The professional translation workflow includes a revision stage in which another translation professional reads the translation. This has usually been conceptualised as checking or proofreading. According to Korhonen, however, the translator and the reviser engage in close cognitive collaboration: both participants adjust their effort in accordance with the project’s requirements and define the scope of their own work in a flexible manner. The participants also negotiate the distribution of the work throughout the working processes, and the final task division can only be witnessed as the work is completed. Furthermore, the process is firmly tied to the properties and affordances of the tools.
“AI tools are being adopted in the world of professional translation, which makes it crucial that we have up-to-date knowledge of how translators work, particularly on their use of digital tools. The properties and user interfaces of software applications, communication channels as well as the file types have a major impact on the working procedures of translators as well as on how they collaborate. Language service companies must therefore take the digital working environment into account when designing their workflows,” Annamari Korhonen says.
A shared, distributed process
In her PhD thesis, Korhonen studied translation as cognitive work shared between two participants who communicate and negotiate the work between them. This close relationship does not, however, require that the participants would be working in the same space or that they would necessarily even communicate face to face, by phone or even using messaging applications. Instead, the communication between them takes place within the text file which they work on. Negotiation of the distribution of labour also takes place in the same file. In order to trace the path and characteristics of the cognitive collaboration, the file should therefore be seen not only as a tool but also as a communicative device.
“Cognitive processes of translation professionals have usually been investigated in experiments that have taken place in a more or less controlled environment. However, to reveal the role of the tools and the collaborative processes, we must use a situated approach and see translation as cognitive action that changes with the tools and takes place in teams,” Korhonen says.
As the translated text genres and subject matters vary greatly and the schedules of professional translation are typically very tight, it is not always possible to secure both a translator and a reviser who would be experts in the topic or the genre and would also possess all the other areas of expertise that could prove useful for the specific task. While this must be accepted in many cases, it is nevertheless important that the competence profiles are complementary: at least one of the participants must be familiar with the topic and the client’s terminological preferences. Linguistic competence must also be taken into consideration: if the translator translates into their second language, the reviser should ideally be a native speaker of that language. In such a case, the translator carries the main responsibility for accurate translation, and the reviser ensures a fluent and idiomatic target text.
Creative problem-solving by both the translator and the reviser
Translation work essentially consists of developing and assessing translation solutions and searching for information. The reviser also engages in the same processes, producing new solutions and evaluating them together with the solutions offered by the translator. Translation revision should thus not be seen as checking or proofreading; instead, it should be understood as translation work that also includes creative thinking. Both the translator and the reviser perform tasks that require functional or responsive creativity, characterised by fulfilling a specific assignment.
“Creativity is a component of many professional tasks. Instead of talking about creative versus not creative work, we should rather consider the different types of creativity required by different kinds of work. Translation professionals’ work is creative, even if they might not always recognise it as such,” Korhonen says.
Public defence on Friday 15 March
The doctoral dissertation of MA Annamari Korhonen in the field of translation studies entitled Translation Revision as Part of Cognitive Translatorial Collaboration will be publicly examined at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences of Tampere University in room Pinni B 1096 (address: Kanslerinrinne 1, Tampere) at 12:00 on Friday 15 March 2024. The Opponent will be Professor Sharon O’Brien from Dublin City University, Ireland. The Custos will be Professor Kaisa Koskinen from Tampere University.