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

which may, in turn, reflect different self-images. Lucy may have wished to give
the impression of a highly efficient translator who knows hoe to solve
problems quickly whereas Fran may have aimed at an impression of a
conscientious and meticulous translator by behaving in a potentially over-
conscientious fashion in the experiment. Obviously there is also the possibility
that in an experimental situation subjects may to some extent manipulate
(probably unconsciously) their behaviour to please the researcher. Thus Lucy
may have behaved with exaggerated ease in the experiment, at the expense of
translation quality, while Fran may have overdone her ‘meticulous translator
act’. If this is true, it is particularly interesting that Lucy and Fran should have
manipulated their behaviour into opposite directions with regard to the
demands of quantity vs. quality in translation. This seems to reveal a
difference in their (implicit) definitions of a ‘good translator’, as it seems
unlikely that they would have wanted to give an example of a ‘bad translator’
in the experiment.
The observations discussed in this section highlight the complexity of
investigating translation process, or of any type of human behaviour for that
matter. I would like to stress that it is not the purpose of the present study to
discredit any of the professional translators who took part in the experiment;
the success or failure in the experimental task may have little to do with how
they succeed in their own work. However these observations seem to support
the hypothesis that professional translators may behave differently when
performing routine vs. non-routine tasks. In fact, one of the most plausible
explanations for the unexpectedly poor success of the two professional
translators, Penny and Lucy, is that they applied a routine approach to a non-
routine task. The consequences were less dramatic for Penny, for whom the
topic of the ST represented a familiar special field.
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