAP research, it was favored to use the audio tapes for the less artificiality that they create in the research environment.

4- Data Analysis

4-1-Quantitative data

The independent sample t-test was applied to evaluate the difference between the experimental and control group's performance on the first translation task. Table (1) shows the mean value of control and experimental group's performance. As observed, the mean value of control group's performance is greater than that of the experimental group's.

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for the First Translation Task

To ensure that control group outperformed the experimental group, we need the information provided by Table (2), displaying the results of independent sample t-test. The independent sample t-test assumes that the variances of the dependent variable for both groups are equal in the population. This assumption is evaluated with Levene's Test for Equality of Variances. The null hypothesis for this test states that the variance for both groups is equal. The desired outcome for this test is to fail to reject the null hypothesis, which demonstrates equality. Here, since the Sig value (.501) for Levene’s test is greater than alpha level (.05), the null hypothesis is retained which indicates that that the 'Equal variances assumed' formula for the independent samples t-test should be used for the analysis. As presented in Table Two, the significant level for two-tailed test on the first row (equal variance assumed) is equal to (.043) which is smaller than P value (.05). This indicates that the difference between two mean values of control and experimental group is significant. Since we tested the hypothesis that the mean value of experimental group is lower than that of control group, we needed to convert the significant value of 2-tailed test (.043) into 1-tailed test. For this purpose, we divided the SPSS 2-tailed significance in half. In this way, the actual P value for this study is (.0215) which is still significant at alpha level (.05). Accordingly, our hypothesis that TA interferes with translation process in a way which leads to a translation product of inferior quality is endorsed.

Table 2: Independent Sample t-test for the First Translation Task

To provide further evidence to claim that the difference observed between the performances of the two groups was mainly due to the TA and not other involved variables such as level of language proficiency or translation competence, the independent-sample t-test was rerun with the results of the second translation task. The results of descriptive statistics presented in Table (3) show a slight difference between the mean values of the control (17.312)and experimental group (16.277), but it does not confirm whether this difference between the two is significant or not. To answer this question, an independent sample t-test should be run for the second translation task.

Table 3: Descriptive Statistics for Second Translation Task

The null hypothesis states that there is no significant difference between the performances of two groups when both worked under the same condition (non-TAP condition). If the null hypothesis is retained, it can be concluded that the performances of the two groups on translation tasks are not significantly different in natural settings and TA was responsible for the lower quality of the first translation task produced by the experimental group. Table (4) displays the results of independent sample t-test for the second translation task for the control and experimental group. To determine which t-value we have to use, first we look at the results of Lenven's test. Since the Sig value (.685) of this test is greater than P value (.05), we must take the statistics of the first row (which assumes equality of variances) for the analysis. As it can be seen, the significant value for independent sample t-test on the first row is (.317) which is greater than P value (.05). Accordingly, the null hypothesis is not rejected implying that the differences among the scores on the second translation task were not systematic.

Table 4: Independent Sample t-test for the Second Translation Task

4-2-Qualitative data:

The entire time that participants spent on each task was measured. On average, the members of experimental group spent 27% time more on TA tasks which is very close to Jacobson’s findings (2003). In addition to slowing down the process, the subjects worked with smaller chunks of text which yet again is paralleled with the results of Jacobson’s study (2003). In the present research, it was observed that working with smaller units of translation occasionally resulted in miscomprehension of the text and consequently mistranslation. Two examples of this translation mistakes are given below. The participants' verbalizations in their mother tongue are given in capital letter and for the ease of the reader the back-translation of their verbalization is also added in italic form. The numbers of the dots indicates the length of the pauses.

Example 1:

a) Source text:

||Oh, do you remember those sweet, almost innocent choices that Indian boys were forced to make?||

b) Subject's 1 verbalization:

||Oh, do you remember those..sweet, almost.. innocent choices that Indian boys were… forced to make?Ok..(Laugh)…EE..almost innocent choices…sweet...is it candy or taste? Do you remember those sweet [checking sweet in monolingual dictionary]…sugar or chocolate? (Laugh)…sweet...taste? and...is it countable or uncountable?...sweet, sweet, sweet..[Unclear murmurings]…sweet MISHE SHIRIN/it is sweet (as taste)/ SHIRINI /candy/all those sweet …..almost..almost innocent..innocent choices that Indian boys were forced to make..mm..UN SHIRINIHA RO …YADET MIAD? / Do you remember those candies?/ HAMEYE UN PESARAYE /all those boys that../innocent…[checking innocent in bilingual dictionary] innocent cannot be GONAHKAR /guilty/ MM..BIGONAH /innocent/..HAMEYE PESARAYE HENDI MAJBOOR MISHODAND BEGIRAND /all Indian boys (boys from India) were forced to make/||

c) Target text:

||Oh…Do you remember those candies? All those decisions that Indian (from India) boys were forced to make||

As presented above, Subject One translated sweet as a noun rather than an adjective. Based on her verbalization, one suggestion for her failure might be breaking down of the text into smaller chunks. She concentrated on the phrase "do you remember those sweet" and did not pay attention to the following words. Moreover, due to the cognitive overload, it seems that the information in her mind passes so quickly directing to forgetting the previous thought patterns.

Example 2:

a) Source text:

|| No. I missed my first shot, missed the basket completely, and the ball landed in the dirt and sawdust, sat there just like I had sat there only minutes before||

b) Subject's 4 Verbalization:

||No. I missed my first shot…NA.AVILISHO AZ DAST DADAM /No, I missed the first / ...missed the basket completely..E..KOLLAN /completely/..EE…SABAD RO JA ANDAKHTAM YA.. NADIDAM? /missed the basket or didn't see the basket?/……and the ball landed in dirt and sawdust..VA /and/...TOOP…TOOP TUYE ASHGHALA VO KHAKE AREHA …ZAMIN UMAD /the ball..ball landed in the garbage and sawdust/…sat there…sat there just like.. I had sat there only minutes before…sat there...FEK KONAM CHON NATUNESTE RAFTE NESHASTE SAREJASH / I think since he couldn't he came back to his seat/…EE...ok..UNJA NESHASTAM /I sat there/..UNJA NESHASTAM ENGAR…EE..ENGAR KE AZ CHAND LAHZE.. NA CHAND DAGHUGHE GHABL…HAMUNJA NESHASTE BOODAM / I sat there as if..EE..as if I had sat there from a couple of seconds no..minutes before/

c) Target text:

||No, I missed the first, missed the basket completely and the ball landed in the garbage and sawdust. I sat there as if I had sat there from a couple of minutes before.||

In this example, the participant number 4 did not recognize the subject of the sentence truly since she split the sentence into two parts and translated them separately without paying much attention to the previous chunks of the text.

Even though the analysis of subjects' verbalizations is not yet completed, there is some evidence that suggests the interference of TA with translation processes. In the first example, the translator tried hard to find a suitable equivalent for the word "innocent" and finally she succeeded and even showed a great happiness in her voice, but surprisingly she did not use it in her translation at all. This issue may uphold the Hansen's view about introspection methods. Hansen (2005) argues that in every millisecond of the life of the translator's mind countless various patterns are activated which cause a cognitive overload. When a translator is obliged to verbalize her or his thought patterns, she or he has to choose what to mention and what not to and during this speedy selection episode, she may forget a part of her previous thought pattern. This phenomenon may confirm Hansen's concerns about retrospective nature of all introspective methods including TA. In the same token, it was observed that the members of the experimental group paid less attention to the context of the text. The two more examples given below may provide stronger evidence for this assumption.

1. "rubber cement"

Rubber Cement is common household glue which sometime is abused as a recreational inhalant drug especially by children and teenagers of lower class families. The context of study provides the translator with some clues to catch the probable meaning of rubber cement. "sniffing it from a paper bag", "having a buzz in the head" and " everyone seemed so far away which implies a kind of hallucination" all can lead the translator to get the intended meaning of the source text properly. The subjects of the experimental group tired hard to find a Persian equivalent for this word in dictionaries but they failed. After reading the sentence including the word for several times and checking several dictionary, three of them resorted to word-for-word translation and one of them opted for omitting the part "rubber" and rendered it as SIMAN /cement/. This strategy was not dominant in translation products of the control group. After failing to find an equivalent in dictionaries, three subjects rendered it as "drug" or "a kind of drug" that seems acceptable to some extent especially since this habit does not have any parallel counterpart in Persian culture.

2. "Indian"

Just as the above example, the contextual situation of the story contains important clues (playing basketball, tribe, discrimination, etc.) which demonstrate that "Indian" boys actually refer to the Native Americans and not boys from India. However, then again the subjects of experimental group rendered it as HENDI /from the country India/while this issue was not dominant in the translation products of the control group since two subjects translated Indian as Native American and one of them brought it as an in-parenthesis option.

The last noteworthy point is about reminders. During the TA transcription phase, the researchers encountered some sentences that prove Hansen's concern about reminders. There were situations in which the researcher was completely silent and not in the direct view of the subjects, but they were completely aware of the researcher's presence. The subjects' verbalizations show that while performing the translation tasks, they almost never forget the researcher's presence. Two more regular behaviors that reflect their awareness of the experimental situation are "laughing" and "self-criticism". Whereas the researcher was present at the experiment setting during the non-TA translation too, they did not laugh at all and this phenomenon was not observed through the performance of the control group members. Moreover, as translators, we hardly ever laugh at the problems, at least we do not laugh as soon as we encounter a translation problem. The reason behind their behavior is not the subject of this study; however, one suggestion might be related to the notion of "self-image”.

Jääskeläinen (1999) explains the reason behind these kinds of behaviors in terms of role theory proposed by Goffman in 1961. Goffman (1961 cited in Jääskeläinen 1999) defines roles as "the typical response of individuals in a particular position" and reminds that "people do not always live up to their roles". Of the different concepts introduced by Goffman, Jääskeläinen (1999) takes advantage of the notion of role distance to explain some of the observed behaviors in her experiment like constant laughter. As stated by Goffman (1961, cited in Jääskeläinen 1999) role distancing can be illustrated through "[the] actions which effectively convey some disdainful detachment of the performer from a role he is performing" such as explanations, apologies and joking. In his opinion, the reasons for expressing role distancing are various with respect to the role performer and situation. On the word of Jääskeläinen (1999), it is face threatening for the participants to expose themselves in the experimental situation and since they care about their self-image, they try to convince the researcher that " it is not real me" and "I am not to be judged by this incompetence". Jääskeläinen (1999) believes that role distancing is taken up by the participants as "a form of psychological self-defense".

4- Discussion:

The question at the heart of many debates in process-oriented studies – would TA have any effects on translation process and subsequently on translation product? - might be partially answered by the results presented in the previous section. The findings of this study suggest that TA translations are of inferior quality compared with non-TA translations. It implies that thinking aloud might deviate the translator's thought processes in a few ways. Vygotsky (cited in Hansen, 2005:514) states that "the structure of language is by no means a reflection of the structure of thoughts". As argued by Hansen (2005:514),"language is not merely an expression of a finished thought". In her view, when a translator verbalizes her or his thoughts, she/he actually restructures them which necessarily affect the following thoughts in the translation process. Code-switching of thought patterns which are not naturally verbal and simultaneously deciding on which pattern to be verbalized add more to the existing cognitive overload in the translator's mind. Besides, the participants' awareness of the experimental condition complicates the situation more. Here, they are subconsciously aware that they have to observe two points in their verbalizations. First they have to confine their verbalizations to social norms and second they try to save their "self-image"

In Hansen's view (2005:516), "the verbal report of a subject comprises only a fraction of the thoughts during the process and only those that the subject can single out and encode into verbal form". Considering this problem, he questions the validity of TA reports in translation process studies. The findings of this study justify the reservations about the effectiveness of the TA in translation studies, but do not invalidate the usefulness of this method in empirical research into the process-oriented studies. On the contrary, these results provide convincing evidence for the paramount importance of the information drawn out through TA in finding more about the processes involved in translation.

It should be noted that someone should be very cautious in using Think Aloud method as it may accompany some downsides. (1) Think-Aloud prepares the artificial situation for the participants. Most of participants are unwilling to sit in one place and verbalize the flow of words as well as to tolerate the presence of one proctor or researcher controlling them incessantly. This treatment may disturb the process of translation due to creating some inhibiting factors such as noise, and forgetfulness. This suggests that researchers need to make sure that the participants for such studies have been well justified so that they will be tolerant enough for any interruptions, noises, and the potential stress yielded here due to the presence of researchers. (2) Think-Aloud in translation slows down the speed of translation. Participants in experimental group consume much more time than that of the control group. This is owing to the fact that the TA-participant must put his-her concentration on the flow of the words both verbally, non-verbally, consciously, and unconsciously in order to make translation go on smoothly and appropriately.

To support our findings and results, Jääskeläinen (2009:290-293) prepares the debated limitations of Think Aloud Protocols in translation as follow:

(A) Do TAPs actually give us information on the mental processes at work? Are they not really a representation of an intermediate stage, in which the subject relates what he/she thinks is happening? (B) The effort involved in verbalizing slows down the translation process and may affect the way the translator segment the text. (C) The data gathered are therefore incomplete and do not give access to the processes which the translator draws on automatically. And (D) what tools should the subjects be allowed to use?

In Spite of these limitations, Think Aloud can be a valuable method especially in research with pedagogical concerns. With a glimpse on the translation products provided by the participants of this research, one might infer that the subjects' major problem was adopting word for word translation while examining the fraction of their thought processes reveals that in essence, they went through different strategies just to avoid word for word translation, but when they failed, they resorted to the word for word translation as the last choice.

Moreover, the fragments of the translator's thought process may bestow us with valuable information about equivalent retrieval process in translators' mind. In some cases in this study, the subjects' behavior provided some evidence that signaled to the creation of some images in translator's mind. The word "merry-go-round" has no exact equivalence in Persian and the nearest equivalent for this word is CHARKH O FALAK /ferries wheel/. It seems that as soon as they encountered the word, the image of merry-go-round was activated in their minds, but it took them a little more time to find a Persian verbal equivalent for that concept. To give an example, one of the subjects showed the way that merry-go-round rotates around with her finger immediately after she read it. Then she looked up and said" merry-go-round is

this (rotating her finger around)…it’s ...CHI BEGAM /what should I say /HAMOON CHARKHO FALAKE? Is it the same as ferries wheel?”. The same phenomenon was also observed in translating the word "sniff". Two of the subjects of experimental group acted out sniffing right after reading it.

It is worth mentioning that the results of the present paper may not be generalizable due to its small sample size. If a study with a larger scale of this kind can prove the inferiority of TA translation compared to non-TA translation, one of the most salient features of TA method (not having any influence on the natural cognitive processes, but its speed) may be rejected. But even in that case, the validity of TA in empirical translation studies must not be disregarded.

5- Conclusion

By the mid-1980s, studying the cognitive aspects of translation process could only be tackled speculatively. In the last three decades, the translation researchers have resorted to Think Aloud Protocols as an introspective data collecting method to examine some cognitive aspects of translation. Heretofore, substantial efforts have been put into this field of study, resulting in numerous valuable achievements about the cognitive aspects of translation process. However, from the first days of TAP introduction into translation research much controversy and discussion have been ensued over the validity and effectiveness of the method in translation studies.

This study was set out to examine the possible effects of thinking aloud on translation process. The findings weaken the previous assumptions that the effects of TA on translation process would merely be restricted to the slowing down of the process both quantitatively and qualitatively. Actually thinking aloud interferes with natural translation process and it seems that TA reports only provide us with a distorted fraction of what actually happens in translator's mind during translation process. However, in replying to the question of validity of application of this method in studying translation process, one should consider what the ultimate goal of translation studies is. When it is still impossible to directly and fully observe the mental states and thought processes during the translation, the small aperture that TA provides can be of paramount value. TA reports of translator's thought processes can cement our understanding about translation process. To sum up, the studies with TA have brought about breakthroughs in translation studies and should the method be used with more specific purposes such as pedagogical concerns or gaining more in-depth insights into equivalent retrieval process, it can bring more.

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Maryam Sharifian is an MA student of Translation studies at the University of Isfahan. Her main interests lie in the area of Translation Criticism, Literary Studies, Cognitive Linguistics, and Comparative Literature in translation.

Alireza Akbari is an MA student of Translation Studies at the University of Isfahan. He is the founder of Intermediacy Model of Translation in Gray Zone and HomoKult model of translation. He has published and refereed several papers on Translation Studies and Applied Linguistics. His main interests lie in the areas of Theories of Translation, Philosophy of Translation, Cultural Translation, Cognitive Linguistics, Bi-directional, Liaison Interpretation, and Equivalence Paradigm in Translation.

Mohammadtaghi Shahnazari has a Ph.D. in Language Teaching and Learning from the University of Auckland. Dr. Shahnazari is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, University of Isfahan. His research interests are interactional corrective feedback, individual differences in working memory capacity, reading comprehension, SLA issues, and Translation Studies. He has presented and published several papers in international conferences and journals.