The flaws of the reviser

Finally, after describing revisers’ virtues, skills and tasks, their failings and possible mistakes need to be mentioned too. Evidently, revision does not serve its intended purpose if, as a result of the corrections, the target text is inaccurate as regards its content, or if it is stylistically and grammatically incorrect, not equivalent to the original or difficult to process for the recipient. This can happen if revisers do not correct the grammatical and translation-related errors in the translated text, fail to perform a stylistic check or if they add further errors as regards the text’s content and formatting. Revision also fails to serve its purpose if revisers retranslate the text instead of checking and correcting it, i.e. they perform unnecessary work and waste time and energy.

This usually happens to revisers who do not know what their task is. Revisers may also be blamed if they do not follow the guidelines stipulated for their assignment, miss the deadline or hinder cooperation between the participants of the translation process.

Revisers are, of course, far from infallible: they are not involved in the process because of their superior knowledge among translation professionals. They simply use other competences, make conscious decisions and employ pre-defined methods while checking and correcting a text. They need assessment for their professional development, however, in most cases they only get feedback from the readers – if there are problems with the text – because in the translation process nobody checks the text after they finish working on it. Although in most cases revision takes place without consultation with the translator (Arthern 1987), cooperating with the translator might contribute to the professional development of the reviser.

Providing and accepting sophisticated feedback based on conscious arguments as well as linguistic and professional norms instead of instinctive feelings serves the professional advancement of both parties. Consultation helps in detecting errors and prevents unnecessary, futile modifications by the reviser. It is important to keep in mind that translators and revisers are not enemies bent on dragging each other’s work through the mud. On the contrary, they have a common goal: to deliver a perfect, high-quality target text, and they do not strive to promote their own interests.

8. Conclusion

In view of the above, it can be established that translators do not necessarily possess the competence required for revision, in fact, future research may demonstrate that revisers are not necessarily excellent translators. Their work is governed by different competences, which might overlap in some cases, depending on the given task of the linguistic mediator. Revision competence is not an innate ability but a set of skills that can be acquired, learned and require development.

One of the elements of revision competence is that revisers check and correct texts by following specific principles, and all aspects of their work are permeated by consciousness. They know which parameters to take into account, and they also know what method to employ for that purpose. They can justify their decisions, and

since they do not rely on their instincts, they can give objective and constructive feedback about the text they edit. That said, they are capable of admitting their own mistakes in order to ensure the outcome of the translation process is a text of excellent quality.

References

Arthern, P. 1987. Four Eyes are Better than Two. In: Picken, C. (ed.) Translating and the Computer 8: A Profession on the Move. London: Aslib, The Association for Information Management. 14–26.

European Quality Standard. http://qualitystandard.bs.en-15038.com/

Horváth P. I. 2011. A szakfordítások lektorálása. Elmélet és gyakorlat [Revising Specialised Translations. Theory and Practice]. Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó.

Levý, J. (1967) Translation as a Decision Making Process. In: To Honor Roman Jakobson on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Vol. 2 The Hague: Mouton.

1171–82.

Mossop, B. 2001. Revising and Editing for Translators. Amsterdam: St. Jerome.

PACTE 2003. Investigating Translation Competence: Conceptual and methodological issues. Meta 50(2): 611–618.

Robin E. 2014. Fordítási univerzálék a lektorált szövegekben [Translation Universals in Revised Texts]. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Budapest: ELTE.

Venuti, L. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility. London/New York: Routledge.

Dóra Mária Tamás¹ – Eszter Papp² – András Petz³ E-mail: ¹tamas.dora.dr@mail.com;

2eszter.papp@gmail.com; ³studio@anglofon.hu

1. Introduction

The topic of this paper is two professions that are closely linked together. Of course, it might occur that a translator becomes a terminologist or the other way round, or that somebody does the two at the same time. What is more, other subject field professionals might also become terminologists or do some terminology work, but generally being a terminologist is a profession in its own right.

Taking a practical viewpoint and acknowledging that the job of the translator is more widely known, we will approach the question from the terminologist’s perspective. Let us start with a definition of terminology, the job of a terminologist, the principles and methods of terminology work, the tools used, and finally, through the eyes of the terminologist we will examine the differences and neighbouring areas.

2. Definition of modern terminology, its beginnings and