Reflections on Translation Empirical Studies by Peirce's Abduction Theory (Invited Paper)

Abstract

This paper originates from empirical studies of translation process, from the epistemological perspective, we can relate the translation process to how subjective spirit can attach to the external world. To unfold the translation process ontologically and epistemologically, we integrate the logical abduction inference with semantic theory "influence the best explanation". After a large amount of TAPs data collections and theoretical discussions in translation process empirical studies (including our research), we conclude that a translator dynamically employ both of the subjective translation units and objective translation units during the translation process by combing subjectivity and objectivity physically, mentally and philosophically; As the translating conduction went on --- the proceeding of deverbalization translation strategies and mental lexical access strategies is on, the translators flexibly and frequently appeal to abduction hypothesis and abduction reasoning. We end this paper with a reflection on the experimental design of the translation process empirical study: the Survivor-ship bias points out the judge's bias to high-proficiency participants; and the limitation of inductive reasoning and analogical reasoning lead to the relevant rigor -skepticism. We call for a closer interdisciplinary and a diversity research on philosophy, logic and empirical studies on translation process.

Keywords

• abduction
• think-aloud
• epistemology
• artificial intelligence
• survivor-ship bias
• semantic influence the best explanation
• translation process