In:Translation in Transition: Human and machine intelligence
Edited by Isabel Lacruz
[American Translators Association Scholarly Monograph Series XX] 2023
► pp. 15–38
Chapter 2The strange attractions of translation
Performance, expertise, and complexity
Published online: 26 July 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/ata.xx.02shr
https://doi.org/10.1075/ata.xx.02shr
Abstract
The complex-adaptive systems model is useful for
understanding translational behavior and cognition in a way that unites our
discipline with others (economics, biology, psychology) investigating
complex, non-linear, dynamical, and adaptive systems. We can recast some
conceptions of the development of translation expertise and the methods and
strategies of translation pedagogy using the metalanguage and concepts of
complexity theory. Donald Kiraly realized this earlier, and this article
extrapolates upon his innovative work. In particular, we examine the role of
boundary conditions and “strange attractors” in the systemic emergence of
behavioral patterns such as Halverson’s “default translations.” We examine
how introducing new attractors as “lever points” can disrupt student
translational systems and cause them to shift and settle into more
pedagogically desirable phase spaces.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Complex systems
- Kiraly, complexity, and competence
- Translation: Behavior and performance
- The unpredictability of translation systems
- First thought experiment
- Second thought experiment
- The emergence of order in translation performance
- Performance clustering and translational strange attractors
- Default translation as strange attractor
- Expertise trajectory: Series of state clusters
- Conclusions
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