A study of the use of dictionaries in Danish-English translation

Based on an empirical study involving semi-professional translators, this article discusses the influence of dictionary use on the quality of the product in L1-L2 translation. Five graduate students were given a Danish general purpose text and asked to translate it into English using the Translog program. In addition, they were asked to think aloud during the process. No dictionaries were made available. However, after having completed the task, the students were informed that the experiment was not yet finished. They were instructed to return to the text, this time with the possibility of consulting dictionaries. In the paper, the two different processes are compared