Editing in Translation: Advantages and Disadvantages in Quality

Assurance

Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

1. Introduction

Editing is considered an integral part of the translating process as a step to achieve and
ensure quality given its “important functions in shaping the final TT.” (Englund
Dimitrova, 2005 p. 143). In fact, the international recognized Standard for Translation
Services ISO 17100:2015 includes “Revision” as an obligatory part of the translation
process. This Revision should be done by a different person than the translator and
should be a bilingual revision in which both source and target texts are compared in
order to identify and fix possible issues contained in the translation, but also to improve
it (Mossop, 2014 p.14).

To improve a translated text, a revision should not consist of a merely superficial

reading of a translation, instead it is a complex task that requires a deep knowledge of
both source and target languages, sharp analysis skills and clear understanding of the
source text. In his book “Revising and Editing for Translators” Brian Mossop lists a
few elements of the many that can go wrong with a translation: from typographical
errors to format inconsistencies to grammatical problems to inappropriate treatment of
a genre, etc., (2014, pp. 18-19). In consequent chapters, he explores at least four
different broad types of editing and improving a translation:

1) Copyediting – In this category we find editing elements such as grammar, syntax

and orthography rules, along with other language general conventions and
specific style guides or any other pre-set rules.
2) Stylistic Editing – which focuses on making changes that improve the text by
adding a natural flow and a better construction of sentences. Verbs and
vocabulary that are not particularly incorrect may be changed to provide more
accurate solutions or simply to make a sentence sound better.
3) Structural Editing – or rearranging the order of sentences, paragraphs and any
other elements of the text to ensure readability and a coherent and logical
presentation of arguments.
4) Content Editing – which may include adding or subtracting parts of the translation
if deemed appropriate.
 Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

In general, any written text requires a certain degree of editing to go over all the details
that are secondary at the moment of writing, when the focus is placed in generating the
mental discourse and transcribing it into paper. This applies to translation as well. When
discussing “Revision”, Englund Dimitrova speaks about two key terms, “text” and
“distance”:

“The purpose of the task is to produce a text. Being a translation, this text is quite
closely determined by another text, the ST, both structurally and semantically, but the
translator also sees it as necessary to evaluate it as a coherent, complete text in the TL.
[…] The existence of a complete text, the TT, also allows the translator the
necessary distance. It can be a distance in time, between herself/himself and
the text (to let the text rest, to take a break), and distance in space (to let
someone else read and check the TT).” (2005, p. 144, my bold)

The translator will most likely come across many questions and opportunities to take
linguistic decisions while translating and probably will revise them several times before
reaching a final alternative. In that sense, we can say that the act of translating is at the
same time an act of revising. However, even when the translator may come back to the
text later (distance in time) and fix by himself/herself many of the possible issues not
addressed initially, he/she may arrive to the same previous conclusions that may
considered erroneous by another person. The key in adding an additional and
independent “Revision” step is in the “distance in space” part, since, at that point, the
text is already detached from the writing process and more importantly from the
consequential decisions taken by the translator who considered them correct but that
may be interpreted differently by someone else or that may introduce a certain type of
conflict not devised by the translator.

In the sections below, we will explore more in detail the advantages of editing and we
will also explore the possible disadvantages.

2. Advantages of Revision

There are many advantages that come to mind when thinking about revising a translated
text, as it creates an opportunity to catch any possible flaws before the translation goes
to the requester of the translation and the final audience/readers. It is important to
highlight that in many cases the translation will be delivered to a requester that cannot
review the translation because he/she may not be proficient in the language of the
translation and thus, the fact that at least two linguists went through the translation and
deemed it accurate and even of a publishable standard is reassuring.

2
 Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

The revision is not limited to micro or macro elements, rather it can include both and
it can be tailored according to specific characteristics of a project.

For example, in a marketing translation, the editor can focus –besides the regular
orthography, grammar checks, etc.– on things such as making sure the creative tone
present in the source is properly rendered in the target by using catchy, idiomatic
phrases that may deviate from the source but that bring to life a sentence in the TL and
meet the source intention, and/or fix them, in the event that the translator provides a
more conventional or even more literal translation. Let’s consider the following
sentence that could be the headline of a bank’s publicity flyer and its translation into
Spanish:

Source:
Save or regret!
Target:
¡Ahorre o arrepiéntase!

Even when the translation provided above is correct, the editor may feel it’s not catchy
enough and that another solution could have been provided. He/she also realizes, by
the context and the friendlier tone found in the source, that the publicity is directed to
young people, which makes the formal tone found in the translation (in the conjugation
of both verbs) questionable, even when bank communications are generally translated
into a formal language.

At a word level the translation is accurate, there are no typos, nor grammatical issues, it
can even be argued that the translation is accurate. However, to improve the translation
the editor decides to change the style considering the above and implements the
following change:

Final Target:
¡Ahorra o nunca! [Save or never!]

The backtranslation may sound off, however the revision provided includes a word play
using the popular expression “now or never” which in Spanish is “ahora o nunca”,
hence the play between “ahorra” (save) and “ahora” (now). The formal tone in the
imperative “Ahorre” (directed to the formal second person ‘you’ – usted), was changed
to the informal “Ahorra” (directed to the informal second person ‘you’ – tú), and
“arrepiéntase” (regret) was completely changed to an alternative that still conveys the
source intention but in a more playful, catchy and persuasive manner: “save now or you
will never do”. By replacing the verb “arrepentir” (regret) by the noun “never” (nunca)
and creatively readapting the expression “now or never” the editor provides the TT

3
 Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

with the agility, persuasiveness and creativity expected in an advertising translation

(Torresi, 2014, p. 8) when the original was translation too dependent on the ST.

Another advantage of Revising a translation is that due to frequent fast-paced

production delivery times, a translator may provide provisional solutions that can be
afterwards double-checked by the editor. Ideally, a translator should receive all
relevant information and pre-set preferences before starting a translation, but that is
not always the case. Many times, even when all fronts are thought to be covered,
questions may still arise because “the potential for ambiguity is at the very basis of
human language and communication” (Tirkkonen-Condit, 2000, p. 125), and because
concepts and ideas that may be cut-clear in a SL may arise questions when translated.
For example, if there are any queries that are preventing a translator to deliver a
translation, and such queries are very specific to the ST and should be addressed by the
client to provide clarification, and there is no immediate response from the client, the
translation could be sent to the next revision step, provided that the editor receives at
some point both the query and the answer provided by the client. Let’s consider the
following sentence that could generate confusion when translated into Spanish:

Source:
We are proud to announce that our Financial Director will be participating as
a lecturer at the annual convention to be held in London.

Target:
Nos complace anunciar que nuestro director financiero estará participando
como conferencista en la convención anual que se celebrará en Londres.

Due to the gender neutrality possible in the source, there is no necessity to clarify the
referred financial director’s gender. In Spanish, however, both the possessive pronoun
“our” and the nouns “Financial Director” can be either masculine or feminine. In the
translation provided, the masculine version is provided which is also considered the
“neutral” option in Spanish. However, to avoid any kind of misunderstandings, and to
provide a translation that shows full understanding of the ST it would be best to have
the matter clarified. If the clarification is received once the translation is completed.
The necessary change could be implemented at the revision step.

Final Target (in the event the Financial Director was a woman):
Nos complace anunciar que nuestra directora financiera estará participando
como conferencista en la convención anual que se celebrará en Londres.

4
 Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

The examples provided above show how a second revision can not only have a positive
impact in a translated text, but it may as well be an indispensable condition of the
translating process. Of course, there are many more advantages to this step, including
the more easily recognizable ones such as ensuring accuracy, avoiding omissions of
crucial information, double-checking meaning and understanding, revising grammatical
structures, running spelling-checks, double checking names, figures and other elements
not caught by integrated spellcheck tools, ensuring readability in the TT and
appropriateness according to genre, specific guidelines, etc. All of which reinforce the
argument that revisers act as gatekeepers to enforce rules for any written text (Mossop,
2014, p. 21).

Having discussed in a broad sense some of the advantages of Revision, the question if
it is possible to find disadvantages in a process that is established and aimed to ensure
quality in translation arises. We will explore it in the following section.

3. Disadvantages of Revision

Given that Revision can be so complex and may include many different elements that
may apply in different degrees to specific translations, the process does not seem
completely measurable nor containable in exhaustive lists of “to do’s” and “not to do’s”.
It seems some of the elements pertinent to the task are more intuitive or subjective
rather than purely objective when implementing corrections and improvements.
Especially when we talk about “Stylistic Editing” and “Content Editing”. A grammatical
issue or a typographical mistake is usually easily recognized as such by independent
parties, especially in languages where there is a big tradition of linguistic rules and there
are language regulation bodies such as in the case of the Spanish language where the
Royal Academy of Language (RAE) dictates many of the grammatical rules that support
the use of categorical terms such as correct and incorrect when revising a text. Style, on
the other hand, can be quite different:

“The differences begin at the very beginning, as the same task can be interpreted in
different ways. The potential for difference is created by the fact that each translator
chooses those linguistic expressions which best correspond to his own interpretation
of the text and of the communicative context as a whole.” […] “Thus there are as many
different products as there are translators.” (2000, Tirkkonen-Condit. p. 124)

The reviser may disagree with some of the translation strategies adopted by the
translator but that does not imply that the translation provided is incorrect per se, nor
does it always guarantee that a change will improve an already provided translation. For
example, when translating a text that contains Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) a translator

5
 Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

may choose to address certain difficulties taking different paths or following different
possible strategies, as shown below:

Source:
We received five grand each to not say anything, but the money was not the
point, it was a matter of loyalty. Do you know how important is loyalty for us?

Target:
A cada uno nos dieron cinco mil dólares por guardar silencio, pero no era una
cuestión de dinero sino de lealtad. ¿Sabes lo importante que es la lealtad para
nosotros?

“five grand” was translated into Spanish as “five thousand dollars” following a “limited
universalization” strategy (Franco Aixelà, 1996, p. 63) by making the source text more
accessible to the readers but keeping the foreign cultural reference to “dollars” at the
same time. However, the reviser thinks a “naturalization” strategy should have been
followed instead, to completely blend the term into the receptive culture by providing
a colloquial alternative and replaces “cinco mil dólares” with “una buena pasta” (a good
chunk or money). In this case, both linguistic decisions are based on a valid translation
strategy and both convey the meaning of the source. Defining if the correction was
really needed seems more difficult. Some may argue yes, some may say no, it all depends
on interpretations. In any case, the main point of the sentence and the text itself was
moving forward an argument about loyalty and the rest of details were treated as
collateral, hence not of a major importance. We could say both alternatives are correct
but making too much changes at the revision step may increase the probability of
introducing new errors, such as typographic mistakes not caught by spelling-check tools
or even inconsistencies. Nonetheless, limiting the amount of changes or arguing that
only objective changes should be performed cannot be a solution, as Stylistic editing
plays a major role when improving a translation as explored in the Advantages section.

It is also relevant to point that the fact that the translation is completed first, and the
revision conforms a later step, a sense of hierarchy between the two steps is introduced,
in which the translation could be considered only as a step where a draft is produced
and the revision as the step where all sort of final decisions are taken. This idea of
linguistic hierarchy could have a negative impact on translating itself, as the translators
may feel too confident with the notion that anything not fixed at the initial step will be
fixed at a later step. In this sense, Mossop remind us that: “Revising is necessary because
translators make mistakes, but it is important not to place too great a burden on it. It
should not be the main way of ensuring quality. Quality is best ensured by preventive
actions: using properly trained translators, using the right translator for a given job,

6
 Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

making sure the specifications for the job are known to the translator, making sure the
translator has access to appropriate technological tools and to the necessary
documentation, terminology resources, previous translations on the subject and
subject-matter experts.” (2014, p. 28). In other cases, an excessive revision could
interfere with creative processes, for example, when dealing with literary translations,
we can find cases in which a translation deliberately does not comply with common
operational norms of translation (Toury, 2012, p. 172). This is the case of some of the
translations produced by Jorge Luis Borges of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories into
Spanish, which contain many intentional alterations and omissions that a regular reviser
could consider wrong arguing that the common operational norm when translating into
Spanish is to consider the TT to be subordinated to the ST and not as an independent
text. Borges believed, as stated by Efraín Kristal, that “a translation could enrich or
surpass an original” and “that a good translator might choose to treat the original as a
good writer treats a draft of a work in progress.” (2002, p. 2). This idea of treating the
ST as a “draft” or “a work in progress” opens an array of different ways to produce a
translation with a very defined personality and almost singular characteristics. Following
this logic, Borges took liberties while translating that professional translators and
revisers may not completely agree with by considering them to exceed by far the
responsibilities and even the area of scope of translation. However, in such cases, the
alterations may be arguably an added value to the translated text and the revision should
be then subordinated to the original translation. It seems then, that the elements that
conform Revision could vary greatly depending on the specific needs and characteristics
of a translation, and as such, it can’t be assumed that every reviser will know exactly
which approach to take or which type of editing to focus on, and in this sense, the
ability to tailor a revision which is one of the main advantages of the step, can also
present difficulties when deciding which changes are necessary or not, nor can the
amount of changes be an indication of a good or a bad revision.

7
 Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

4. Conclusion

When it comes to Revising, it is important to understand the role it plays in the process
of translating. That is, to explore its scope and limits to reach a balanced state in which
the step is used to amend the inevitable errors found in any written text and to improve
the quality of an already acceptable translation, meanwhile understanding that: “There
is no such thing as absolute quality. Different jobs will have different quality criteria
because the texts are meeting different needs.” (Mossop, 2014. P. 23)

In general, those specific needs should be properly identified to be able to tailor the
editing in such a way that unnecessary changes are minimized while focusing on key
details. In the cases where many changes are required probably the safest procedure
would be to communicate some feedback to the translator, so he/she revises and
redelivers the translation based on it. Thus, the reviser should start working on a file
only when it has already reached certain acceptability standards. Revision plays a major
and complementary part in the translation process, but it may be counterproductive
when not implemented correctly, or not performed by an experienced reviser, or not
tailored in the best way or when used as a way to correct translations for which
preventive measures have not been taken.

8
 Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

Bibliography

Englund Dimitrova, B. (2005). Expertise and Explicitation in the Translation Process.

Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/portsmouth-
ebooks/reader.action?docID=622544

Franco Aixelà, J.F. (1996). Culture-specific Items in Translation. In R. Álvarez and M.

C.-Á. Vidal (Eds.), Translation, Power, Subversion, (pp.52-78). Retrieved from
https://content.talisaspire.com/port/bundles/59b65157540a266c87559864?userId=g
fR%2FJUx9IkORgEvFw85kH4%2FV3dc%3D%40port.ac.uk&key=7aabfe29e90210
5842e85ea6510698179c8c505b5dcf6ee2e7723b7d81bec3cd

Kristal, E. (2002). Invisible Work, Borges and Translation. Nashville: Vandebilt University
Press.

Mossop. B. (2014). Revising and Editing for Translators (3rd ed.). Retrieved from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/portsmouth-
ebooks/reader.action?docID=1619599

Tirkkonen-Condit, S. (2000). Uncertainty in Translation Processes. In S. Tirkkonen-

Condit & R. Tirkkonen-Condit (Eds.), Tapping and Mapping the Processes of Translation and
Interpreting, (pp.123-142). Retrieved from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/portsmouth-
ebooks/reader.action?docID=710267

Torresi, I. (2014). Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts. Taylor and Francis
Retrieved from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/portsmouth-
ebooks/reader.action?docID=1743923

Toury, G. (2012). The Nature and Role of Norms in Translation. In L. Venuti (Ed.),
The Translation Studies Reader (3rd ed., pp.168-181). Retrieved from
http://lib.myilibrary.com/Open.aspx?id=415763&src=0