Typing your mind away. Comparing keylogged tasks with the Task Segment Framework

One of the main process features under study in Cognitive Translation & Interpreting Studies (CTIS) is the chronological unfolding of the tasks. The analyses of time spans in translation have been conceived in two ways: (1) studying those falling between text units of different sizes: words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs; (2) setting arbitrary time span thresholds to explore where do they fall in the text, whether between text units or not. Writing disfluencies may lead to comprehensive insights into the cognitive activities involved in typing while translating. Indeed, long time spans are often taken as hints that cognitive resources have been subtracted from typing and devoted to other activities, such as planning, evaluating, etc. This exploratory, pilot study combined both approaches to seek potential general tendencies and contrasts in informants’ inferred mental processes when performing different writing tasks, through the analysis of their behaviors, as keylogged. The study tasks were retyping, monolingual free writing, translation, revision and a multimodal task—namely, monolingual text production based on an infographic leaflet. Task logs were chunked, and shorter time spans, including those within words, were analyzed following the Task Segment Framework (Muñoz & Apfelthaler, in press). Finally, time span analysis was combined with the analysis of the texts as to their lexical density, type-token ratio and word frequency. Several previous results were confirmed, and some others were surprising. Time spans in free writing were longer between paragraphs and sentences, possibly hinting at planning and, in translation, between clauses and words, suggesting more cognitive activities at these levels. On the other hand, the infographic was expected to facilitate the writing process, but most time spans were longer than in both free writing and translation. Results of the multimodal task and some other results suggest venues for further research.

Fuori dai binari. Tradurre le identita non binarie nel romanzo Young Adult I Wish You All the Best di Mason Deaver

The goal of this final dissertation is to propose a partial translation of the Young Adult novel I Wish You All the Best by nonbinary author Mason Deaver, which was published in the United States by PUSH in 2019 and is currently still unpublished in Italy. The book follows the story of eighteen-year-old Ben De Backer. After coming out as nonbinary to their parents, they are kicked out of their home; thanks to the help of their older sister, they will manage to get back on their feet and start a new life, although their trauma will continue to pose a great obstacle to their growth and happiness. I Wish You All the Best is one of the first novels with a nonbinary protagonist in the Young Adult category and is particularly interesting from a linguistic standpoint. The first chapter serves as introduction to the author, Mason Deaver, their life and their relationship with gender identity and writing; and also as an introduction to the book itself and how its main characters and themes are developed in relation to the plot. The second chapter looks at the Young Adult genre as a whole; it explores its origins and development through the years and seeks to find a definition for this type of literature which has often been misrepresented both in the eyes of literary critics and the general public. Additionally, the chapter will describe some of the main characteristics of YA literature and analyze them in relation to I Wish You All the Best. The third chapter aims to examine the role of language, and how it can be inclusive to people outside of the gender binary. It will also touch upon the sociocultural contexts in which the speakers of different languages operate. The fourth and final chapter will present the translation of several passages taken from the novel I Wish You All the Best and offer an analysis of the most interesting and difficult aspects of this translation process.