Translation Revision and Post-editing looks at the apparently dissolving boundary between correcting translations generated by human brains and those generated by machines. It presents new research on post-editing and revision in government and corporate translation departments, translation agencies, the literary publishing sector and the volunteer sector, as well as on training in both types of translation checking work. This collection includes empirical studies based on surveys, interviews and keystroke logging, as well as more theoretical contributions questioning such traditional distinctions as translating versus editing. The chapters discuss revision and post-editing involving eight languages: Afrikaans, Catalan, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German and Spanish. Among the topics covered are translator/reviser relations and revising/post-editing by non-professionals. The book is key reading for researchers, instructors and advanced students in Translation Studies as well as for professional translators with a special interest in checking translations.

Translation Revision and Post-editing looks at the apparently dissolving boundary between correcting translations generated by human brains and those generated by machines. It presents new research on post-editing and revision in government and corporate translation departments, translation agencies, the literary publishing sector and the volunteer sector, as well as on training in both types of translation checking work. This collection includes empirical studies based on surveys, interviews and keystroke logging, as well as more theoretical contributions questioning such traditional distinctions as translating versus editing. The chapters discuss revision and post-editing involving eight languages: Afrikaans, Catalan, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German and Spanish. Among the topics covered are translator/reviser relations and revising/post-editing by non-professionals. The book is key reading for researchers, instructors and advanced students in Translation Studies as well as for professional translators with a special interest in checking translations.

Revising and Editing for Translators provides guidance and learning materials for translation students and professional translators learning to revise the work of others or edit original writing, and those wishing to improve their self-revision ability. Revising and editing are seen as reading skills aimed at spotting problematic passages. Changes are then made to meet some standard of quality that varies with the text and to tailor the text to its readership. Mossop offers in-depth coverage of a wide range of topics, including copyediting, stylistic editing, checking for consistency, revising procedures and principles, and translation quality assessment-all related to the professional situations in which revisers and editors work. This revised fourth edition provides new chapters on revising machine outputs and news trans-editing, a new section on reviser competencies, and a completely new grading scheme for assignments. The inclusion of suggested activities and exercises, numerous real-world examples, and a reference glossary make this an indispensable coursebook for professional translation programmes.

Revising and Editing for Translators provides guidance and learning materials for translation students and professional translators learning to revise the work of others or edit original writing, and those wishing to improve their self-revision ability. Revising and editing are seen as reading skills aimed at spotting problematic passages. Changes are then made to meet some standard of quality that varies with the text and to tailor the text to its readership.

Mossop offers in-depth coverage of a wide range of topics, including copyediting, stylistic editing, checking for consistency, revising procedures and principles, and translation quality assessment—all related to the professional situations in which revisers and editors work. This revised fourth edition provides new chapters on revising machine outputs and news trans-editing, a new section on reviser competencies, and a completely new grading scheme for assignments.

The inclusion of suggested activities and exercises, numerous real-world examples, and a reference glossary make this an indispensable coursebook for professional translation programmes.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction for All Readers

Introduction for Instructors

1. Why Editing and Revising are Necessary

1.1 The difficulty of writing

1.2 Enforcing rules

1.3 Quality in translation

1.4 Limits to editing and revision

1.5 The proper role of revision

Summary

Further reading

2. The Work of an Editor

2.1 Tasks of editors

2.2 Editing, rewriting and adapting

2.3 Mental editing during translation

2.4 Editing non-native English

2.5 Crowd-sourced editing of User Generated Content

2.6 Degrees of editing

2.7 Editing procedure

Practice

Further reading

3. Copyediting

3.1 House style

3.2 Spelling and typing errors

3.3 Syntax and idiom

3.4 Punctuation

3.5 Usage

Practice

Further reading

4. Stylistic Editing

4.1 Tailoring language to readers

4.2 Smoothing

4.3 Readability versus intelligibility and logic

4.4 Stylistic editing during translation

4.5 Some traps to avoid

Practice

Further reading

5. Structural Editing

5.1 Physical structure of a text

5.2 Problems with prose

5.3 Problems with headings

5.4 Structural editing during translation

Practice

Further reading

6. Content Editing

6.1 Macro-level content editing

6.2 Factual errors

6.3 Logical errors

6.4 Mathematical errors

6.5 Content editing during translation

6.6 Content editing after translation

Practice

7. Trans-editing by Jungmin Hong

7.1 Trans-editing versus translating

7.2 Structural trans-editing

7.3 Content trans-editing

7.4 Combined structural and content trans-editing

7.5 Trans-editing with changed text-type

7.6 Trans-editing from multiple source texts

Exercises and discussion

Further reading

8. Checking for Consistency

8.1 Degrees of consistency

8.2 Pre-arranging consistency

8.3 Translation databases and consistency

8.4 Over-consistency

Practice

Further reading

9. Computer Aids to Checking

9.1 Google to the rescue?

9.2 Bilingual databases

9.3 Work on screen or on paper?

9.4 Editing functions of word processors

9.5 What kind of screen environment?

9.6 Tools specific to revision

Further reading

10. The Work of a Reviser

10.1 Revision: a reading task

10.2 Revision terminology

10.3 Reviser competencies

10.4 Revision and specialization

10.5 The revision function in translation services

10.6 Reliance on self-revision

10.7 Reducing differences among revisers

10.8 Crowd-sourced revision

10.9 Revising translations into the reviser’s second language

10.10 Quality-checking by clients

10.11 The brief

10.12 Balancing the interests of authors, clients, readers and translators

10.13 Evaluation of revisers

10.14 Time and quality

10.15 Quantity of revision

10.16 Quality assessment

10.17 Quality assurance

Practice

Further reading

11. The Revision Parameters

11.1 Accuracy

11.2 Completeness

11.3 Logic

11.4 Facts

11.5 Smoothness

11.6 Tailoring

11.7 Sub-language

11.8 Idiom

11.9 Mechanics

11.10 Layout

11.11 Typography

11.12 Organization

11.13 Client Specifications

11.14 Employer Policies

Further reading

12. Degrees of Revision

12.1 The need for revision by a second translator

12.2 Determining the degree of revision

12.2.1 Which parameters will be checked?

12.2.2 What level of accuracy and writing quality is required?

12.2.3 Full or partial check?

12.2.4 Compare or re-read?

12.3 Some consequences of less-than-full revision

12.4 The relative importance of transfer and language parameters

12.5 A "good enough" approach to revision

Practice

Further reading

13. Revision Procedure

13.1 Procedure for finding errors

13.2 Principles for correcting and improving

13.3 Order of operations

13.4 Handling unsolved problems

13.5 Inputting changes

13.6 Checking Presentation

13.7 Preventing strategic errors

13.8 Getting help from the translator

13.9 Procedures, time-saving and quality

Summary of techniques for spotting errors

and avoiding introduction of errors

Practice

Further reading

14. Self-Revision

14.1 Integration of self-revision into translation production

14.2 Self-diagnosis

14.3 The term ‘self-revision’

Practice

Further reading

15. Revising the Work of Others

15.1 Relations with revisees

15.2 Diagnosis

15.3 Advice

15.4 Research during revision

Practice

Further reading

16. Revising Computer-Mediated Translations by Carlos Teixeira

16.1 Translation Memory

16.1.1 Repairing Translation Memory suggestions

16.2 Machine Translation

16.2.1 Different ‘levels’ of post-editing

16.2.2 Types of edits required

16.2.3 Examples of post-editing

16.3 Integration of Translation Memory and Machine Translation

16.4 Interactive Machine Translation

16.5 Final considerations

Further reading

Appendix 1. Summary

Appendix 2. Quality Assessment

Appendix 3. Quantitative Grading Scheme

Appendix 4. Sample Revision

Appendix 5. Revising and Editing Vocabulary

Appendix 6. Empirical research on revision

Readings

Index/