Switching languages: What happens to our brains when translating?

The study of language disorders in patients has played a crucial role in the history of neuroscience since ancient times. The earliest known medical treatise containing a reference to the brain is a papyrus dating back to the 17th century BC, which also describes the first known case of an aphasic patient. Over time, observations of patients with brain lesions have allowed researchers to correlate mental faculties with specific areas of the brain, particularly in the case of language. The study of the neurobiological mechanisms involved in translation remains a challenge, but new technologies for observing brain function have opened up new possibilities. The future of translation will require interdisciplinary collaboration between translation scholars, cognitive scientists, computer scientists, literacy and language experts, and neuroscientists to better understand the brain activity involved in this complex process.

The article discusses the relationship between neuroscience and translation. It explains how the brain processes sensory information and creates a subjective experience. The article describes the shift in the neuroscience field from computational models to embodied models, where the mind is integrated into the brain's sensorimotor system. The article also provides examples of how reading certain words can activate specific regions of the brain, such as the motor cortices for action words or the olfactory regions for odor words. Finally, the article highlights the need for interdisciplinary collaboration between translation scholars, cognitive scientists, computer scientists, literacy and language experts, and neuroscientists to better understand the neurobiological mechanisms involved in translation.

The traditional view of language and translation as abstract and symbolic processes disconnected from the body and sensory experiences has been challenged by recent neuroscience findings. Language and translation are found to be grounded in the brain-body system, with words represented as sensory-motor networks that mirror the experiences connected to the concept. This embodied approach to language and translation suggests that physical interaction with the environment endows linguistic symbols in the brain with meaning. Social interactions and mirror mechanisms also play a fundamental role in language and translation. This paradigm shift challenges the traditional computational models of language and translation and inspires the integration of embodied artificial intelligence and information processing. The open question is whether translation technology can integrate gestures and sensory experiences as a body of data for machine translation.