REVISING & EDITING

CHECKING FOR CONSISTENCY

• Definition of Consistency
• Kinds of Consistency
• Achieving Total Consistency in Translation Work
• Degrees of Consistency
• Pre-arraning Consistency
• Translation Databases and Consistency
• Over-consistency
By
Zubaida Mhd Al-Hazmy
Definition of Consistency :

Consistency is the orderly treatment of a set of linked

elements, and it is a necessary characteristic of polished,
highly readable prose.
Creating consistency is a purely mechanical task that requires
little thought, yet gives a feeling of accomplishment. As a
result, some editors and revisers are tempted to devote
considerable time to this task.
 Kinds of Consistency :
 There are two kinds of consistency to be checked:

1) The first kind is related to certain aspects of consistency like:

● Consistency in the way of translation
(in the way a word, term or phrase is translated)

● Consistency in page layout

(In placing and arranging texts, images, graphics within the document)

● Consistency in register
(In the level of formality and form of language used for a particular situation)

● Consistency in matters specified on a style sheet

(In the guidelines set to follow the client’s preferred tone, register, style, and so on)
2) The second kind is related to the range of texts over which any aspect of consistency will be
checked like:

● Ensuring condistency within the same text you are working on

● Ensuring consistency with the texts you have previously edited or revised for the
same client

● Ensuring consistency with all the texts have been edited or revised by other editors or
revisers for that client in your translation service

● Ensuring consistency with the original writings of that client available on an intrant
(a closed network for a select group of people)

● Ensuring consistency with all the texts emanating from your service for that client
 Achieving Total Consistency in Translation Work

If achieving total consistency in translation work would mean:

■ To never translate a given ST expression in ■ To never translate a given ST expression in
one way in one passage and in another way in one way in one passage and in another way in
another passage another passage

(assuming the concept is the same in both (assuming the concept is the same in both
passages) passages)

That would create real problems; it would prevent authentic translation from a language which
often repeats noun phrases over the course of a paragraph to another language that does not.

For example: in the SL, there can be a repetition of the noun phrase (‘the instruction manual) in one paragraph,
but in the TL, instead of repeating the same phrase; it can be (‘the instruction manual) in one sentence and (the
manual…it’) in another.
 Degrees of Consistency
■ Consistency can hold degrees in two issues:

1) First, when revising the translation of a text containing identical or almost identical
wordings in sequential source-texts and they have previously been translated many times
such as successive annual reports or descriptions of similar jobs.

In such a case, If a previous source-translation pair is available in an easily searchable

database, the problem is solved. If not, don’t do exhausive search; just ask yourself, is this
wording so important that it is worth the effort?

For example, if the document is a contract, the translation will have legal force, then it
may be very important. But in others cases, it may not matter.

The important thing, after all, is that the meaning of the source is adequately conveyed.
 2) Second, when revising the translation of existing document originally written in the
target language and the translator of it may or may not have back-translated this material
rather than searching for the original target-language wording. That is, the source text
sometimes contains passages that are themselves translations of original target-language
material without being identified in the source text as translations (i.e. there may or may
not be quotation marks or references).

In such a case, You must now decide whether it’s worth spending the time to locate
this original wording, or asking the translator to find it. If not, just keep in mind that
consistency should never take priority over Accuracy.

If you see that the previous translation of a passage contains an error, do not reproduce the
error for the sake of consistency, even if the client has given you the earlier translation as a
reference.
 Pre-arranging Consistency
■ It is the ideal approach for both editors and revisers to consistency by which they arrange for texts to be
consistent ahead of time, before the writing or translating begins.
■ It has three areas:

1) Layout & Typography:

If the writer or translator is given either an electronic template or specific settings for use
with the Styles option of their word processors, a certain amount of editing/revising effort
can be avoided.
 
If this is not the case, the source wording has to be available as editable e-text so that the
reviser and editor can work on consistency with the source text.
2) Terminology:
When several writers or translators are
working on a single document, some
decisions can be made before the project
starts.
Otherwise, their translation may have a
lack of consistency in terminology
because one member of the
writing/translating team can carry out
research while the others start writing,
and that person can then enunciate
terminology decisions as the work
proceeds.
3) Style:
When several writers or translators
are working on a single document,
some decisions can be made before
the project starts.
Otherwise, their translation may have
a lack of consistency in the way the
reader will be addressed because one
option will give the text a certain
tone, another option quite a different
tone.
Translation Databases and Consistency

With the advent of databases of previously completed

translations, achieving consistency is now more practical.

But since a database typically contains material by several

translators, then there are problems using databases for
this purpose.

I will introduce three of them.

First, when you find a variety of translations for a given source-language expression.

For example, perhaps one translator used ‘lifestyle’ and another ‘life-style’; perhaps one
selected term x and another term y in the target language for a given term in the source
language.

Then, how will you use the information in the database to achieve consistency if there
are many instances of the same expression?

In such a case, alll you can do is to select the most popular target-language expression.
Second, when you use the database to check correspondence between the translation
wordings and the wordings in original target-language writing.

For example, suppose you have a database of both Arabic-English and English-Arabic
translations for a single client or set of clients.Consider the Aeabic expression ‫ وـثق‬in the
source text you are now working on, and its English translations Documented, Validated,
Legalized in the Aeabic-to-English material contained in the database.

Then, look at that same Arabic expression ‫ وـثق‬in the translations from English (in the
English-to-Arabic material in the database).

In some cases, you may found that none of them were translated by Arabic‫ وـثق‬.

In other cases, you may found that Documented was used in original English, but not
Validated or Legalized.
The first problems suggests that if you will select one term taking it as the most popular
term used in the database, then you would make a poor selection.
That is because it may be used by one translator who originally chose that expression, and
then a few others copied it from the database, and then everyone else like you saw that it
was a popular translation.

The second problem suggests that if you had chosen the expression Documented ,
perhaps on the grounds that it was the most common rendering of ‫ وـثـق‬in the Arabic-to-
English translations, then you would have made a poor choice.
That is because the Arabic expression may be intended as having another meaning like
Trusted or Confirm.

The upshot of this is that relying on previous translations in a database to

achieve consistency can result in consistently using expressions that are not
in fact used in original writing in the target language.
 Over-consistency
 It refers to the fact that it is not always the text’s lack of consistency (too little
consistency) that makes the text poor, but it is also possible for it to be overly
consistent (too high consistency).
 It occurs if extreme consistency is enforced by the revisers where they try to find out
whether the translations are more internally consistent than original writing.

 For example, when translators explicate connections between ideas that original
writers leave implicit; or prefer using more general words even when the original
writers used specific ones.

 Over-consistency can occur from four aspects:

1) Synonyms:
Synonyms are different words that have the same or similar meanings in general.

In particular, the focus here will be on the (Absolute synonyms) which are words that
mean exactly the same thing with no difference in meaning so can be used
interchangeably without changing the message.

For example, if you saw that the translater used American in one sentence or passage and
then US in another, will you wonder whether they refere to two different national origins?
You probably will not notice at all. That’s because such use of different words or
phrasings to convey a single concept is a natural feature of human language production.

So if you really want to write authentically in the target language, then you should
not strive to eliminate all synonyms.
2) Terminology:
Terminology is the special words or phrases used in a particular field.

It is important to strive for consistent cross-textual use of the correct term, but not always.
That is, if you read several documents originally written in the target language on the topic
of your text, you will discover that different authors use different terms for the same
concept, and that a single author will use synonyms within a single text.

For example, in some contexts, editors of scientific journals may find terms x and y are
used interchangeably, but in others not. However, they will often ignore such synonyms
because they know that all the intended readers will recognize the different expressions as
synonymous.

So you need to know what the recognized synonyms are, as well as the extent of the
synonymy
3) Phraseology:
Phraseology is the way words and phrases are chosen and used in a certain subject.

Often when you are revising, you may find yourself wondering about phraseology.

For example, assuming that the translation you are revising has evaluate the language
capacity, and you wonder: should it be assess the language skills or perhaps evaluate the
linguistic capabilities? Certainly it is possible that y our client has a preference or even a set
usage, but it’s also possible that the client’s original target-language documentation
sometimes uses assess and sometimes evaluate, with no intended difference in meaning; and
likewise for capacity/skills/capabilities and for language/linguistic.

So you have to keep in mind that this situation is extremely common, perhaps the
norm, given the natural human proclivity to use whatever word comes to mind first.
4) Level of Language:
Level of language is the degree of designing language to be used according to the
situation.
It’s often important to ensure consistentcy in the degree of formality or technicality.
Yet, caring extremely for it can produce overly consistent text. This has three faces:

a) On one hand, some types of writing typically do mix levels of vocabulary.

For example, In some English medical writing such as doctor’s notes, it is very common to
find different medical terms of Greco-Latin origin mixed with others of lay language.

On the other hand, It may even happen that a single concept is expressed at different levels of
language within a single text.
For example, a doctor’s letter (consulted to help revise a translation into English) referred at
one point to pneumectomy and then later to resection of the lung and later still to removal of
a portion of the lung, all of which have the same meaning. Perhaps the author was aware that
he was addressing a mixed audience of doctors and insurance agents.
b) In fairly formal writing, many writers and translators find themselves using a mixture of
contracted and uncontracted verb forms.
For example, is not or isn’t; will not or won’t; I would or I’ed. The editor or reviser may
then spend a long time changing every contracted form to its uncontracted counterpart.

c) Under the conversational influence of email and especially texting, forms of address to
strangers shifted to have a mixture of forms.
For example, Dear Mr Jones shifted to Dear Peter Jones to Dear Peter to Hi. Such
wordings which at one time were acceptable only in the spoken language came to be
accepted in more and more types of writing.

So you must realize that eliminating what you see as informality would constitute a
markedly conservative editorial approach.
 In short,
.

. ■ Consistency should not be treated as an end in

itself. Inconsistency is a problem if it creates a
communication barrier. Some kinds of consistency are
very important, others not important at all.
.