A Study of Translators’ Revision Processes of Different Text Types

• Main Authors: Liaw, Hsuan-Hsin, 廖玄心
• Other Authors: Liao, Po-sen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/47xm89

碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 翻譯研究所 === 105 === This study utilizes think-aloud protocol (TAP) to probe into the influence that text types have on translators during their revision process. Seven participants were asked to translate three texts of different text types and then revise their translations using TAP. All participants have at least two years of training in translation and have indicated translation as their primary source of income over the past year. The texts chosen for this study include an excerpt from a news report, a short poem, and a cosmetics advertisement, representing the three text types (informative, expressive, and operative) proposed by German linguist and translation scholar Katherina Reiss in 1971. The results show that the average number of corrections per line made by each participant did not vary significantly with text type. When revising informative texts, their focus gravitated towards error checking the first draft of the translation. This group tended to be most proficient at identifying and explaining translation mistakes. For expressive and operative texts, rather than correcting the translation per se, most people in the study was inclined to refine the translation and make it sound more creative, to the point that edits were made even when the participants themselves thought the edits were not strictly speaking necessary. The study also shows that some edits were avoided specifically due to text type, and lastly, that some participants have certain blind spots when revising the translation, leaving binary errors still to be found in the finished translation. This investigation is perhaps the first in Taiwan into the role that text types play in the revision process for translations and it illustrates that it is indeed an important factor to keep in mind when revising a translation.