Revising and Editing for Translators

303 Pages·2019·4.566 MB·English

by  Brian Mossop, Jungmin Hong, Carlos Teixeira

Revising and Editing for Translators
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 problem-
atic 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 copyedit-
ing, 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 chap-
ters 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.
Brian Mossop was a French-to-English translator, reviser and trainer at the
Canadian Government’s Translation Bureau from 1974 to 2014. He continues to
lead workshops and webinars on revision in Canada and abroad. Since 1980, he
has also been a part-time instructor at the York University School of Translation
in Toronto, teaching revision, scientific translation, translation theory and transla-
tion into the second language.
Translation Practices Explained
Series Editor: Kelly Washbourne
Translation Practices Explained is a series of coursebooks designed to help
self-learners and students on translation and interpreting courses. Each volume
focuses on a specific aspect of professional translation and interpreting practice,
usually corresponding to courses available in translator- and interpreter-training
institutions. The authors are practising translators, interpreters, and/or transla-
tor or interpreter trainers. Although specialists, they explain their professional
insights in a manner accessible to the wider learning public.
Each volume includes activities and exercises designed to help learners con-
solidate their knowledge, while updated reading lists and website addresses will
also help individual learners gain further insight into the realities of professional
practice.
Titles in the series:
Note-taking for Consecutive Interpreting 2e
A Short Course
Andrew Gillies
Consecutive Interpreting
A Short Course
Andrew Gillies
Healthcare Interpreting Explained
Claudia V. Angelelli
Revising and Editing for Translators 4e
Brian Mossop
For more information on any of these and other titles, or to order, please go to
www.r outle dge.c om/Tra nsla tion- Pract ices-E xpla ined/b ook- serie s/TPE
Additional resources for Translation and Interpreting Studies are available on
the Routledge Translation Studies Portal: http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/
translationstudies
Revising and Editing
for Translators
Fourth edition
Brian Mossop with Jungmin Hong
and Carlos Teixeira
Fourth edition published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Brian Mossop; Chapter 7 Trans-editing, Jungmin Hong; Chapter 16
Revising Computer-Mediated Translations, Carlos Teixeira
The right of Brian Mossop to be identified as author of this work, and of
Jungmin Hong for Chapter 7 and Carlos Teixeira for Chapter 16, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
First edition published by St. Jerome Publishing 2001
Second edition published by St. Jerome Publishing 2007
Third edition published by Routledge 2014
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-89515-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-89516-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-15899-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
List of contributors x
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction for all readers xii
Introduction for instructors xxi
1 Why editing and revising are necessary 1
1.1 The difficulty of writing 2
1.2 Enforcing rules 5
1.3 Quality in translation 6
1.4 Limits to editing and revision 11
1.5 The proper role of revision 12
Summary 13
Further reading 13
2 The work of an editor 15
2.1 Tasks of editors 15
2.2 Editing, rewriting and adapting 20
2.3 Mental editing during translation 22
2.4 Editing non-native English 23
2.5 Crowd-sourced editing of User Generated Content 26
2.6 Degrees of editing 27
2.7 Editing procedure 28
Practice 29
Further reading 29
3 Copyediting 30
3.1 House style 31
3.2 Spelling and typing errors 32
vi Contents
3.3 Syntax and idiom 34
3.4 Punctuation 38
3.5 Usage 41
Practice 46
Further reading 48
4 Stylistic editing 49
4.1 Tailoring language to readers 49
4.2 Smoothing 53
4.3 Readability versus intelligibility and logic 59
4.4 Stylistic editing during translation 59
4.5 Some traps to avoid 60
Practice 62
Further reading 63
5 Structural editing 64
5.1 Physical structure of a text 64
5.2 Problems with prose 65
5.3 Problems with headings 67
5.4 Structural editing during translation 68
Practice 69
Further reading 69
6 Content editing 70
6.1 Macro-level content editing 70
6.2 Factual errors 71
6.3 Logical errors 73
6.4 Mathematical errors 74
6.5 Content editing during translation 75
6.6 Content editing after translation 76
Practice 76
7 Trans-editing by Jungmin Hong 77
7.1 Trans-editing versus translating 77
7.2 Structural trans-editing 79
7.3 Content trans-editing 81
7.4 Combined structural and content trans-editing 84
7.5 Trans-editing with changed text-type 86
7.6 Trans-editing from multiple source texts 87
Exercises and discussion 87
Further reading 88
Contents vii
8 Checking for consistency 89
8.1 Degrees of consistency 90
8.2 Pre-arranging consistency 91
8.3 Translation databases and consistency 91
8.4 Over-consistency 92
Practice 95
Further reading 95
9 Computer aids to checking 96
9.1 Google to the rescue? 96
9.2 Bilingual databases 102
9.3 Work on screen or on paper? 105
9.4 Editing functions of word processors 107
9.5 What kind of screen environment? 113
9.6 Tools specific to revision 113
Further reading 114
10 The work of a reviser 115
10.1 Revision: a reading task 116
10.2 Revision terminology 116
10.3 Reviser competencies 118
10.4 Revision and specialization 119
10.5 The revision function in translation services 120
10.6 Reliance on self-revision 121
10.7 Reducing differences among revisers 122
10.8 Crowd-sourced revision 122
10.9 Revising translations into the reviser’s second language 123
10.10 Quality-checking by clients 123
10.11 The brief 124
10.12 Balancing the interests of authors, clients, readers
and translators 126
10.13 Evaluation of revisers 127
10.14 Time and quality 129
10.15 Quantity of revision 130
10.16 Quality assessment 130
10.17 Quality assurance 131
Practice 134
Further reading 134
viii Contents
11 The revision parameters 136
11.1 Accuracy 138
11.2 Completeness 141
11.3 Logic 144
11.4 Facts 147
11.5 Smoothness 148
11.6 Tailoring 149
11.7 Sub-language 151
11.8 Idiom 152
11.9 Mechanics 154
11.10 Layout 155
11.11 Typography 156
11.12 Organization 156
11.13 Client specifications 156
11.14 Employer policies 157
Further reading 157
12 Degrees of revision 158
12.1 The need for revision by a second translator 158
12.2 Determining the degree of revision 160
12.2.1 Which parameters will be checked? 161
12.2.2 What level of accuracy and writing quality is required? 163
12.2.3 Full or partial check? 166
12.2.4 Compare or re-read? 168
12.3 Some consequences of less-than-full revision 169
12.4 The relative importance of transfer and language parameters 170
12.5 A ‘good enough’ approach to revision 171
Practice 172
Further reading 172
13 Revision procedure 173
13.1 Procedure for finding errors 174
13.2 Principles for correcting and improving 178
13.3 Order of operations 181
13.4 Handling unsolved problems 183
13.5 Inputting changes 185
13.6 Checking Presentation 186
13.7 Preventing strategic errors 187
13.8 Getting help from the translator 187
13.9 Procedures, time-saving and quality 188
Summary of techniques for spotting errors and avoiding introduction
of errors 188
Practice 188
Further reading 189
Contents ix
14 Self-revision 190
14.1 Integration of self-revision into translation production 190
14.2 Self-diagnosis 195
14.3 The term ‘self-revision’ 196
Practice 197
Further reading 197
15 Revising the work of others 198
15.1 Relations with revisees 198
15.2 Diagnosis 203
15.3 Advice 204
15.4 Research during revision 205
Practice 205
Further reading 206
16 Revising computer-mediated translations by Carlos Teixeira 207
16.1 Translation Memory 207
16.1.1 Repairing Translation Memory suggestions 211
16.2 Machine Translation 213
16.2.1 Different ‘levels’ of post-editing 214
16.2.2 Types of edits required 216
16.2.3 Examples of post-editing 218
16.3 Integration of Translation Memory and Machine Translation 221
16.4 Interactive Machine Translation 222
16.5 Final considerations 223
Further reading 224
Appendix 1: Summary of revision ideas 225
Appendix 2: Quality assessment 228
Appendix 3: Quantitative grading scheme 235
Appendix 4: Sample revision 241
Appendix 5: Revising and editing vocabulary 245
Appendix 6: Empirical research on revision 252
Readings 256
Index 267