Relatore: Professor Bruno OSIMO - Bruno Osimo, traduzioni ...

The second example of personal history as an explanation concerns
Penny, a professional translator whose translation was rated as ‘mediocre’.
Penny’s verbalisations as well as her comments in the follow-up letter (see
examples below) imply that her experience with translating medical texts
resulted in her translating for the wrong audience in the experiment. This
observation is linked to the effects of the experimental situation. In cognitive
psychology (e.g. Saariluoma 1988b: 56), it has been observed that in problem-
solving situations subjects often make so-called cognitive errors, i.e. the
subjects do not perceive the situation correctly and, as a result, are not able to
collect and utilise all the information relevant to successful task performance.
Cognitive errors take place in ‘natural’ problem-solving situations, too, but it
stands to reason that the additional strain created by the experimental
situation might increase their probability.
Evidence of Penny’s misinterpretation of the task is shown in example
(4). Here Penny decides to retain the original English explanation of ‘NADPH’
in the translation, because she thinks that the readers of the translation will be
familiar with the acronym. This implies that the potential readers Penny has
in mind were experts in medicine rather than ordinary newspaper readers.
(4) ja (.) sitten laitan sulkuihin ihan tos englanninkielisessä
kirjotusasuasussaan tää nicotineamide adenine dinucleotide
phosphate hybri-hybridi
mä en tietäs muita mitää muuta ku että se on fosfaattihybridi
mutta (2.0) mut touta (1.0) mä luulen että (.) et et ne ihmiset
jotka (3.0) tai olenkin varma et et (.) et joille toi NADPH jotaki
tarkottaa ni (1.0) ni ne he (.) he tietää sen ihan tolla lyhenteellä (.)
(Penny: P)
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