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9 

Communication across Borders: Translation & Interpreting 
ISSN 2766-791X 
Vol. 1 No. 2; 2021 

www.jhkpress.com 

A Pilot Study on Undergraduate Students’ English-Chinese Translation 
Shifts in Web-searching Process: combining screen-recording and 

retrospective verbalization methods 

Li-You CHANG 
Department of Applied English, Chaoyang University of Technology 

lychang@cyut.edu.tw  

Abstract 

Translation shifts (i.e. linguistic changes at lexical, syntactic and expression levels) naturally occur with the use of translation 
techniques in the process of translating a source text (ST) into another target text (TT). However, previous scholars mostly 
focused on analyzing translation products but hardly investigated translation shifts through translation process research (TPR) 
methods. Therefore, the pilot study combining screen-recording and retrospective verbalization methods aims to explore the 
causes and types of translation shifts made in three undergraduate students’ web-searching process in the hope of summarizing 
some implications for translator training. 

The preliminary findings are as follows. Firstly, the combination of screen-recording and retrospective verbalization methods 
could detect the causes of undergraduate students’ dissatisfying translation shifts, such as their over-reliance on online 
dictionaries or insufficient background knowledge in the ST. The results of the pilot study also show the implications of both 
recalling students’ application of internalized translation techniques and prompting them to reflect on how to make better 
translation shifts through the consultation of relevant background knowledge in the ST. Secondly, despite the usefulness of 
web resources, students should be taught to cross-check reliable web resources for refining TT expressions with personal 
translator’s style as another implication of translation shift analysis. 

Keywords: English-Chinese translation shifts, web-searching process, screen-recording method, retrospective verbalization 

1. Introduction

Translation shifts have been studied for a long period of time by both Western and Chinese scholars (e.g. Vinay & Darbelnet, 
1958/1995; Loh, 1958a/1958b; Catford, 1965; Popovič, 1970; van Leuven-Zwart, 1990a/1990b; Newmark, 1988; Sager & 
Hamel, 1995; Hatim & Munday, 2004). The translation shift theory, belonging to descriptive translation studies (Toury, 1980), 
becomes full-fledged through comparative linguistic analysis (e.g. Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958/1995). Among the above 
scholars’ studies, Vinay and Darbelnet’s and Catford’s shift models have been widely discussed by other researchers (e.g. 
Cyrus, 2009; Zhang & Li, 2009). 

Translation shift analysis serves as “a means of describing what constitutes the translation product but there are limits about 
what it can (or even attempts to) tell us about the actual process of translation (Munday, 2008, p. 63), so the theoretical basis 
for the pilot study is formulated by cognitive translation process in an attempt to break through the limits of product-oriented 
translation shift analysis. 

The approaches of translation shifts are rarely tested by empirical translation process research (TPR). Although Bahramy and 
Aidinlou (2014) verify the positive effects of teaching translation shifts for more acceptable translated texts, they focused 
more on the improvement of students’ translation quality than on the process of making translation shifts. Therefore, the pilot 
study will fill this research gap by using TPR methods to investigate the causes and types of translation shifts in undergraduate 
students’ translation (web-searching) process, their retrospective verbal reports on translation shifts and the implications of 
shift analysis for translator training. 

2. Literature Review

2.1 Definitions of Translation Shifts 

Translation shifts are defined by a few scholars. Munday (2008, p. 55)  considers translation shifts to be “small linguistic 
changes occurring in translation of source text (ST) to target text (TT).” Jabak et al. (2016, p. 154) define translation shifts as 
“an important feature of any translation as they are unavoidable, especially if the SL and TL belong to two different families 



10 
 

such as English and Arabic,” and their study discusses such linguistic shifts as word order, parts of speech, word choice, tense, 
number and voice to make the concept of translation shifts “more intelligible and more practical” (p. 165). 

Actually, Catford (1965, p. 73) is the first scholar that introduces and defines the term translation shifts as “departures from 
formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL.” He further proposes the following types of translation 
shifts (pp. 75–82): structural shifts (shifts in grammatical structures), class shifts (shifts from one part of speech to another) 
and unit shifts (shifts happen when a translation equivalent in the TL is at different units to the SL among word, clause, 
sentence, group and morpheme; for example, a word can be translated into a short sentence with the segmentation technique). 

Another scholar, Popovič (1970, p. 80), defines another type shifts of expression as “the result of the translator’s conscious 
efforts faithfully to reproduce the aesthetic totality of the original [text].” Shifts of expression also pertain to literal or free 
translation deriving from “the tension between the original text and the translation ideal” (Munday, 2008, p. 62). These shift 
types as a result of particular English-Chinese translation techniques (see Section 2.2) will be analyzed in the pilot study. 

2.2 Related Studies on Translation Shifts 

The following studies on translation shifts will be reviewed because they  motivated the researcher to analyze the causes and 
types of translation shifts in the pilot study. 

Some scholars conducted contrastive linguistic studies on different types of translation shifts. For example, Al-Zoubi and Al-
Hassnawi (2001) construct their own model to analyze various types of translation shifts at linguistic and paralinguistic levels, 
and they propose a new term “translation equivalence” for the translators to establish between the source language (SL) and 
target language (TL). Newmark (1988) identifies four types of translation shifts: the first type is the change from singular to 
plural; the second type happens when the SL grammatical structure does not exist in the TL; the third type is the one when 
literal translation is grammatically possible but may not fit the natural usage in the TL; the fourth type refers to the 
transposition technique as the replacement of a virtual lexical gap by a grammatical structure. 

Besides, some corpus-based studies (e.g. Munday, 1998; Macken, 2007) also examined the lexical, syntactic and freeness 
levels of translation shifts and presented some findings of shift occurrences. Shih (2012) also conducted a corpus-aided study 
to explore English-Chinese translation shifts in prepositions, concluding that “prepositional translational shifts are closely 
related to a host of factors such as contrastive linguistic differences between SL and TL, textual functions and the translator’s 
style” (p. 59). 

According to the above studies, translation shifts are actually “a phenomenon inherent to translation,” which is not anymore 
regarded as “mistranslations” or “deviations of the norm” (van Leuven-Zwart, 1990b, p. 228). In order to better understand 
the causes and types of translation shifts in students’ web-searching process, the pilot study will mainly adopt a top-down 
shift analysis (Kade, 1968), i.e. to examine such factors other than translation techniques as the characteristics of the TL 
beyond the semantic level, the function of a translation, students’ interpretation of web resources and the translator’s style. 

2.3 Translation Techniques, Strategies and Related Shift Models 

A number of translation scholars (e.g. Ho, 1997; Molina & Hurtado Albir, 2002; Dong & Zhao, 2012) discuss and term 
translation techniques in the translation process. Molina and Hurtado Albir (2002) distinguish translation techniques from 
translation strategies: translation strategies are the procedures used by translators to solve problems with a particular objective 
in mind, while translation techniques characterize translation strategies and influence the translation results. Ho (1997) defines 
the restructuring technique used by the translators who split sentence structures to indicate the grammatical order of the SL 
for a more fluent TT. Dong and Zhao (2012) indicate that the translators use the conversion technique to transfer the ST word 
into another part of speech in order to achieve a corresponding effect in the TT. In the following, two shift models will be 
presented and compared in relation to the application of the above translation techniques. 

Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995) contrasted the systematic-linguistic differences between English and French to prevent the 
translators’ errors in working with this particular language pair. Coincidentally, a Chinese scholar Dian-yang Loh 
(1958a/1958b) also put forward his translation shift model in 1958 with some similarities to Vinay and Darbelnet’s model 
(see Zhang & Li, 2009 for more details). 

Based on Vinay and Darbelnet’s contrastive analysis, seven translation techniques are provided: three are borrowing, calque 
and literal translation as direct techniques, and the other four are transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation as 
oblique techniques. Although Vinay and Darbelnet did not use the term translation shifts, it is these four oblique techniques 
that lead to different shift types  within English-French translation. These four oblique techniques commonly used in English-
Chinese translation will be defined and compared with Loh’s translation techniques in the following. 

Firstly, the transposition technique refers to “replacing one word class with another without changing the meaning of the 
message” (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958/1995, p. 88). Transposition is similar to Loh’s conversion technique as substituting SL 
words with TL words that are “identical in meaning but different in terms of part of speech” (Loh, 1958b, p. 186). The 
transposition or conversion technique leads to Catford’s class shifts. Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995) also believe that the 
translators of any pair of languages should employ the transposition techniques to produce a natural-sounding translation. 



11 
 

Secondly, the modulation technique is defined as “a variation of the form of the message, obtained by a change in the point 
of view of the SL” (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958/1995, p. 89). Loh’s inversion technique, similar to modulation, is defined as 
“the constituent elements of a sentence are arranged in a way that is different from the general rules of word-order of the 
language in question” (Loh, 1958b, p. 229). The modulation or inversion/restructuring technique thus results in Catford’s 
structural shifts. 

Thirdly, the equivalence technique occurs in translation cases where “one and the same situation can be rendered by two texts 
using completely different stylistic and structural methods, and most equivalences belong to a phraseological repertoire of 
idioms, clichés, proverbs, nominal or adjectival phrases, etc” (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958/1995, p. 90). However, Loh has no 
similar technique to equivalence which contributes to shifts of expression (Popovič, 1970). 

Lastly, the adaptation technique is employed when the type of situation to which the SL message refers is unknown in the TL 
culture. In this case, “the translator has to create a new situation that can be considered as being equivalent” (Vinay & 
Darbelnet, 1958/1995, p. 91). Loh’s transliteration technique (similar to Vinay and Darbelnet’s borrowing technique) and 
coinage of new characters (similar to Vinay and Darbelnet’s calque technique) are two methods for “translating nouns 
denoting things of foreign origin” (Loh, 1958a, p. 47). 

Based on the two shift models and their related translation techniques, the pilot study will explore the occurrences of students’ 
translation shifts in their translation process (i.e. their application of translation techniques and consultation of web resources 
as translation strategies), together with their retrospective verbal reports. 

2.4 Web-searching Studies on the Translation Process 

Web-searching studies on the translation process are relatively few (e.g. Enríquez Raído, 2011, 2014; Shih, 2017; Chang, 
2018). Enríquez Raído (2011) asked four postgraduate translation students to complete two translation tasks in two separate 
weeks of a course. She combined pre-task questionnaires, screen recording, online search reports and post-task interviews to 
study these students’ web-searching behaviors. Her findings point to not only the importance of web-searching skills for 
translation but also the requirement of more empirical studies on learning contexts where the types of translation tasks are 
determined by the need of using online information. 

Shih (2017) used think-aloud protocols (TAPs) and the screen-recording method to investigate six Chinese trainee translators’ 
web-searching behavior in translating a scientific text. Although these subjects’ idiosyncratic behavior in online searches was 
identified in terms of their use of various web resources, Shih did not conduct post-task interviews to examine what her 
subjects thought about their web-searching behavior. 

Then, Chang (2018) combined TAPs, the screen-recording method and cue-based retrospective interviews to explore the 
formation of ten Chinese students’ web-searching skills (i.e. instrumental competence) during their one-year postgraduate 
translation course in the UK. Chang’s study demonstrates that the combination of TAPs, screen recording and cue-based 
retrospective interviews can be used as a set of metacognitive reflection tools to hone translation students’ web-searching 
skills. 

However, none of the above web-searching studies touch upon the connection between subjects’ use of web resources and 
translation shifts occurring in their translation process, and this is what the pilot study will tap into. 

2.5 The Application of TPR Methods into Shift Analysis 

2.5.1 Screen Recording 

The screen-recording method enables the researchers to access subjects’ actions, their faces and what happens on the computer 
screen. Some screen-recording software (e.g. BB Flashback; see more details in the research design section), downloadable 
onto any computer, records AVI files of all on-screen activities during a translation task. In other words, everything translators 
do is recorded by “an unobtrusive application running in the background” (Angelone, 2012, pp. 46–47). 

The screen-recording method – unobtrusive, user-friendly and ecologically valid – can be used in conjunction with verbal 
reports. According to Göpferich and Jääskeläinen (2009, p. 173), screen recordings are “particularly useful for analyzing the 
research activities which form an integral part of translation processes, as they provide a detailed account of which electronic 
sources or web-sites the subjects are using during translation.” Hence, the present study chooses the screen-recording method 
which not only serves as a suitable TPR tool but also makes subjects more autonomous in making translation shifts as a self-
learning process. 

 

 

 

 

 



12 
 

 

 

2.5.2 Retrospective Verbal Reports 

The cue-based retrospection method is able to provide subjects with powerful reminderPs by recalling their memory about 
their engagement in a translation task. Ericsson and Simon (1987, p. 41) point out that using cueing stimuli and giving subjects 
general instructions to report their thoughts, during the immediately preceding cognitive activity, produce retrospective verbal 
reports which to a large extent mirror the actual mental processes. According to Ehrensberger-Dow and Künzli (2010, p. 116), 
the strength of the cue-based retrospection method is that the researchers can collect cue-based retrospective data “that are 
less susceptible to memory decay” by replaying the recordings of subjects’ translation process and requiring them to comment 
on what they have done. 

However, Englund Dimitrova and Tiselius (2009, p. 110) identify a weakness of the retrospection method: total recall of 
information cannot be generated and the accuracy of the information recalled may be reduced due to subjects’ inadequate 
memory. Hence, retrospection has to be cued to facilitate recall, and a cueing stimulus is preferably “encoded in the same way 
at recall as it was at the original presentation” (Ericsson & Simon, 1993, p. 119). 

3. Research Aims and Questions 

The primary aim of the pilot study is to explore the causes and types of undergraduate students’ translation shifts made in 
their web-searching process. The secondary aim is to summarize the implications of translation shift analysis for translator 
training. The research questions are as follows: 

(1) What are the causes and types of translation shifts made in three undergraduate students’ web-searching process during 
an English-Chinese translation task? 

(2) How and why do these students use translation techniques and web resources to produce translation shifts? 

(3) To what extent do these students think that the translation shifts made in their web-searching process could improve 
translation quality? 

The above research questions will be answered by the analysis of the screen-recording and retrospective verbalization data. 
Details of research design will be explained in the following research design section. 

4. Research Design 

4.1 Selection of Student Subjects 

Three undergraduate students, who took a required course entitled Basic Chinese-English Translation at the Department of 
Applied English of Chaoyang University of Technology in central Taiwan, agreed to participate in the pilot study at the end 
of this course (see Appendix 1:  Consent Form). In this course, the researcher had spent 18 weeks teaching the students how 
to use various translation techniques, such as addition, omission, conversion, sentence restructuring and ways of translating 
terms and proper nouns to solve translation problems in both general (e.g. news articles) and specialized texts (e.g. 
technological articles). In addition, they were also taught how to search for different types of web resources (online 
dictionaries, online encyclopedias and online parallel texts in the TL) to settle their translation problems. Moreover, through 
mid-term and final oral presentations, these students were asked to translate a given ST, reflect on their translation problems 
and evaluate the successfulness of their employment of translation techniques, web resources and other translation factors. 

The reasons why the three student subjects were chosen are as follows. Firstly, they put much effort to translate and revise 
their weekly assignments; secondly, their mid-term and final oral presentations offered unique insights into solving translation 
problems and refining expressions in the TTs. Hence, based on their top 5% of average marks among other students, the 
researcher assumed that the three student subjects might have made progress in learning translation and could be more 
competent in applying translation techniques and web resources to make translation shifts. Table 1 shows the three students’ 
demographic information (see Appendix 2:  Demographic Form). 



13 
 

Table 1. Student Subjects’ Demographic Information 

Codename Gender Age 
Educational 
Background 

Level of 
Common 
European 

Framework of 
Reference 

(CEFR Level) 

Field(s) of 
Translation 
Experiences 

Time Length of 
Translation 
Experiences 

Tony M 21 
BA in English 

Language 
B2 (Vantage) No 0 

Sherry F 26 

BA in English 
Language, 

Literature and 
Linguistics 

B2 (Vantage) 
Journalistic and 

tourism texts and 
subtitles 

10 months 

Helena F 21 
BA in Applied 

English 
B1 (Threshold) No 0 

 

In Table 1, the average age of the three students is 23 and all of them major in the English language. The three students also 
achieve vantage and threshold levels in English proficiency tests. Except Sherry, the other two students claimed that they did 
not have any translation experiences (though they had practiced translating different text types during the 18-week course but 
may not consider those assignments to be practical). Therefore, it will be interesting to investigate how the three novice 
translators make linguistic changes (i.e. translation shifts) with the aid of translation techniques and web resources. 

4.2 Methodological Procedures 

The three individual students were asked to translate an art news article (see Appendix 3: Source Text of the Pilot Study) from 
English into Chinese. This art news article briefly introduces the life of an Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi (A.D. 1593–
1654) and an upcoming exhibition for her paintings held by the National Gallery in London. This art news article scores 45.4 
in Flesch Reading Ease Readability Formula and its readability level is “difficult to read for 15- to 17-year-olds.” During the 
past 18-week course of Basic Chinese-English Translation, these students had learned how to tackle lexical (i.e. terms and 
proper nouns), syntactic and knowledge problems while translating both general (e.g. news and tourism articles) and 
specialized texts (e.g. financial and technological articles), so the researcher decided to pick the art news article containing 
some vocabulary, background knowledge and lengthy sentences that might pose challenges on the students, hoping that they 
could make translation shifts by checking more web resources than using translation techniques. 

During this translation task, the students’ web-searching process of solving translation problems and choosing translation 
equivalents were recorded by a piece of audiovisual software BB Flashback. Shortly after the translation task was completed, 
the researcher replayed part of the individual students’ BB Flashback videos and prompted them to specifically verbalize and 
comment on any linguistic changes (i.e. translation shifts) made in their web-searching process. As for the students’ 
retrospective verbalization, the researcher adopted the other-initiated approach to ask the students to only verbalize “when 
explicitly requested to do so by the experimenter” (Færch & Kasper, 1987, p. 17) with the following pre-set questions: 

(1) What changes in words (terms and proper nouns) and sentences did you make while translating the article from English 
into Chinese? 

(2) How did you use translation techniques and online resources to make such changes in these translated words (terms and 
proper nouns) and sentences? Why did you decide to make such changes? 

(3) How important do you think online resources are for making changes in these translated words (terms and proper nouns) 
and sentences? 

(4) Do you feel that the changes in these translated words (terms and proper nouns) and sentences improve your translation 
quality? 

(5) Throughout the 18-week course Basic Chinese-English Translation, what have you learned to improve your translation 
quality by applying translation techniques and online resources? 

Figure 1 shows how a student subject translated the article recorded by BB Flashback on a laptop, and Figure 2 displays an 
example of a BB Flashback video. 



14 
 

Figure 1. Student Subject’s Translation Task Recorded by BB Flashback 

 

 
Figure 2. An Example of BB Flashback Video 

 

5. Results and Discussion 

5.1 Data Transcription 

Previous translation process researchers (e.g. Krings, 1986; Jääskeläinen, 1999; Englund Dimitrova, 2005) developed their 
own transcription conventions for TPR data considering different research purposes. However, their transcription conventions 
only recorded subjects’ verbalizations without screen-recording information. 

Enríquez Raído’s transcription convention (2014, pp. 103–105) was adapted for the pilot study because her convention 
includes more complete information about subjects’ screen-recording behavior (i.e. timeframe, on-screen windows or tabs 
with URLs, subjects’ verbal reports and their consultation of web resources), so this convention largely meets the needs of 
the pilot study for analyzing students’ web-searching behavior. 

5.2 The Causes and Types of Translation Shifts in Students’ Web-searching Process 

This section will achieve the two research objectives (see Section 3) regarding the causes and types of students’ translation 
shifts made in their web-searching process during the English-Chinese translation task, and the implications of shift analysis 
for translator training will also be presented. In the following, case studies on the three student subjects’ translation shifts will 
be discussed with their transcription records of screen-recording data and retrospective verbal reports on the use of translation 
techniques, web resources and other top-down factors (Kade, 1968). 

5.2.1 Class and Unit Shifts: Tony’s Case Study 

Table 2 shows the first student subject Tony’s transcription records of class and unit shifts (Catford, 1965) in “gruelling.” 
Tony looked up the ST word “gruelling” in Bing Dictionary and the machine translation of the ST segment in Google 
Translate. He might feel that the Chinese meaning “折磨人的” (torturing) in Bing Dictionary or the machine translation “艱



15 
 

苦的” (difficult/arduous) could be translated in a different way because according to his retrospective verbalization, Tony 
reported that he had changed the order of words in some ST sentences for several times because “the sentence structure of 
English is strict, whereas Chinese sentence structure is more flexible.” As a result, he converted “gruelling” from an adjective 
into a noun, “折磨” (torture) and used the segmentation technique to translate “gruelling” into a separate sentence, “她備受

折磨” (She suffered from a lot of torture). Tony’s use of the conversion and segmentation techniques in translating “gruelling,” 
possibly with the aid of Bing Dictionary and Google Translate, lead to both class and unit shifts that read more natural-
sounding than literal translation. These shifts also correspond to Newmark’s third and fourth types of translation shifts (1988) 
respectively as “literal translation is grammatically possible but may not fit the natural usage in the TL” and “the transposition 
technique as the replacement of a virtual lexical gap by a grammatical structure.” 

However, Tony was unsure of whether the translation shifts he made actually improved his TT quality because he thought 
that “only readers will find some mistakes and improper usage in my Chinese translation, and the readers will give me advice 
on improving the translation.” In addition, throughout the 18-week translation course, Tony claimed that he had learned the 
timing of using some translation techniques, particularly the conversion technique (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958/1995; Loh, 
1958b) and he also stressed the importance of translation techniques for improving TT quality. 

As his retrospective verbal report further indicates, Tony mentioned that “I translated the ST based on the context and personal 
experience, and then re-edited and checked the TT.” The reason why he made linguistic changes is that he felt dissatisfied 
with his own translation, so he resorted to authoritative online information (e.g. Wikipedia) as a shortcut to improving his 
translation. For translating and refining short and long sentences, Tony reported that Google Translate provided him with a 
helpful hint. Hence, the implication for translator training is that undergraduate students shall be taught to carefully use 
translation techniques and consult web resources (e.g. online encyclopedias and machine translation) for making translation 
shifts. 

Table 2. Tony’s Class and Unit Shifts 

Timeframe 
(h:m:s.ms) 

On-screen 
Windows/Tabs 

English ST Segments 
(underlined words, 
terms, proper nouns 

and sentences) 

Underlined 
Translation Shifts 
in the Chinese TT 

Consultation of 
Web Resources 

Retrospective Verbal 
Reports 

 

 

 

1:20:19.50 

 

 

 

 

1:22:43.21 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bing 
Dictionary 
(https://cn.bin
g.com/dict/) 

 

 

 

Google 
Translate 
(https://transla
te.google.com.
tw/) 

 

At the age of 17 
Gentileschi was raped 
by the painter 
Agostino Tassi and 
then faced a gruelling 
court case. 

她在17嵗時曾被

聘請(的)繪畫教

師阿戈斯蒂諾·

塔西強姦，之後

面對這場官司，

她備受折磨。  

(back-translation: 
When she was 17 
years old, she was 
raped by the 
employed 
painting teacher 
Agostino Tassi, 
and then while 
facing the court 
case, she suffered 
from a lot of 
torture.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check [Bing 
Dictionary]: 

“極度疲勞的” 
(exhausted), “折
磨人的” 
(torturing) 

Check [Google 
Translate]: 

在 17 歲 時 ，

Gentileschi 被

畫家阿戈斯蒂

諾·塔西強姦，

然後面對一個艱

苦的法庭案件。 

(back-
translation: At the 
age of 17, 
Gentileschi was 
raped by the 
painter Agostino 
Tassi, and then 
faced a tough 
court case.) 

“During the process of 
translation, long 
sentences with more 
information are easy for 
me to picture the 
scenario so that I can 
give a more colorful 
version. ‘Gruelling’ 
here is an adjective, but 
in my translation it 
becomes a noun […] 
But short sentences for 
me are hard to translate, 
and they gave me less 
information, so I must 
translate this sentence 
with my own ideas and 
knowledge […] I 
copied the whole 
sentence to Google 
Translate and see how 
Google translated it. 
Google Translate can 
give me a helpful hint.” 

 

 

 



16 
 

5.2.2 Structural Shift: Sherry’s Case Study 

Another student subject Sherry reported that she made more translation shifts in long sentences such as relative clauses, “I 
underlined the adjective (relative) clauses and circled the noun clauses to check the meaning of the sentences […] so I 
separated the sentences and tried to find fluent Chinese.” 

Table 3 displays Sherry’s transcription records of a structural shift (Catford, 1965) in “appear in various roles.” Sherry looked 
up the two ST words “various” and “appear in” in Yahoo Dictionary and Linguee Dictionary, and she further read an online 
Chinese BBC news article about the background information of the female artist Artemisia Gentileschi. According to her 
retrospective verbal report, Sherry reported that she roughly understood the miserable story of Artemisia Gentileschi and 
applied the inversion/modulation technique (Loh, 1958b, p. 229) to modify “自畫像” (self-portraits) with “呈現各種角色的

” (presenting various roles), but she felt that her Chinese translation, “她繼而畫出許多呈現各種角色的自畫像” (She then 
kept drawing [many presenting various roles] self-portraits) was still imperfect because she lacked enough background 
knowledge. Sherry’s structural shift also refers to Newmark’s second type of translation shift (1988) as “the SL grammatical 
structure does not exist in the TL.” 

As Sherry’s retrospective verbal report further suggests, the combination of the screen-recording and retrospective 
verbalization methods could be pedagogically useful to probe into why some undergraduate students make dissatisfying 
translation shifts in TT expressions, possibly because of their over-reliance on online dictionaries or lack of an in-depth 
understanding of the background knowledge in the ST. 

Sherry’s retrospective comments also point out that online information is of importance for locating the translations of proper 
nouns and exact meanings of the ST words. More importantly, she checked relevant background information (e.g. Taipei 
Museum’s art news article) and restructured the TT sentences mainly for more fluent expressions. This explains that the causes 
of translation shifts are related to not only fluent TT expressions as the characteristics of the TL (Kade, 1968) but also to the 
level of the translators’ understanding of background knowledge in the ST. 

From the retrospective verbal report, Sherry claimed that the translation shifts she made might improve TT quality to some 
extent (Bahramy & Aidinlou, 2014), but she still needed more time to gain background knowledge before translating the ST. 
Over the 18-week translation course, Sherry had learned the usefulness of the inversion and conversion techniques (Vinay & 
Darbelnet, 1958/1995; Loh, 1958b) for making translation shifts in the TT. Another implication for translator training is that 
the combined methodology could not only recall students’ use of internalized translation techniques but also make them more 
focused on acquiring background knowledge from web resources to make better translation shifts. 

Table 3. Sherry’s Structural Shift 

Timeframe 
(h:m:s.ms) 

On-screen 
Windows/Tabs 

English ST 
Segments 

(underlined 
words, terms, 

proper nouns and 
sentences) 

Underlined 
Translation 
Shifts in the 
Chinese TT 

Consultation of Web 
Resources 

Retrospective 
Verbal Reports 

1:09:48.20 

 

 

 

1:09:57.50 

 

 

 

1:12:24.80 

 

 

 

 

 

Yahoo  
Dictionary 
(http://tw.diction
ary.search.yaho
o.com) 

 

 

BBC 英倫網:走

出強姦和折磨

陰影的女畫家
(https://www.bb
c.com/ukchina/tr
ad/vert-cul-
45423455) 

Linguee 
Dictionary 
(http://cn.lingue
e.com) 

She went on to 
paint numerous 
self-portraits in 
which she 
appears in various 
roles. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

她繼而畫出許多

呈現各種角色的

自畫像。 
(back-
translation: She 
then kept 
drawing [many 
presenting 
various roles] 
self-portraits.) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Check [Yahoo 
Dictionary]: 

“不同的” (different), 
“各種各樣的” 
(various kinds of) 

Check BBC Chinese 
news: “The Female 
Painter Who Steps 
Out of the Shadows of 
Rape and Torture” 

Check [Linguee 
Dictionary]: 

“亮相” (show up), “
登出來” (publish) 

“I think ‘in which 
she appears in 
various roles’ is 
difficult for me 
because this 
sentence is also a 
relative clause, and 
I couldn’t tell the 
exact meaning of 
‘appear,’ so I think 
the translation is 
not good […] I 
remember I just 
checked ‘appear 
in’ but couldn’t 
find any useful 
(online) results.” 

 

 



17 
 

 

5.2.3 Shifts of Expression: Helena’s Case Study 

The last student subject Helena reported that she changed the passives into active voice as translation shifts. Table 4 displays 
Helena’s transcription records of shifts of expression (Popovič, 1970; Munday, 2008) in “underrepresented” and 
“astonishing.” Although she just looked up the ST word “underrepresented” in Bing Dictionary, Helena did not follow the 
literal meanings of Bing Dictionary but freely translated the connotative meaning of “underrepresented” as “以男性為主導

的” (mainly dominated by men). Helena also employed the equivalence technique [1] (p. 90) to make the form of her 
translation more variable by rendering the ST word “astonishing” into a Chinese four-character idiom “唏噓不已” (not stop 
sighing) and even adding another idiom “獨樹一幟” (show one’s unique style) which has no equivalent to the ST segment. 

From her retrospective verbalization, Helena reported that she allowed for the ST text type as a news article and emphasized 
that the Chinese translation would have been lengthy and unattractive if she had not made any linguistic changes. Additionally, 
Helena claimed that she did not frequently use translation techniques, and the web resources she browsed such as online 
dictionaries and Wikipedia were less important for making linguistic changes, though reading Wikipedia and online articles 
could assist her in understanding the background knowledge of the ST before she made translation shifts. On the contrary, 
she argued that personal translation skills outweigh web resources in terms of making translation shifts. As Helena’s 
retrospective verbal report suggests, it was noted that the function of a translation and the translator’s style are important 
factors to translation shifts, and this jibes with Shih’s findings (2012, p. 59). 

According to her retrospective comments, Helena believed that the translation shifts she made could improve TT quality 
(Bahramy & Aidinlou, 2014), and she also found the conversion and restructuring techniques (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958/1995; 
Loh, 1958b) most useful for making translation shifts after the 18-week translation course. Helena also felt satisfied with the 
refined TT expressions full of her personal style. 

Table 4. Helena’s Shifts of Expression 

Timeframe 
(h:m:s.ms) 

On-screen 
Windows/Tabs 

English ST 
Segments 

(underlined 
words, 

terms, proper 
nouns and 
sentences) 

Underlined 
Translation 
Shifts in the 
Chinese TT 

Consultation of 
Web Resources 

Retrospective 
Verbal Reports 

 
 
 
 
 

20:25.20 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Bing Dictionary 
(https://cn.bing. 
com/dict/) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In recent 
decades, 
there has 
been growing 
interest in the 
artist, 
because of 
both her 
astonishing 
personal 
story and 
increasing 
concern that 
female 
painters have 
been under- 
represented 
in art history 
and museum 
displays. 
 
 
 
 

近幾十年來，由

於阿特蜜希雅令

人唏噓不已的人

生經歷以及在通

常以男性為主導

的藝術領域的獨

樹一幟，使她備

受關注。 
(back-translation: 
In the past 
decade, because 
of Artemisia’s life 
experience which 
makes people not 
stop sighing and 
showing her 
unique style in the 
art field mainly 
dominated by 
men, [these 
causes] make her 
get increasing 
concern.) 

 
 
 
 
 
Check [Bing 
Dictionary]: 
“未被充分代表

的” (not fully 
representative), 
“代表性不足” 
(insufficiently 
representative) 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

“I changed the 
passive voice to 
active voice, like I 
translated 
‘underrepresented’ 
into males’ 
contribution to art, 
and I also checked 
the meaning of 
‘underrepresented’.” 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 



18 

6. Conclusion

The pilot study combining three undergraduate students’ screen-recording data and retrospective verbal reports takes an 
initiative to explore the causes and types of translation shifts (i.e. class, unit, structural and expression shifts) made in these 
students’ web-searching process. The preliminary findings are as follows. 

Firstly, the combination of the screen-recording and retrospective verbalization methods could diagnose why some 
undergraduate students as novice translators cannot make satisfying translation shifts, possibly because of their over-
dependence on online dictionaries or lack of sufficient background knowledge in the ST. Moreover, the methodology of the 
pilot study demonstrates the implications of not only recalling students’ application of internalized translation techniques (e.g. 
the conversion and inversion/restructuring techniques) but also prompting them to reflect on how to make different types of 
translation shifts (Jabak et al., 2016) by learning background knowledge from useful online encyclopedias or parallel texts 
with similar expressions. 

Secondly, although most students’ retrospective verbal reports pointed to the usefulness of web resources for refining TT 
expressions as a main cause of translation shifts, translation shifts may also reveal students’ personal translator’s style. As the 
three student subjects’ web-searching behavior was less diversified, translator trainers should teach students to cross-check 
various types of web resources with a pinch of salt while making linguistic changes which may be related to TT function and 
the translator’s style. 

Future studies could replicate the pilot study based on the following suggestions. Firstly, because of the limited sample size 
in the pilot study, future studies shall compare more postgraduate students’ or professional translators’ web-searching 
behavior with that of undergraduate students to picture universal translators’ behavior in making translation shifts (particularly 
the inference to TT function, personal translation skills and the translator’s style). Secondly, although most student subjects 
in the pilot study felt that the translation shifts they made might improve TT quality in some way (Bahramy & Aidinlou, 
2014), future studies shall include more subjects’ translation quality assessment data to objectively analyze the causes and 
effects of translation shifts. 

Acknowledgements 

I hereby extend my sincere gratitude to the three student subjects for participating in the pilot study. 

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Notes 

Note 1. The link of this art news article can be found at: 

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/london-prepares-to-celebrate-artemisia-gentileschi-in-2020. 

Note 2. The online test of text readability can be found at: 



20 
 

https://readabilityformulas.com/flesch-reading-ease-readability-formula.php. 

Note 3. The literal meanings and translations of all the Chinese words, phrases and TT sentences are provided throughout the 
article. 

Appendix 1:  Consent Form 

Dear student, 

This is Dr. Leo Li-You, Chang, an assistant professor from Department of Applied English, Chaoyang University of 
Technology. I sincerely invite you to participate in a research project. Before I obtain your approval, I will explain the purposes 
and procedures of the research project in the following. 

The purposes of the research project are firstly, to investigate any linguistic changes at lexical and syntactic levels made in 
your translation process, particularly in your web-searching process as a problem-solving and decision-making approach. 
Secondly, to explore your retrospective comments on those linguistic changes occurring in your use of translation techniques 
and web resources through a piece of audiovisual software BB Flashback. 

The procedures of the research project involve the following steps. Firstly, you will be asked to translate an article from 
English into Chinese. During the translation task, your translation behaviors will be recorded by BB Flashback at the same 
time, including your image, the process of using web resources, and your production of the Chinese translation on an MS 
Word file. You are allowed to use any web resources or reference materials to solve your translation problems and choose 
translation equivalents. Shortly after the translation task, I will conduct a retrospective interview with you by replaying and 
cuing part of your video file produced by BB Flashback. You will be further asked to make retrospective comments on any 
linguistic changes in your translation product. Your anonymity will be protected, and a codename will be used in my research 
data. 

Please tick the following boxes and sign if you agree to become a subject in the research project: 

□ As a  participant, I will participate in Dr Chang’s research project on time. If I fail to attend, I will notify Dr. Chang in 
advance and let him reschedule for me. 

□ I understand the purposes and procedures of the research project and agree to be a participant.  

Signature: _____________________         Date: ________________ 

 

 

 

 

Appendix 2: Demographic Form 

1. Full name (in English): _______________________ 

2. Gender: M / F 

3. Age: ______ 

4. Educational background: 

□ Bachelor’s degree (BA/BSc) in ______________________________________ 

□ Master’s degree (MA/MSc) in _______________________________________ 

□ PhD in _________________________________ 

□ Other degrees; please specify: _______________________________________ 

5. English proficiency test scores: (multiple choices) 

    □ IELTS: ____________ 

    □ TOEFL (iBT): _____________ 

    □ TOEIC: _____________ 

    □ College English Test Band 4 and Band 6 (CET): ________________________ 

    □ Other tests; please specify: _________________________________________ 



21 

6. Have you ever practiced translating in a translation course or worked as a freelance translator during your
undergraduate/postgraduate study? 

□ Yes   □ No

  If yes, please specify what text type(s) you translated: (multiple choices) 

□ Journalism (news articles, commentaries, columns, etc.)

□ Business, economics, or finance (economic articles, statistical data, etc.)

□ Legal (legal cases, regulations, provisions, etc.)

□ Literature (prose, poetry, novels, etc.)

□ Medical, technology, engineering or science

□ Tourism (tourism articles, reviews, blogs, etc.)

□ Manuals, handbooks, instructions or specifications

□ Subtitles

□ Other text types; please specify: ______________________________________

7. If your answer to Question 6 is yes, how long have you practiced translating: _____ year(s)

Appendix 3: Source Text of the Pilot Study 

London’s National Gallery plans major Artemisia Gentileschi show in 2020 

In 2020, the National Gallery in London is to hold a major exhibition on Artemisia Gentileschi, arguably Europe’s greatest 
female Old Master (April-July 2020). This follows its recent purchase of her Self-portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria 
(1615-17). 

The exhibition will be focused on paintings that have almost universally accepted attributions, excluding those that are 
seriously questioned by some specialists. Letizia Treves, the National Gallery’s curator, says that this will enable us to see 
“the real Artemisia”. In recent decades, there has been growing interest in the artist, because of both her astonishing personal 
story and increasing concern that female painters have been underrepresented in art history and museum displays. 

Treves points out that Artemisia’s “life story is intertwined with her art”. Born in Rome in 1593, she was trained by her father 
Orazio Gentileschi, a distinguished follower of Caravaggio. At the age of 17 Gentileschi was raped by the painter Agostino 
Tassi and then faced a gruelling court case. She went on to paint numerous self-portraits in which she appears in various roles. 
In 1639 Artemisia joined Orazio in London where she was working at the court of Charles I. She died in 1654 or shortly 
afterwards, probably in Naples. 

Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1615-17) was a previously unknown work, which 
came up in a Parisian auction held by Christophe Joron-Derem at Hôtel Drouot in December 2017, with an estimate of 
€300,000 to €400,000. It sold to two dealers, Milan-based Marco Voena and London-based Fabrizio Moretti, for €2.4m (with 
fees). The National Gallery then bought the painting at a substantial mark-up for £3.6m, mainly with funds from its American 
Friends. The picture has now been cleaned, revealing the quality of the work and confirming the Gentileschi attribution. 

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY) 4.0 
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any 
medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


