The impact of specialised translator training and professional experience on legal translation quality assurance: an empirical study of revision performance

Abstract

The relevance of translation and law degrees as pathways to professional legal translation is the subject of persistent debate, but there is limited research on the relationship between legal translators’ backgrounds and competence levels in practice. This study compares the revision performance of several groups of institutional translators (44 in total) according to their academic backgrounds (legal translation specialisation, translation degrees with no legal specialisation, law degrees or other degrees) and legal translation experience (more or less than three years). The scores of justified, missing and over-corrections, among other indicators, corroborate the crucial impact of legal translation specialisation and subject-matter knowledge in ensuring legal translation quality, while experience can serve to partially fill certain training deficits. Qualified translators with a legal specialisation stood out as the most efficient revisers, followed by law graduates, translation graduates without a legal specialisation and other translators. A subsequent holistic assessment of the revised target text yielded results globally in line with the revision scores, as well as mixed perceptions of the target text as potential machine output. The findings support the added value of legal translator training, and are of relevance for translator recruitment and workflow management. They also challenge the rationale behind ISO 20771:2020 qualification requirements.

Revisiting translator competence in the age of artificial intelligence: the case of legal and institutional translation

“…In sum, these findings depict a clear connection between training in specialised translation and translation experience, and greater awareness of translation sub-competences to ensure product quality in general, as well as higher awareness of the most distinctive competence components in a specialised field such as legal translation. In turn, greater awareness of what is required to achieve translation quality is expected to be reflected in expert performance levels, something that deserves more empirical research (see Prieto Ramos and Guzmán 2024 ).…”

“…revision but also review or other quality checks) as part of strategic or methodological competence in Prieto Ramos ( 2011 ). The same caveat applies to specific qualifications recommended in ISO standards, which deserve specific attention and are not discussed in competence descriptors (see discussion in Prieto Ramos and Guzmán 2024 ).…”