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Article published In: Mapping Synergies in Cognitive Research on Multilectal Mediated Communication
Edited by Laura Babcock, Raphael Sannholm and Elisabet Tiselius
[Target 37:2] 2025
► pp. 271–291

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Finding synergies in Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies via task design

ORCiD logo with link | University of Granada
Published online: 13 June 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.00034.mar
Abstract
Traditionally, Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies (CTIS) scholars have approached Multilectal Mediated Communication (MMC) tasks separately, partly due to methodological reasons, partly due to the tendency, identified by Blumczynski, Piotr, and Ghodrat Hassani. 2019. “Towards a Meta-Theoretical Model for Translation.” Target 31 (3): 328–351. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar in the wider field of Translation Studies (TS), to conceptualize language mediation according to discrete, absolute categories, often opposed in dichotomies (interpreting/translation, source text/target text, oral/written). However, actual instances of MMC are complex and entail many dimensions that frequently overlap across tasks and relate to each other in multifarious ways (Marais, Kobus. 2014. Translation Theory and Development Studies: A Complexity Theory Approach. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). While dichotomous epistemologies favor the isolation of tasks and limit the scope of application of methods and constructs, complexity epistemologies cater for the diversity of linguistic, social, and environmental variables, and their impact on each other (. 2023. “Epistemological Positions.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation Theory and Concepts, edited by Reine Meylaerts and Kobus Marais, 13–27. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Such an epistemic stance allows us to identify theoretical synergies, developing constructs and models to empirically investigate different aspects of tasks both individually and in relation to each other to inform a general cognitive theory of MMC. In this article, I revisit the translation task model (. 2021. “Bridging the Epistemological Gap: Issues in CTS Knowledge Application to Training.” Special issue of Cognitive Linguistic Studies 8 (2): 462–481. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) as a construct that could be instrumental to describe mediators’ interaction with the task from an extended perspective. In order to do so, the notion of ‘constraint’ is introduced and further explained according to Baggs and Chemero’s distinction between habitat and umwelt Baggs, Edward, and Anthony Chemero. 2018. “Radical Embodiment in Two Directions.” Synthese 198 (9): 2175–2190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. I argue that empirical data can be described according to these categories and, in turn, the resulting descriptions applied to the development of a general theory of MMC.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Traditional approaches to the investigation of MMC
  • 3.Incorporating complexity: Cognitive Translatology
    • 3.1Other complex voices
  • 4.Mapping synergies: Model transfer and applicability
  • 5.Constraints and task design
  • 6.Finding synergies via constraints
  • Notes
  • References
References (60)
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