Q: How can I aim to still be objective if I have studied my own work?

Detailed Question -

I am presently working on my research proposal. My subject is English-Indonesia[n] subtitle[s] in TEDx video[s]. Originally, the video had/has only English subtitles, which I decided to translate into Indonesia[n]. Now, I want to do my research on the denotation and connotation and also the translation method of English and Indonesia[n] subtitles. However, my supervisor told me that it can[not] be objective as I [would have] studied my own work. So, how do I cope with this? How do I prove to people that I will/can be objective on my own work?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

If we understand you right, you translated English subtitles from some TEDx videos into Bahasa Indonesia and now would like to examine the translations – particularly the choice of words with respect to their denotation (the dictionary meaning, as it were) and connotation (the implied or associated meaning) – and the method of translation.

If you propose to evaluate the translations in qualitative terms (appropriate, effective, and so on), your supervisor’s reservations are justified. However, if your approach is going to be quantitative (comparing the translations to those, if any, into other similar languages or comparing the original and the translation by sorting the words used in both versions by the parts of speech, for example), then the objection becomes less tenable.

Secondly, and again assuming a quantitative approach, we do not see why the agency who provided the translations (you, in this case) needs to matter to the analysis. Take works of art, such as paintings, for example. If you are going to assess them for their aesthetic value, you can hardly be objective if those are your own paintings. However, if you are going to analyze them in terms of color intensity, range of colors used, the chemical composition of the paints, and so on, you will be totally objective. So long as the methods and the instrumentation are the same, anybody else will also come up with identical results.

In short, whether you can be objective in evaluating your own work depends on whether the evaluation is qualitative (subjective) or quantitative (objective).

Hope that helps. For further insights into bias in research (and avoiding it), you may find the following resources helpful.

And for help with your proposal, you may find the following resources useful:

All the best for the next steps on your proposal!

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