ISSN: 1579-9794
Hikma 25 (1) (2026), 1 - 5
SHIH, CLAIRE Y. NAVIGATING THE WEB: A QUALITATIVE EYE
TRACKING-BASED STUDY OF TRANSLATORS’ WEB SEARCH
BEHAVIOUR. CAMBRIDGE, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2023, 69
PP., ISBN 978-1-009-11413-4
Information literacy is widely recognised as a fundamental competence
in translators’ professional practice, and the Internet has become the most
frequently consulted source for resolving linguistic, terminological and
extralinguistic problems in specialised translation (Enríquez-Raído, 2013; Shi,
2017, 2019, 2021). While a substantial body of research has examined
translators’ information behaviour in general terms (e.g. Pinto & Sales, 2007,
2008a, 2008b; Sales, 2008; Sales & Pinto, 2011; Sales et al., 2018), studies
that specifically examines the web search processes of translators as a crucial
part of their translation activity is still limited. Notable exceptions include the
work of Enríquez-Raído (2013) and Shih (2017, 2019, 2021). Against this
backdrop, Shih’s monograph makes a timely and substantive contribution by
offering an empirically grounded and theoretically informed examination of
translators’ web search behaviour as situated, task-dependent activity.
The book is organised into five chapters. The introductory chapter
clearly identifies a key gap in search engine and human-computer interaction
research, namely the insufficient differentiation of web search behaviour
across specific user groups, tasks and purposes. According to Shih (2019,
pp. 911–912), generic log-based or aggregate analyses fail to capture the
contextual specificity of translators’ information needs. By positioning
translators as a distinct group of expert users operating under time pressure
and cognitive constraints, the introduction convincingly determines the
relevance and necessity of the present study.
Chapter 2 establishes the theoretical and conceptual foundation of the
monograph. Its first section offers a clear and well-structured overview of key
theories in Human Information Behaviour that are directly relevant to
understanding how and why translators interact with web-based information
and systems. Shih makes a persuasive argument that, although translation
process research has traditionally focused on translators’ Information Seeking
Behaviour as a form of purposeful problem-solving, this perspective alone is
insufficient to capture the fine-grained dynamics of online interaction. She
therefore adopts the concept of Information Search Behaviour and argues for
examining translators’ activity at a more granular, micro-level, encompassing
query formulation, browsing, clicking and relevance evaluation. This
conceptual shift addresses a notable gap in existing research. The second
section turns to the technical dimension of web search, outlining how search
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engine mechanisms shape and constrain translators’ behaviour. The chapter
concludes with a structured review of empirical research on translators’ online
information behaviour in Translation Studies, offering a clear distinction
between qualitative and quantitative lines of inquiry. Overall, the chapter
excels in its interdisciplinary scope and provides a solid theoretical and
methodological rationale for the empirical work that follows.
Chapter 3 presents the methodology of the study and constitutes one
of the book’s most original contributions. Shih (2023) offers a compelling
justification for adopting a qualitative eye-tracking approach, challenging the
prevailing assumption that eye-tracking research in translation must be
primarily quantitative and hypothesis-driven. By combining gaze replay with
retrospective think-aloud protocols, the study captures not only where
translators look and for how long, but also why particular search decisions are
made at specific moments. From the perspective of translation process
research, this methodological choice is both innovative and well justified. The
two-stage data collection procedure yields complementary datasets that
illuminate the temporal unfolding of web search behaviour as well as
translators’ metacognitive reflections. The study involves eleven student
translators and ten professional translators rendering a 136-word medical text
from English into their respective first languages (Arabic, Chinese, German,
Japanese, Russian, and Spanish). Although the sample is small, the design
allows for in-depth qualitative analysis and supports the exploratory aims of
the study.
Chapter 4 forms the analytical core of the monograph. Drawing on the
earlier theoretical framework, Shih (2023) examines translators’ use of web-
based resources, query formulation, and browsing and clicking behavior. The
findings reveal that search engines are among the most frequently used web
resources and are often employed efficiently as stand-alone tools at early
stages of the translation process to gain an overall understanding of the
subject matter, rather than as gateways to other resources, as searches
frequently end without clicking on hyperlinks. Language combination is shown
to influence translators’ preferences for search engines (e.g., Chinese
translators’ use of Baidu rather than Google), with such preferences
developing dynamically through everyday web use and being shaped by
broader cultural and digital contexts rather than translation experience alone.
Equally insightful is the discussion of browsing and clicking behaviour
on search engine results pages. Shih (2023) identifies “three points of
judgement of relevance” (p. 55) in the translation process, at which the
translators evaluate how relevant the information appearing in the search
results is to fulfil their query intent (translators’ intention for posing their
queries in search engines), which leads to clicking or non-clicking browsing
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decisions and further shifts in query intent. The identification of non-clicking
as a prevalent translator behaviour in web searching is particularly significant,
as it reflects translators’ “satisficing” strategy, a tendency to prioritise
information that is “good enough” rather than exhaustive for time efficiency
(p. 31). It challenges the assumption that successful web search necessarily
involves extensive navigation across multiple webpages. The analysis further
shows that higher perceived task difficulty leads to more rapid switching
between webpages and search engine results pages, likely as a result of
cognitive overload. It has clear implications for translator training to improve
trainees’ working memory capacity.
In the concluding chapter, Shih (2023) synthesises the main findings
and situates them within the broader literature. The study confirms earlier
observations regarding translators’ primary reliance on online dictionaries and
search engines as the main web resources used, while also documenting the
increasing (passive) use of neural machine translation outputs, as they are
progressively embedded in modern search engines and online dictionary
packages. More importantly, the book advances our understanding of the
cognitive and contextual factors shaping query formulation, evaluation and
abandonment.
Overall, this monograph represents one of the most systematic and
methodologically rigorous studies of translators’ web search behaviour to
date. Building on her earlier work, Shih (2023) does not merely replicate
existing findings but extends them in two important ways. First, she integrates
theories from Human Information Behaviour and Information Retrieval more
systematically into translation process research than has previously been
achieved. Secondly, she adopts an innovative qualitative eye-tracking
methodology that enables access to both observable behaviour and
translators’ underlying reasoning. As a result, the book addresses a persistent
limitation in previous research, namely the tendency to privilege either surface
behavioural patterns or post-hoc self-reports, without fully capturing the
dynamic interplay between the two.
That said, the book could be further strengthened by a more explicit
discussion of certain limitations, such as sample size, genre specificity, and
the transferability of findings across different language pairs and professional
contexts. Given the relatively small number of participants across six language
pairs and the use of a short source text, the findings should be interpreted as
exploratory rather than generalisable. In addition, while pedagogical
implications are occasionally noted, a more sustained engagement with how
these findings might inform translator training curricula, as well as clearer
directions for future research, would enhance the book’s applied relevance.
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Despite these minor limitations, the monograph makes a significant
contribution to the translation process research and to the study of information
behaviour in translation. It will be of great interest to scholars working on eye
tracking, human-computer interaction, and translator cognition, and it provides
a robust methodological model for future research in this rapidly developing
area.
REFERENCES
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551506076404
Pinto, M., & Sales, D. (2008a). Towards user-centred information literacy
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47-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2008.10798766
Pinto, M., & Sales, D. (2008b). INFOLITRANS: A model for the development
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behaviour. In C. Wang & B. Zheng (Eds.), Empirical Studies of
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