To be or not to be: a translation reception study of a literary text translated into Dutch and Catalan using machine translation

TL;DR

This study compares how readers in Catalan and Dutch perceive a translated Kurt Vonnegut story across different translation methods, revealing that translation quality, reading patterns, and language context influence reception.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into how different translation methods affect literary reception in two languages, considering cultural and linguistic factors.

Findings

Higher engagement with human translation in Catalan.

Dutch readers prefer post-edited translations over machine translation.

Original English version yields highest engagement and enjoyment.

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study involving the reception of a fictional story by Kurt Vonnegut translated from English into Catalan and Dutch in three conditions: machine-translated (MT), post-edited (PE) and translated from scratch (HT). 223 participants were recruited who rated the reading conditions using three scales: Narrative Engagement, Enjoyment and Translation Reception. The results show that HT presented a higher engagement, enjoyment and translation reception in Catalan if compared to PE and MT. However, the Dutch readers show higher scores in PE than in both HT and MT, and the highest engagement and enjoyments scores are reported when reading the original English version. We hypothesize that when reading a fictional story in translation, not only the condition and the quality of the translations is key to understand its reception, but also the participants reading patterns, reading language, and, perhaps language status in their own societies.