Modelling human translator behaviour with user-activity data

Nagao [8] suggests to model machine translation as an imitation of a process that can be observed in human translation behavior. However, not much work has been done in an MT context that looks into human translation processes. This paper seeks to introduce a research method for the investigation of human translation behavior based on User-Activity Data (UAD) which consists of the translator’s recorded keystroke and eye-movement behavior and which can be replayed and analysed off-line. The paper gives the background of this technique and an example on a English-to-Danish translation. Our goal is to elaborate and investigate cognitively grounded basic translation concepts which are materialized and traceable in the UAD.