The Behavioural Translation Style Space: Towards simulating the temporal dynamics of affect, behaviour, and cognition in human translation production

TL;DR

This paper presents a hierarchical behavioural translation style space (BTSS) that models how cognitive and affective states influence observable translation behaviors like eye and finger movements, aiming to simulate translation dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces the BTSS framework that links observable behaviors with underlying mental processes and proposes its use in developing computational translation agents.

Findings

BTSS effectively organizes behavioral translation patterns.

Eye and finger movements reflect underlying cognitive and affective states.

The framework enables simulation of translation behavior dynamics.

Abstract

The paper introduces a novel behavioural translation style space (BTSS) that describes possible behavioural translation patterns. The suggested BTSS is organized as a hierarchical structure that entails various embedded processing layers. We posit that observable translation behaviour - i.e. eye and finger movements - is fundamental when executing the physical act of translation but it is caused and shaped by higher-order cognitive processes and affective translation states. We analyse records of keystrokes and gaze data as indicators of the hidden mental processing structure and organize the behavioural patterns as a multi-layered embedded BTSS. We develop a perspective in which the BTSS serves as the basis for a computational translation agent to simulate the temporal dynamics of affect, behavioural routines and cognition during human translation production.