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Target
Vol. 32:1 (2020) ► pp.3–36

Practices and attitudes toward replication in empirical translation and interpreting studies

ORCID logo | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
This article presents the results of three studies on practices in and attitudes toward replication in empirical translation and interpreting studies. The first study reports on a survey in which 52 researchers in translation and interpreting with experience in empirical research answered questions about their practices in and attitudes toward replication. The survey data were complemented by a bibliometric study of publications indexed in the Bibliography of Interpreting and Translation (BITRA) (Franco Aixelá 2001–2019) that explicitly stated in the title or abstract that they were derived from a replication. In a second bibliometric study, a conceptual replication of Yeung’s (2017) study on the acceptance of replications in neuroscience journals was conducted by analyzing 131 translation and interpreting journals. The article aims to provide evidence-based arguments for initiating a debate about the need for replication in empirical translation and interpreting studies and its implications for the development of the discipline.
Keywords: replication, empirical translation and interpreting studies, methodology, survey approach, bibliometric approach
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Replication in soft-science disciplines
    • 2.1Replicability in soft-science disciplines
    • 2.2Replication in translation and interpreting studies
  • 3.Materials and methods
    • 3.1Study 1: Practices in and attitudes toward replication in empirical research on translation and interpreting
      • 3.1.1Survey characteristics and design
      • 3.1.2Participants
      • 3.1.3Limitations
      • 3.1.4Analysis
    • 3.2Study 2: Bibliometric analysis of replications in BITRA
    • 3.3Study 3: Analysis of the acceptance of replications in academic journals devoted to TIS
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Study 1: Practices and attitudes toward replication in empirical research on translation and interpreting
      • 4.1.1Replication practices in empirical research in translation and interpreting
      • 4.1.2Reasons not to replicate empirical research in translation and interpreting
      • 4.1.3Attitudes toward replication
      • 4.1.4Questionable research practices that hinder replication
      • 4.1.5Enhancing replicability in translation and interpreting research
    • 4.2Study 2: Bibliometric analysis of replications in BITRA
    • 4.3Study 3: Analysis of the acceptance of replications in academic journals devoted to TIS
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1The need for replication in empirical TIS
    • 5.2Characteristics of the existing replications in translation and interpreting studies
    • 5.3Problems encountered when replicating empirical studies in translation and interpreting
    • 5.4Enhancing replicability in translation and interpreting studies
    • 5.5Publication bias against replications in translation and interpreting journals
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 December 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.18159.ola
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