Measuring translation revision competence and post-editing competence in translation trainees: methodological issues

ABSTRACT

Translation proper is rarely the sole activity of professional translators, who regularly function also as revisers and/or post-editors. Various models of and studies into translation competence (TC), translation revision competence (TRC) and post-editing competence (PEC) exist. However, a fundamental question remains unanswered: how similar – or different – are TC, TRC and PEC? Before this question can be answered, a methodological issue must be addressed: how do we measure TRC and PEC? Using existing literature, we propose seven instruments to measure TRC and PEC. Our aim is to determine whether the instruments are exchangeable, that is, result in similar measures of the underlying variable. We conducted a small-scale study with translation trainees, who performed L1 Dutch–L2 French TR and PE tasks. The measuring instruments generated TRC scores that were significantly different and therefore not exchangeable. In contrast, PEC scores were not always significantly different. In conclusion, with measuring instruments for TRC and PEC being generally not exchangeable, it is imperative that researchers not only report on measuring instruments thoroughly in research in general, but also use measuring instruments designed according to the same principles when they investigate differences and similarities between TRC, PEC, and even TC.

KEYWORDS:

• Translation revision
• post-editing
• competence models
• quality assessment
• competence measuring instruments

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We are aware of the debate on the notion of competence in TS, especially in relation to expertise. We operationalize competence as ‘a pedagogical construct used to describe ideal skill/ability/knowledge sets for education and training purposes’ (Shreve et al., 2018, p. 47).

2 With our first RQ, we follow PACTE’s (2005) steps when they started investigating TC. One of their first objectives was indeed ‘to validate the TC measuring instruments’ (p. 610).

3 In naming each measuring instrument or indicator, we opted for the term ‘score’ because, as we will explain in Section 3, the experiments in our pilot study included tasks.

4 15 students were enrolled in the course Dutch–French Translation and Revision in 2018–2019. 11 students provided us with informed consent to use the data for the three tasks reported in this article. These tasks constituted their final evaluation for the course.

5 The Bonferroni correction is a method commonly used in statistics to reduce the negative effects of conducting multiple statistical analyses on the same dataset (Loewen & Plonsky, 2016). When researchers conduct multiple analyses on the same dataset, they run the risk of falsely determining that statistically significant relationships exist, when, in fact, they do not. Such errors are known as Type I errors. To reduce Type I error rates, researchers will use a more conservative significance level, by dividing the commonly used alpha value .05 by the number of comparisons. The resulting conservative alpha value is then used to determine the significance of p-values against.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Isabelle S. Robert

Isabelle S. Robert is a senior lecturer of French at the Department of Applied Linguistics, Translation and Interpreting at the University of Antwerp (Belgium), where she teaches undergraduate courses on French oral and written text production and in Translation Studies, and graduate courses on Dutch–French translation, revision and translation technology. Her main research interests include translation process research, audiovisual translation (interlingual live subtitling), translation revision (processes), and sight translation.

Iris Schrijver

Iris Schrijver is tenure track lecturer at the Department of Applied Linguistics, Translators and Interpreters of the University of Antwerp (Belgium). She teaches an introductory course into Translation Studies as well as introductory and advanced Spanish > Dutch translation courses in the bachelor and master programmes, including modules on technical and audiovisual translation. Her research interests concern translation competence acquisition, cognitive writing and translation processes, and interlingual live subtitling.

Jim J. Ureel

Jim J. J. Ureel is a lecturer of Applied Linguistics/Translation Studies/English at the University of Antwerp (Belgium), where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on English grammar, written and oral text production in English, Dutch–English translation and research skills. His main research interests include foreign/second language acquisition, L2 sociolinguistics, translation and cognitive load theory in instructional settings. His current research focuses on the acquisition, teaching and assessment of sociolinguistic competence in both general and specialized L2 instructional settings.