The Tra&Co (Translation & Cognition) Center has as its central aim the cognitive modelling of the translation process. The employed methods include, but are not limited to, corpora of product data, questionnaires, screen recordings, keystroke logging, eyetracking and brain imaging. In our research, we keep close tabs on current developments in the profession and investigate the effect of technology on behaviour during translation and post-editing of machine translation output. Our research is not limited to traditional forms of translation and extends to plain language, media translations, and revision of already translated texts.
Our research bridges and informs traditional translation studies, translation didactics, commercial translation, cognition and neurosciences as well as corpus and computational linguistics. Given that translation competence plays a critical role in this endeavour we study differences in behaviour and cognition between individuals with varying degrees of professional skill. The digital age has affected how teaching and learning take place. We develop tools and models which do justice to these changes in translator training and the humanities more widely.
One key element of our research is the building, enlarging and exploitation of large corpora of linguistic and behavioural data in order to reach conclusions which go beyond small samples. We further our knowledge about the translation process in order to produce useful insights into this complex task in its multiple forms by cooperating with international partners from academia and industry both locally and across the globe.
Browse through the website to discover our latest research projects and publications, to get to know our staff, and to keep updated on the latest developments.
We also have a student section, where students of our department can learn more about the courses we offer and interesting topics for B.A. and M.A. theses.