Doctoral Degrees (General Linguistics)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (General Linguistics) by browse.metadata.advisor "Feinauer, A. E."

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    Revisie : een aspek van kwaliteitbestuur in ’n akademiese vertaalkantoor
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Van Rensburg, Alta; Feinauer, A. E.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study takes a closer look at and discusses revision as one of the aspects of quality management in the context of academic translation offices at higher education institutions. Key quality management steps were identified from an analysis of five quality standards for the translation industry. The extent to which revision, being one of these key steps, is applied in practice is discussed based on a survey of ten translation offices. Although quality standards such as ISO 17100 (2015) require revision of all translated documents, empirical studies have shown that even seasoned translators and revisers both overlook errors and add new ones. Therefore, it is vital to establish the effectiveness of revision as a measure of quality control. This study accomplishes that by examining (i) the impact of revision on translation quality, (ii) the impact of the reviser’s profile on revision quality, and (iii) the impact of revision procedure on revision quality. The theoretical basis comprises literature on revision, translation quality underlying revision, and functionalist translation approaches where the focus on the aim and broad production process of a translation corresponds with the quality management approach prescribed by translation industry standards. A mixed-method approach was followed by including both qualitative and quantitative data in the empirical study. Thirty revisers revised an examination paper that had been translated from English into Afrikaans. This was done based on a revision brief, the source text, the translation brief and revision principles. The revisers completed two questionnaires that collected data on their respective profiles and revision procedures. The quality of the draft Afrikaans translation (prior to revision) and the translation products (Afrikaans target texts following revision) was rated by five assessors to determine the impact of revision on the quality of the translation product. This assessment was done based on the rating tool proposed by Colina (2009), which was slightly modified for purposes of this empirical study. Three linguists determined the quality of the revision product using two assessment tools, namely descriptive categories and a formula that quantified the quality of the revision product. It was found that revision indeed had a positive impact on translation quality and may therefore be used as a quality control measure in academic translation offices. There seemed to be little correlation between the reviser’s profile and revision quality, while revision procedure had a much greater impact on revision quality. The study also showed that the revisers had overlooked multiple errors. Therefore, it is recommended that revisers be specifically trained in revision, and that revision should constitute only one aspect of a translation office’s quality management regime.