Editing is the process of examining a text with the intention of improving the flow and quality of

writing. In other words, the process of checking and improving the copywriting of a document. ...
In their work, editors can – if necessary – rewrite whole paragraphs and change the style of
the translation.

Editing in Translation: Advantages and Disadvantages in Quality Assurance

Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

1. Introduction

Editing is considered an integral part of the translating process as a step to achieve and ensure quality
given its “important functions in shaping the final TT.” (Englund Dimitrova, 2005 p. 143). In fact, the
international recognized Standard for Translation Services ISO 17100:2015 includes “Revision” as an
obligatory part of the translation process. This Revision should be done by a different person than the
translator and should be a bilingual revision in which both source and target texts are compared in order
to identify and fix possible issues contained in the translation, but also to improve it (Mossop, 2014
p.14).

To improve a translated text, a revision should not consist of a merely superficial reading of a
translation, instead it is a complex task that requires a deep knowledge of both source and target
languages, sharp analysis skills and clear understanding of the source text. In his book “Revising and
Editing for Translators” Brian Mossop lists a few elements of the many that can go wrong with a
translation: from typographical errors to format inconsistencies to grammatical problems to
inappropriate treatment of a genre, etc., (2014, pp. 18-19). In consequent chapters, he explores at least
four different broad types of editing and improving a translation:

1) Copyediting – In this category we find editing elements such as grammar, syntax and orthography
rules, along with other language general conventions and specific style guides or any other pre-set rules.
2) Stylistic Editing – which focuses on making changes that improve the text by adding a natural flow and
a better construction of sentences. Verbs and vocabulary that are not particularly incorrect may be
changed to provide more accurate solutions or simply to make a sentence sound better. 3) Structural
Editing – or rearranging the order of sentences, paragraphs and any other elements of the text to ensure
readability and a coherent and logical presentation of arguments. 4) Content Editing – which may
include adding or subtracting parts of the translation if deemed appropriate.

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In general, any written text requires a certain degree of editing to go over all the details that are
secondary at the moment of writing, when the focus is placed in generating the mental discourse and
transcribing it into paper. This applies to translation as well. When discussing “Revision”, Englund
Dimitrova speaks about two key terms, “text” and “distance”:

“The purpose of the task is to produce a text. Being a translation, this text is quite closely determined
by another text, the ST, both structurally and semantically, but the translator also sees it as necessary to
evaluate it as a coherent, complete text in the TL. […] The existence of a complete text, the TT, also
allows the translator the necessary distance. It can be a distance in time, between herself/himself and
the text (to let the text rest, to take a break), and distance in space (to let someone else read and check
the TT).” (2005, p. 144, my bold)

The translator will most likely come across many questions and opportunities to take linguistic decisions
while translating and probably will revise them several times before reaching a final alternative. In that
sense, we can say that the act of translating is at the same time an act of revising. However, even when
the translator may come back to the text later (distance in time) and fix by himself/herself many of the
possible issues not addressed initially, he/she may arrive to the same previous conclusions that may
considered erroneous by another person. The key in adding an additional and independent “Revision”
step is in the “distance in space” part, since, at that point, the text is already detached from the writing
process and more importantly from the consequential decisions taken by the translator who considered
them correct but that may be interpreted differently by someone else or that may introduce a certain
type of conflict not devised by the translator.

In the sections below, we will explore more in detail the advantages of editing and we will also explore
the possible disadvantages.

2. Advantages of Revision

There are many advantages that come to mind when thinking about revising a translated text, as it
creates an opportunity to catch any possible flaws before the translation goes to the requester of the
translation and the final audience/readers. It is important to highlight that in many cases the translation
will be delivered to a requester that cannot review the translation because he/she may not be proficient
in the language of the translation and thus, the fact that at least two linguists went through the
translation and deemed it accurate and even of a publishable standard is reassuring.

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The revision is not limited to micro or macro elements, rather it can include both and it can be tailored
according to specific characteristics of a project.

For example, in a marketing translation, the editor can focus –besides the regular orthography, grammar
checks, etc.– on things such as making sure the creative tone present in the source is properly rendered
in the target by using catchy, idiomatic phrases that may deviate from the source but that bring to life a
sentence in the TL and meet the source intention, and/or fix them, in the event that the translator
provides a more conventional or even more literal translation. Let’s consider the following sentence that
could be the headline of a bank’s publicity flyer and its translation into Spanish:

Source: Save or regret! Target: ¡Ahorre o arrepiéntase!

Even when the translation provided above is correct, the editor may feel it’s not catchy enough and that
another solution could have been provided. He/she also realizes, by the context and the friendlier tone
found in the source, that the publicity is directed to young people, which makes the formal tone found
in the translation (in the conjugation of both verbs) questionable, even when bank communications are
generally translated into a formal language.

At a word level the translation is accurate, there are no typos, nor grammatical issues, it can even be
argued that the translation is accurate. However, to improve the translation the editor decides to
change the style considering the above and implements the following change:

Final Target: ¡Ahorra o nunca! [Save or never!]

The backtranslation may sound off, however the revision provided includes a word play using the
popular expression “now or never” which in Spanish is “ahora o nunca”, hence the play between
“ahorra” (save) and “ahora” (now). The formal tone in the imperative “Ahorre” (directed to the formal
second person ‘you’ – usted), was changed to the informal “Ahorra” (directed to the informal second
person ‘you’ – tú), and “arrepiéntase” (regret) was completely changed to an alternative that still
conveys the source intention but in a more playful, catchy and persuasive manner: “save now or you will
never do”. By replacing the verb “arrepentir” (regret) by the noun “never” (nunca) and creatively
readapting the expression “now or never” the editor provides the TT

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with the agility, persuasiveness and creativity expected in an advertising translation (Torresi, 2014, p. 8)
when the original was translation too dependent on the ST.

Another advantage of Revising a translation is that due to frequent fast-paced production delivery
times, a translator may provide provisional solutions that can be afterwards double-checked by the
editor. Ideally, a translator should receive all relevant information and pre-set preferences before
starting a translation, but that is not always the case. Many times, even when all fronts are thought to
be covered, questions may still arise because “the potential for ambiguity is at the very basis of human
language and communication” (Tirkkonen-Condit, 2000, p. 125), and because concepts and ideas that
may be cut-clear in a SL may arise questions when translated. For example, if there are any queries that
are preventing a translator to deliver a translation, and such queries are very specific to the ST and
should be addressed by the client to provide clarification, and there is no immediate response from the
client, the translation could be sent to the next revision step, provided that the editor receives at some
point both the query and the answer provided by the client. Let’s consider the following sentence that
could generate confusion when translated into Spanish:

Source: We are proud to announce that our Financial Director will be participating as a lecturer at the
annual convention to be held in London.

Target: Nos complace anunciar que nuestro director financiero estará participando como conferencista
en la convención anual que se celebrará en Londres.

Due to the gender neutrality possible in the source, there is no necessity to clarify the referred financial
director’s gender. In Spanish, however, both the possessive pronoun “our” and the nouns “Financial
Director” can be either masculine or feminine. In the translation provided, the masculine version is
provided which is also considered the “neutral” option in Spanish. However, to avoid any kind of
misunderstandings, and to provide a translation that shows full understanding of the ST it would be best
to have the matter clarified. If the clarification is received once the translation is completed. The
necessary change could be implemented at the revision step.

Final Target (in the event the Financial Director was a woman): Nos complace anunciar que nuestra
directora financiera estará participando como conferencista en la convención anual que se celebrará en
Londres.

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5

The examples provided above show how a second revision can not only have a positive impact in a
translated text, but it may as well be an indispensable condition of the translating process. Of course,
there are many more advantages to this step, including the more easily recognizable ones such as
ensuring accuracy, avoiding omissions of crucial information, double-checking meaning and
understanding, revising grammatical structures, running spelling-checks, double checking names, figures
and other elements not caught by integrated spellcheck tools, ensuring readability in the TT and
appropriateness according to genre, specific guidelines, etc. All of which reinforce the argument that
revisers act as gatekeepers to enforce rules for any written text (Mossop, 2014, p. 21).

Having discussed in a broad sense some of the advantages of Revision, the question if it is possible to
find disadvantages in a process that is established and aimed to ensure quality in translation arises. We
will explore it in the following section.

3. Disadvantages of Revision

Given that Revision can be so complex and may include many different elements that may apply in
different degrees to specific translations, the process does not seem completely measurable nor
containable in exhaustive lists of “to do’s” and “not to do’s”. It seems some of the elements pertinent
to the task are more intuitive or subjective rather than purely objective when implementing corrections
and improvements. Especially when we talk about “Stylistic Editing” and “Content Editing”. A
grammatical issue or a typographical mistake is usually easily recognized as such by independent parties,
especially in languages where there is a big tradition of linguistic rules and there are language regulation
bodies such as in the case of the Spanish language where the Royal Academy of Language (RAE) dictates
many of the grammatical rules that support the use of categorical terms such as correct and incorrect
when revising a text. Style, on the other hand, can be quite different:

“The differences begin at the very beginning, as the same task can be interpreted in different ways. The
potential for difference is created by the fact that each translator chooses those linguistic expressions
which best correspond to his own interpretation of the text and of the communicative context as a
whole.” […] “Thus there are as many different products as there are translators.” (2000, Tirkkonen-
Condit. p. 124)
The reviser may disagree with some of the translation strategies adopted by the translator but that does
not imply that the translation provided is incorrect per se, nor does it always guarantee that a change
will improve an already provided translation. For example, when translating a text that contains Culture-
Specific Items (CSIs) a translator

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may choose to address certain difficulties taking different paths or following different possible
strategies, as shown below:

Source: We received five grand each to not say anything, but the money was not the point, it was a
matter of loyalty. Do you know how important is loyalty for us?

Target: A cada uno nos dieron cinco mil dólares por guardar silencio, pero no era una cuestión de dinero
sino de lealtad. ¿Sabes lo importante que es la lealtad para nosotros?

“five grand” was translated into Spanish as “five thousand dollars” following a “limited universalization”
strategy (Franco Aixelà, 1996, p. 63) by making the source text more accessible to the readers but
keeping the foreign cultural reference to “dollars” at the same time. However, the reviser thinks a
“naturalization” strategy should have been followed instead, to completely blend the term into the
receptive culture by providing a colloquial alternative and replaces “cinco mil dólares” with “una buena
pasta” (a good chunk or money). In this case, both linguistic decisions are based on a valid translation
strategy and both convey the meaning of the source. Defining if the correction was really needed seems
more difficult. Some may argue yes, some may say no, it all depends on interpretations. In any case, the
main point of the sentence and the text itself was moving forward an argument about loyalty and the
rest of details were treated as collateral, hence not of a major importance. We could say both
alternatives are correct but making too much changes at the revision step may increase the probability
of introducing new errors, such as typographic mistakes not caught by spelling-check tools or even
inconsistencies. Nonetheless, limiting the amount of changes or arguing that only objective changes
should be performed cannot be a solution, as Stylistic editing plays a major role when improving a
translation as explored in the Advantages section.

It is also relevant to point that the fact that the translation is completed first, and the revision conforms
a later step, a sense of hierarchy between the two steps is introduced, in which the translation could be
considered only as a step where a draft is produced and the revision as the step where all sort of final
decisions are taken. This idea of linguistic hierarchy could have a negative impact on translating itself, as
the translators may feel too confident with the notion that anything not fixed at the initial step will be
fixed at a later step. In this sense, Mossop remind us that: “Revising is necessary because translators
make mistakes, but it is important not to place too great a burden on it. It should not be the main way of
ensuring quality. Quality is best ensured by preventive actions: using properly trained translators, using
the right translator for a given job,

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making sure the specifications for the job are known to the translator, making sure the translator has
access to appropriate technological tools and to the necessary documentation, terminology resources,
previous translations on the subject and subject-matter experts.” (2014, p. 28). In other cases, an
excessive revision could interfere with creative processes, for example, when dealing with literary
translations, we can find cases in which a translation deliberately does not comply with common
operational norms of translation (Toury, 2012, p. 172). This is the case of some of the translations
produced by Jorge Luis Borges of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories into Spanish, which contain many
intentional alterations and omissions that a regular reviser could consider wrong arguing that the
common operational norm when translating into Spanish is to consider the TT to be subordinated to the
ST and not as an independent text. Borges believed, as stated by Efraín Kristal, that “a translation could
enrich or surpass an original” and “that a good translator might choose to treat the original as a good
writer treats a draft of a work in progress.” (2002, p. 2). This idea of treating the ST as a “draft” or “a
work in progress” opens an array of different ways to produce a translation with a very defined
personality and almost singular characteristics. Following this logic, Borges took liberties while
translating that professional translators and revisers may not completely agree with by considering
them to exceed by far the responsibilities and even the area of scope of translation. However, in such
cases, the alterations may be arguably an added value to the translated text and the revision should be
then subordinated to the original translation. It seems then, that the elements that conform Revision
could vary greatly depending on the specific needs and characteristics of a translation, and as such, it
can’t be assumed that every reviser will know exactly which approach to take or which type of editing to
focus on, and in this sense, the ability to tailor a revision which is one of the main advantages of the
step, can also present difficulties when deciding which changes are necessary or not, nor can the
amount of changes be an indication of a good or a bad revision.
Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

4. Conclusion

When it comes to Revising, it is important to understand the role it plays in the process of translating.
That is, to explore its scope and limits to reach a balanced state in which the step is used to amend the
inevitable errors found in any written text and to improve the quality of an already acceptable
translation, meanwhile understanding that: “There is no such thing as absolute quality. Different jobs
will have different quality criteria because the texts are meeting different needs.” (Mossop, 2014. P. 23)

In general, those specific needs should be properly identified to be able to tailor the editing in such a
way that unnecessary changes are minimized while focusing on key details. In the cases where many
changes are required probably the safest procedure would be to communicate some feedback to the
translator, so he/she revises and redelivers the translation based on it. Thus, the reviser should start
working on a file only when it has already reached certain acceptability standards. Revision plays a
major and complementary part in the translation process, but it may be counterproductive when not
implemented correctly, or not performed by an experienced reviser, or not tailored in the best way or
when used as a way to correct translations for which preventive measures have not been taken.

Lucia Ochoa-Figueroa

Bibliography

Englund Dimitrova, B. (2005). Expertise and Explicitation in the Translation Process. Retrieved from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/portsmouthebooks/reader.action?docID=622544

Franco Aixelà, J.F. (1996). Culture-specific Items in Translation. In R. Álvarez and M. C.-Á. Vidal (Eds.),
Translation, Power, Subversion, (pp.52-78). Retrieved from
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Tirkkonen-Condit, S. (2000). Uncertainty in Translation Processes. In S. TirkkonenCondit & R. Tirkkonen-

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