The role of creativity on the translation of motion verbs: data on the translation product and process

Abstract

The present study researches the correlation between translators’ creative personality and their behaviour by using a combination of psychological, key-logging and screen-recording methods as well as the evaluation of participants’ translation output. Participants were asked to translate a literary text without knowing that it posed the additional challenge of transferring manner of motion verbs into Spanish. The experiment correlated the participants’ scores on a validated creativity test (i.e., CREA, Corbalán Berná et al., 2003) with their scores on process indicators of fluency as one of the key dimensions of creativity as well as product indicators of flexibility, novelty, and accuracy. To this purpose, the logging tool Inputlog was used to measure dwell ratio, total translation time, time interval between ST processing and TT production and time devoted to revision. The screen recording software CamStudio was also used to analyse participants’ creativity in searching and retrieving information. Although few significant statistical results were found, our study suggests that creative translators’ potential can be traced both in their translation product and process.