Individual variations in information behaviour of professional translators: towards a classification of translation-oriented research styles

Abstract

In the era of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation, studying human behaviour is becoming ever more pressing. The variety of human behaviour within translation studies (TS) research has been given some attention, but the area of individual differences in translators, especially regarding their translation-oriented research activities, has received little consideration in either TS or Information Behaviour (IB) studies. This article reports on a quasi-naturalistic, observational, mixed methods study of professional translators’ research activities designed to capture the similarities and differences in how those activities are carried out. The outcome is a taxonomy of translation-oriented research styles which illustrates the wide spectrum of research behaviours as observed and reported by sixteen participants, but the article also points towards a potential tendency for the homogenization of translation-oriented research behaviour in the digital age.