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 similaror differentare 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.
As expert intercultural communicators, translators constantly face the challenges of comprehending and producing language that is stylistically appropriate in various communicative contexts. To scale these challenges, they must acquire advanced levels of sociolinguistic competence. Although sociolinguistic competence is considered an essential component of translation competence, to date no study has investigated how sociolinguistic competence, in the form of sensitivity to grammatical (in)formality, develops in translation trainees. Using style-based grammaticality judgement tasks, we collected data from 21 Dutchspeaking undergraduate trainees over a three-year period. We asked participants to revise sentences for style and investigated their accommodative competence in L2 English. We looked at participants' ability to accommodate language to social context through style-shifting, mapping how they detected and/or corrected (in)appropriateness in formal contexts. Our results show that trainees' overall accommodative competence initially improves, but subsequently stagnates. In the final year of testing, they barely score 50%. Receptive and productive sensitivity to grammatical (in)appropriateness follow similar developments, with trainees consistently performing better for receptive than for productive sensitivity. Our findings highlight the need to design effective sociolinguistically responsive (foreign-language) instruction in translation training to further develop sensitivity to grammatical (in)formality and to heighten sociolinguistic awareness and the controlled use of stylistic variation.
Translation proper is rarely the sole activity that translators undertake in today’s translation market. Translators regularly function as revisers or post-editors, requiring them to check human or machine translations to make or recommend changes to improve translation quality. Various construct and performance models of and studies into translation competence (TC), translation revision competence (TRC), and post-editing competence (PEC) exist. However, a fundamental question remains unanswered to date: how similar or different TC, TRC, and PEC are. Using indirect translations (L1 Dutch, L2 French), we collected and analyzed translation, translation revision (TR), and post-editing (PE) data from 11 graduate translation trainees. Our exploratory study shows that TRC and PEC appear to have different competences, with trainees performing better for TR than PE. However, TRC and PEC do appear to have a common core, which does not differ significantly across tasks: problem detection.
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