Process and text studies of a translation problem

Does metonymic language constitute a translation problem to translators? Vandepitte and Hartsuiker (2011) found that it took translation students more time not only to translate metonymic constructions than their non-metonymic counterparts, but also to produce a non-metonymic construction if the source text is metonymic than if it is non-metonymic. Three new case studies seem to confirm these preliminary findings. One study shows that a metonymic construction like Music took him around the world not only delays the translation onset time but also the remainder of the translation process. Another study inquiring into the impact of foreign source language competence level shows that with participants with a lower language competence level, too, the metonymic construction triggers a longer translation onset time than its counterpart. And our third study shows that translation direction also plays a role: in contrast with translation into L1, word translation from L2a into L2b of abstract nouns such as music may already be harder than that of human nouns. We conclude that the translation of metonymic utterances and their abstract agents requires more effort than that of non-metonymic utterances.