Mapping the Structure of Cognitive Machine Translation Post-Editing Studies (2011—2021)

Machine translation post-editing is an important form of human-machine interactive translation. The methodology of post-editing studies overlaps with that of cognitive translation studies. This paper reviews and synthesizes cognitive post-editing studies from 2011 to 2021 with NVivo. The findings demonstrate that the number of publications in this field exhibits vigorous growth despite some fluctuations. Cognitive post-editing studies focus on measuring and assessing the post-editing process and product and its causal factors related to tasks and the environment. They rely heavily on mixed-methods approaches and combined use of subjective and objective data in empirical research. This paper acknowledges the contributions of existing documents, pinpoints their drawbacks, and draws a research map of cognitive post-editing studies. The map features three significant themes: post-editing cognitive processing, post-editing measurement and assessment, and post-editing pedagogy. Also, interactions of themes and variables included in the research map are analyzed. Mapping the structure of cognitive post-editing studies has implications for further research on human-machine interaction, cognitive translation, and translator training.