Previous research has looked at creativity in a fragmentary way, either as a complementary skill or as a by-product of translation. This project places creativity at centre stage, and on a level with recent technological developments in machine translation. INCREC will gather empirical data about creativity based on testimonies from professional translators and users. This data will allow for the development of a theoretical framework of the creative process in translation, with defined creative stages, and influencial factors, as well as, micro-level characteristics, such as units of creative potential or creative shifts for both literary and audiovisual translation. This could be applied in future research studies, and in other language combinations or genres. It also offers methodology from different disciplines, i.e. psychology, to better understand the relationship between creativity and translation reception, and this could be complimented in the future by new technology such as physiological measures (e.g. facial expression analysis, electrodermal activity, magnetic resonance imaging).
The research project will provide empirical data that might indicate if, when, and how MT should be provided to creative translators and this is fundamental information for the publishing and entertainment industry, as it moves to more diverse multilingual solutions, but also to tool developers of translation solutions. The research group will work with the latest technology, but also the project can help develop better tools and commercial practices by extensive dialogue with the industry. Better tools, in turn, create better translated products.
By improving the tools and workflows, the work of creative translators will improve, not only by highlighting the value-added role of translators (which directly impacts payment), but also because new or improved tools for more creative content will facilitate their work. This will contribute to job satisfaction and the enjoyment that creativity provides while ensuring the best possible setting for the translated content. The research project engages with teams of professional translators and reviewers from several language combinations, facilitating the exchange and dissemination of knowledge within a network of professionals.
The new theoretical and methodological approaches of the research project will open a new line of research that will benefit scientists from MT and Translation Studies. Information on macro and micro-processes could contribute to improvements in MT quality. The project is interdisciplinary from the outset, with the collaboration of MT experts from the Computational Linguistic Group at University of Groningen. The results will be of immediate benefit to this community, as the work and exchange of data will happen within this group. Further, understanding the translation creative process will help develop training programmes that foster and develop creativity within the translation discipline.
The data gathered also has an indirect societal impact because it will show the user experience in relation to different translation modalities, and this could indirectly contribute to maintain the use of more creative language, and, thus, heighten the enjoyment of translated products.
