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In:Field Research on Translation and Interpreting
Edited by Regina Rogl, Daniela Schlager and Hanna Risku
[Benjamins Translation Library 165] 2025
► pp. 226–250

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Chapter 10
Revision files as cognitive ethnographic data

Artefact analysis of file and software features combined with systemic functional discourse analysis

ORCiD logo with link | Tampere University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 15 May 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.165.10kor
Abstract
I apply artefact analysis and systemic functional discourse analysis as independent but complementary methods to examine revision files exported from Trados Studio translation software. The methods are intended to be used as part of cognitive ethnographic investigations of professional translation contexts and the distributed cognitive systems that exist in those contexts. The artefact analysis spotlights how the affordances of the files influence the cognitive work. Comments added to the revised texts inform us of how the translator and reviser as translation process participants position themselves in the cognitive system, and an analysis of shifts at the thematic, ideational and interpersonal levels of translational meaning-making show how they distribute the cognitive labour and direct their individual cognitive focus.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Description of data and the two methods
    • 2.1The data
    • 2.2The artefact analysis method
    • 2.3Discourse analysis using systemic functional linguistics
      • 2.3.1SFL as the tool of analysis
      • 2.3.2Description of the discourse analysis procedure
  • 3.Outcomes of the methodological tests
    • 3.1Artefact analysis
    • 3.2The communication contained in the revision files
      • 3.2.1The comments as interaction
      • 3.2.2Systemic functional analysis of metafunctional shifts as indications of distributed cognitive labour
  • 4.Discussion
  • References
References (36)
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