Using CAT Tools in Freelance Translation: Insights from a Case Study

This book explores the impact of applying computer-assisted (CAT) tools in freelance translation toward better understanding translators’ strategies, preferences, and challenges in using new technologies and identifying areas of enhancement in translator training.

The volume offers a brief overview of the latest developments in technology in translation, examining such issues as the effect on the translation process and the dynamics of the translator-technology interaction. Drawing on data from a study with active translators in Poland, Pietrzak and Kornacki examine the underlying factors underpinning translators’ lack of engagement with these tools, including such issues as prevailing pre-conceptions around technology and limited knowledge hindering the most efficacious use of these resources and the subsequent impact on translator identity. Taken together, the book brings together these insights to help pinpoint freelance translators’ needs more effectively and adapt training programmes accordingly.

The volume will be of interest to scholars in translation studies with an interest in process and technology as well as active translators.

Paulina Pietrzak is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and, since 2008, has been affiliated with the University of Łódź, Poland. She completed her Ph.D. on translator education and developing translation competence. She teaches general and LSP translation and interpreting in the Department of Translation Studies. She is a freelance translator and interpreter. Her main research interests include translator training, medical translation, and metacognitive aspects of translator competence development.

Michał Kornacki is Assistant Professor of Linguistics, affiliated with the University of Łódź, Poland. A translator and an academic teacher, Michał completed his PhD on translator training in a computer-assisted translation (CAT) environment. He teaches general, computer-assisted and audiovisual translation. Michał’s research focuses on the use of technology in translator training, as well as metacognitive aspects of translator competence development. He is responsible for CAT programme at the Insitute of English Studies, University of Lodz. Since 2017, he is a Certified Trainer of Memsource.