translation studies. retrospective and prospective views

using this technique as follows:
1. Don't engage in social interaction while the student is
thinking aloud. If the student stops verbalizing, say something to the
effect of "keep talking". Don't inject yourself into the process with
statements such as "tell me what you are thinking".
2. Don't panic when the verbalizations students provide lack
coherence. Concurrent verbalizations do not detail how a solution
was generalized per se.
3. Don't use think-aloud methods with tasks that require visual
imagery.
4. Provide each participant ample practice thinking aloud.
5. Make sure the task has a clear focus and that the participants
stay focused on it and not the verbalization.
The same author, Aly (1994), reviews the main studies that put
together the think aloud protocol and the study of translation (Kussmaul et
al., 2000; Gerloff, 1989; Al-Besbasi, 1992; Matrat, 1992; Rydning, 2000).
Finally, Kulwindr Kaur (2005) makes an interesting comparison
between learning a language and translating, supporting the idea […] that
translation is actually a language learning process and the translator is
always a learner. She relies on the data coming from protocols: thus, all
students 'used the direct (memory, cognitive and compensation) and
indirect (metacognitive, affective and social) language learning strategies
proposed by Oxford (1990) … while translating. Both learning a second
language and translation are iterative, cumulative, dichotomous,
integrative, interactive, forward and backward-looking mental operations
involving revision …’.
III. The working protocol in an experimental translation seminar
The approach to the translation protocol was quite different in our
case. Thus, the students were instructed to write down in a very succinct
manner both the difficulties encountered while translating and the
solutions adopted. This was due to a range of reasons, which I present
below in a non-prioritized order:
- there were no material possibilities to record a 25-student
group while they were translating and verbalizing their thoughts
(lack of observers, technical equipment and so on);
- what mattered as the main rationale for introducing the
protocol was less getting to know the kind of problems and
difficulties students may come across than trying to sensitize them as
far as their own strategies in solving translation problems were
concerned, with a more remote purpose of determining them to
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