An analysis of pause placement in bursts of writing in translation: a product- and process-oriented approach

Formulating segments or strings of text of varying length flanked by pauses of different durations is integral to the writing and translation processes. In recent years, these strings of texts produced within pauses, thereafter referred to as bursts of written language, have become the object of detailed analysis in both writing and translation, two sub-categories of text production. Although the linguistic units contained within these bursts have been the subject of extensive research, to date, their analysis has mostly built on traditional grammatical categories, and their linguistic properties remain only partially defined. This paper suggests a new analytical framework that can be deployed for the analysis of pause placement in bursts of writing in translation at the product-process interface. The study builds on a corpus of product and process data of English-to-French translations of a biotechnology text by L1 French translation students. It focuses on coding and analyzing keylogging data corresponding to similar translation renditions to explore patterns in pause placement. The new analytical framework contributes to a better understanding of how meaning unfolds in translation and how pause placement patterns can indicate translation difficulty.