Mind the gap
The nature of machine translation post-editing
Published online: 22 September 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00288.ric
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00288.ric
Abstract
Has post-editing changed the nature of translation? Are these tasks two sides of the same coin? These are some of
the questions that recent developments in machine translation have brought to translation studies. The quality of the texts
rendered by the new neural engines is good enough to challenge the traditional role of the human translator. Some voices even
question whether there might be any place left for translators if, in the near future, their role is finally superseded by that of
the post-editor. This paper offers a comprehensive view of the many aspects of post-editing with a view to shedding some light on
the nature of this task. I first explore how the progress in machine translation has turned post-editing into an essential
activity. Then, I present a proposal for a categorization of research areas in post-editing within the framework of translation
studies. The central discussion of this paper revolves around three key ideas: (1) the conceptualization of post-editing as more
than a simple, fast and inexpensive task; (2) the framing of post-editing as a dynamic process; and (3) the claim that defining
quality in machine translation post-editing is not as straightforward as it may seem. The ultimate goal of this paper is to lay
the foundations for further discussion into what it is that post-editing means for translation studies.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.How machine translation progressed in terms of quality and post-editing became a relevant task
- 3.Machine translation post-editing in translation studies
- 4.Machine translation post-editing is more than a simple, fast and inexpensive task
- 5.Framing machine translation post-editing as a dynamic process
- 6.Quality in machine translation post-editing is a tricky issue
- 7.Concluding remarks
- Notes
References
References (99)
Allen, Jeff. 2001. “Post-editing
or Not Post-editing?” International Journal for Language and
Documentation 81: 41–42. [URL]
Aragonés Lumeras, Maite, and Andy Way. 2017. “On
the Complementarity between Human Translators and Machine Translation.” Hermes: Journal of
Language and Communication in
Business 561: 21–42.
Bowker, Lynne. 2019. “Fit-for-purpose
Translation.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and
Technology, edited by Minako O’Hagan, 453–568. London: Routledge.
Bowker, Lynne, and Jairo Buitrago Ciro. 2019. Machine
Translation and Global Research: Towards Improved Machine Translation Literacy in the Scholarly
Community. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited.
Bundgaard, Kristine, and Tina Paulsen Christensen. 2019. “Is
the Concordance Feature the New Black?: A Workplace Study of Translators’ Interaction with Translation Resources While
Post-editing TM and MT Matches.” JosTrans: Journal of Specialised
Translation 311: 14–37.
Canfora, Carmen, and Angelika Ottmann. 2020. “Risks
in Neural Machine Translation.” Translation
Spaces 9 (1): 58–77.
Carl, Michael, Barbara Dragsted, Jakob Elming, Daniel Hardt, and Arnt Lykke Jakobsen. 2011. “The
Process of Post-Editing: A Pilot Study.” Copenhagen Studies in
Language 411: 131–142.
Castilho, Sheila, Stephen Doherty, Federico Gaspari, and Joss Moorkens. 2018. “Approaches
to Human and Machine Translation Quality Assessment.” In Translation
Quality Assessment. From Principles to Practice, edited by by Joss Moorkens, Sheila Castilho, Federico Gaspari, and Stephen Doherty, 9–38. Cham: Springer.
Castilho, Sheila, Natália Resende, and Rusland Mitkov. 2019. “What
Influences the Features of Post-Editese? A Preliminary
Study.” In Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Human-Informed
Translation and Interpreting Technology
HiT-IT, 5–6 September, Varna, Bulgaria, 19–27. Shoumen: Incoma Ltd.
Christensen, Tina Paulsen, Marian Flanagan, and Anne Schjoldager. 2017. “Mapping
Translation Technology Research in Translation Studies.” Hermes: Journal of Language and
Communication in
Business 561: 7–20.
Cid-Leal, Pilar, María-Carmen Espín-García, and Marisa Presas. 2020. “Traducción automática y posedición: perfiles y competencias en los programas de formación de
traductores” [Machine translation and post-editing: Profiles and skills in
translator training programs]. MonTI: Monografías de Traducción e
Interpretación [MonTI: Monographs of translation and
interpretation] 111: 187–214.
Daems, Joke, Sonia Vandepitte Robert Hartsuker, and Lieve Macken. 2015. “The
Impact of Machine Translation Error Types on Post-editing Effort
Indicators.” In Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Post-editing
Technology and
Practice, 30 October–3 November, Miami, USA. [URL]
Daems, Joke, Orphee de Clercq, and Lieve Macken. 2017. “Translationese
and Post-editese: How Comparable Is Comparable Quality?” Linguistica
Antverpiensia 161: 89–103.
de Almeida, Giselle. 2013. “Translating
the Post-editor: An Investigation of Post-editing Changes and Correlations with Professional Experience across two Romance
Languages.” Ph.D. diss., Dublin City University.
de la Fuente, Rubén, ed. 2012. “Post-editing,
a Paradigm Shift?,” special issue, Revista
Tradumàtica 101: 147–243.
do Carmo, Félix. 2017. “Post-editing:
A Theoretical and Practical Challenge for Translation Studies and Machine Learning.” Ph.D.
diss., Universida de Oporto.
. 2020. “‘Time
Is Money’ and the Value of Translation.” Translation
Spaces 9 (1): 35–57.
do Carmo, Félix, and Joss Moorkens. 2021. “Differentiating
Editing, Post-editing and Revision.” In Translation Revision and
Post-editing, edited by Maarit Koponen, Brian Mossop, Isabelle Robert, Giovanna Scocchera, 35–49. London, Routledge.
ELIS. 2022. European Language Industry
Survey: Trends, Expectations, and Concerns of the European Language Industry. [URL]
Flanagan, Marian, and Tina Paulsen Christensen. 2014. “Testing
Post-editing Guidelines: How Translation Trainees Interpret Them and How to Tailor Them for Translator Training
Purposes.” The Interpreter and Translator
Trainer 8 (2): 257–275.
Forcada, Mikel, and Felipe Sánchez-Martínez. 2015. “A
General Framework for Minimizing Translation Effort: Towards a Principled Combination of Translation Technologies in
Computer-aided Translation.” In Proceedings of the 18th Annual
Conference of the European Association for Machine
Translation, 11–13 May, Antalya, Turkey, edited by İlknur Durgar El-Kahlout, Mehmed Özkan, Felipe Sánchez-Martínez, Gema Ramírez-Sánchez, Fred Hollowood, and Andy Way, 27–34. [URL]
Garcia, Ignacio. 2011. “Translating
by Post-editing: Is It the Way forward?” Machine
Translation 25 (3): 217–237.
García Yebra, Valentín. 1979. “¿Cicerón y Horacio preceptistas de la traducción?” [Cicero and
Horace as preceptors of translation?]. Cuadernos de filología
clásica [Notebooks of classical
philology] 161: 139–154. [URL]
Gellerstam, Martin. 1986. “Translationese
in Swedish Novels Translated from English.” In Proceedings from
Scandinavian Symposium on Translation Theory
II, 14–15 June, Lund, Sweden, 88–95. Lund: CWK Gleerup.
Ginovart, Clara, and Antoni Oliver. 2020. “The
Post-editor’s Skill Set according to Industry, Trainers and
Linguists.” In Maschinelle Übersetzung für
Übersetzungsprofis [Machine translation for translation
professionals], edited by Jörg Portsiel. Berlin: BDÜ Weiterbildungs- und Fachverlagsgesellschaft mbh. [URL]
Ginovart Cid, Clara, Carme Colominas, and Antoni Oliver. 2020. “Language
Industry Views on the Profile of the Post-editor.” Translation
Spaces 9 (2): 283–313.
Guerberof Arenas, Ana. 2013. “What
Do Professional Translators Think about Post-editing?.” JosTrans: Journal of Specialised
Translation 191: 75–95.
. 2014. “Correlations
between Productivity and Quality When Post-editing in a Professional Context.” Machine
Translation 281: 165–186.
Guerberof Arenas, Ana, and Joss Moorkens. 2019. “Machine
Translation and Post-editing Training as Part of a Master’s Programme.” JosTrans: Journal of
Specialised
Translation 311: 217–238.
Hu, Ke, and Patrick Cadwell. 2016. “A
Comparative Study of Post-editing Guidelines.” In Proceedings of the
19th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation, in Baltic Journal of Modern
Computing 4 (2): 346–353. [URL]
ISO18587. 2017. International Standard:
Translation Services – Post-editing of Machine Translation Output – Requirements.
Kenny, Dorothy. 2018. “Sustaining
Disruption?: On the Transition from Statistical to Neural Machine Translation.” Revista
Tradumàtica 161: 59–70.
Kenny, Dorothy, Joss Moorkens, and Félix do Carmo. 2020. “Fair
MT: Towards Ethical, Sustainable Machine Translation.” Translation
Spaces 9 (1): 1–11.
Koglin, Arlene, and Rossana Cuhna. 2019. “Investigating
the Post-editing Effort Associated with Machine-translated Metaphors: A Process-driven
Analysis.” JosTrans: Journal of Specialised
Translation 311: 38–59.
Koponen, Maarit. 2016. “Is
Machine Translation Post-editing Worth the Effort?: A Survey of Research into Post-editing and
Effort?.” JosTrans: Journal of Specialised
Translation 251: 131–148.
Koponen, Maarit, Brian Mossop, Isabelle Robert, and Giovanna Scocchera, eds. 2021. Translation
Revision and Post-editing: Industry Practices and Cognitive
Processes. London: Routledge.
Krings, Hans P. 2001. Repairing Texts: Empirical
Investigations of Machine-translation Post-editing Processes, edited by Geoffrey S. Koby. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.
Lacruz, Isabel, and Gregory M. Shreve. 2014. “Pauses
and Cognitive Effort in Post-editing.” In Post-editing of Machine
Translation: Processes and Applications, edited by Sharon O’Brien, Laura Winther Balling, Michael Carl, Michel Simard and Lucia Specia, 246–273. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Lacruz, Isabel, Michael Carl, and Masaru Yamada. 2018. “Literality
and Cognitive Effort: Japanese and Spanish.” In Proceedings of
Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC
2018), 7–12 May, Miyazaki, Japan, edited by Nicoletta Calzolari, Khalid Choukri, Christopher Cieri, Thierry Declerck, Sara Goggi, Koiti Hasida, Hitoshi Isahara, Bente Maegaard, Joseph Mariani, Hélène Mazo, Asuncion Moreno, Jan Odijk, Stelios Piperidis, Takenobu Tokunaga, 3818–3821. N.p.: European Language Resources Association (ELRA). [URL]
Läubli, Samuel, Rico Sennrich, and Martin Volk. 2018. “Has
Machine Translation Achieved Human Parity?: A Case for Document-level
Evaluation.” In Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Empirical
Methods in Natural Language
Processing, 31 October–4 November, Brussels, Belgium, 4791–4796. Stroudsburg, PA: Association for Computational Linguistics.
Läubli, Samuel, Chantal Amrhein, Patrick Düggelin, Beatriz Gonzalez, Alena Zwahlen, and Martin Volk. 2019. “Post-editing
Productivity with Neural Machine Translation: An Empirical Assessment of Speed and Quality in the Banking and Finance
Domain.” In Proceedings of Machine Translation Summit XVII Volume 1:
Research Track, Dublin, Ireland, edited
by Mikel Forcada, Andy Way, Barry Haddow, Rico Sennrich, 267–272. N.p.: European Association for Machine Translation. [URL]
Mah, Seung-Hye. 2020. “Defining
Language Dependent Post-editing Guidelines for Specific Content. The Case of the English–Korean Pair to Improve Literature
Machine Translation
Styles.” Babel 66 (4–5): 811–828.
Maučec, Mirjam Sepesy, and Gregor Donaj. 2020. “Machine
Translation and the Evaluation of Its Quality.” In Recent Trends in
Computational Intelligence, edited by Ali Sadollah and Tilendra Shishir Sinha, n.p. London: IntechOpen. [URL]
Mesa-Lao, Bartolomé. 2013. Introduction
to Post-editing. The CasMaCat GUI. SEECAT project. Center for Research and Innovation in Translation and Translation Technology. Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. [URL]
Moorkens, Joss, Sharon O’Brien, Igor A. L. da Silva, Norma B. de Lima Fonseca, and Fabio Alves. 2015. “Correlations
of Perceived Post-editing Effort with Measurements of Actual Effort.” Machine
Translation 291: 267–284.
Moorkens, Joss, and Sharon O’Brien. 2017. “Assessing
User Interface Needs of Post-Editors of Machine
Translation.” In Human Issues in Translation
Technology, edited by Dorothy Kenny, 109–130. London and New York: Routledge.
Moorkens, Joss, Sheila Castilho, Federico Gaspari, and Stephen Doherty, eds. 2018a. Translation
Quality Assessment: From Principles to
Practice. Cham: Springer.
Moorkens, Joss, Antonio Toral, Sheila Castilho, and Andy Way. 2018b. “Translators’
Perceptions of Literary Post-editing Using Statistical and Neural Machine
Translation.” Translation
Spaces 7 (2): 240–262.
Moorkens, Joss. 2020. “A
Tiny Cog in a Large Machine: Digital Taylorism in the Translation Industry.” Translation
Spaces 9 (1): 12–34.
Hadley, James, Maja Popović, Haithem Afli, Andy Way, eds. 2019. In
Proceedings of the Qualities of Literary Machine Translation. Machine Translation
Summit 2019, 19
August, Dublin, Ireland. N.p.: European Association for Machine Translation. [URL]
National Research Council. 1966. Language
and Machines: Computers in Translation and Linguistics. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Nayek, Tapas, Sudip Kumar Naskar, Santanu Pal, Marcos Zampieri, Mihaela Vela, Josef van Genabith. 2015. “CATaLog:
New Approaches to TM and Post Editing Interfaces.” In Proceedings of
the Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Translation Memories (NLP4TM), Hissar, Bulgaria, 36–42, Constantin Orasan, Rohit Gupta. N.p.: Association for Computational Linguistics. [URL]
Nitzke, Jean. 2019. Problem
Solving Activities in Post-editing and Translation from Scratch: A Multi-method
Study. Berlin: Language Science Press.
O’Brien, Sharon. 2002. “Teaching
Post-editing: A Proposal for Course Content.” In Proceedings of the
6th EAMT Workshop: Teaching Machine
Translation, 14–15 November, Manchester, UK. N.p.: European Association for Machine Translation. [URL]
. 2005. “Methodologies
for Measuring the Correlations between Post-editing Effort and Machine
Translatability.” Machine
Translation 19 (1): 37–58.
. 2006. “Pauses
as Indicators of Cognitive Effort in Post-editing Machine Translation Output.” Across Languages
and
Cultures 7 (1): 1–21.
. 2007. “An
Empirical Investigation of Temporal and Technical Post-editing Effort.” Translation and
Interpreting Studies: The Journal of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies
Association 2 (1): 83–136.
O’Brien, Sharon, and Joss Moorkens. 2014. “Towards
Intelligent Post-editing Interfaces.” In Proceedings of the FIT 20th
World Congress, 4–6 August, Berlin Germany.
O’Brien, Sharon, and Michel Simard. 2014. “Post-editing,” special
issue, Machine
Translation 28 (3–4): 159–339.
O’Brien, Sharon, Laura Winther Balling, Michael Carl, Michel Simard, and Lucia Specia. 2014. Post-editing
of Machine Translation: Processes and Applications. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
O’Brien, Sharon, Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow, Marcel Hasler, and Megan Connolly. 2017. “Irritating
CAT Tool Features that Matter to Translators.” Hermes: Journal of Language and Communication in
Business 561: 145–162.
O’Brien, Sharon, and Owen Conlan. 2019. “Moving
towards Personalising Translation Technology.” In Moving Boundaries
in Translation Studies, Helle V. Dam, Matilde Nisbeth Brøgger, Karen Korning Zethsen, 81–97. London: Routledge.
O’Brien, Sharon, and Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow. 2020. “MT
Literacy: A Cognitive View.” Translation, Cognition and
Behavior 3 (2): 145–164.
O’Brien, Sharon. 2021. “Post-editing:
Is That Even the Right Word for the Future?.” Speech delivered
at DGT-Vilnius University, 5 March 2021.
Parra Escartín, Carla, and Helena Moniz. 2019. “Ethical
Considerations on the Use of Machine Translation and Crowdsourcing in Cascading
Crises.” In Translation in Cascading
Crisis, edited by Federico M. Federici and Sharon O’Brien, 132–151. London: Routledge.
Pérez Macías, Lorena. 2020. “What
Do Translators Think About Post-Editing?: A Mixed-Methods Study of Translators’ Fears, Worries and Preferences on Machine
Translation Post-Editing.” Revista
Tradumàtica 181: 11–32.
Plaza-Lara, Cristina. 2019. “Análisis
DAFO sobre la inclusión de la traducción automática y la posedición en los másteres de la red
EMT.” JosTrans: Journal of Specialised
Translation 311: 260–280.
. 2020. “How
Does Machine Translation and Post-editing Affect Project Management?: An Interdisciplinary
Approach.” Hikma 19 (2): 163–182.
Pym, Anthony, and Esther Torres-Simón. 2021. “Efectos de la automatización en las competencias básicas del traductor: la traducción automática
neuronal” [Effects of automation on the translator’s core competencies:
Neural machine translation]. In Ocupaciones y lenguaje:
Indicadores y análisis de competencias lingüísticas en el ámbito laboral [Language
professionals: Indicators and analysis of language competences in the workplace], edited
by Antoni Vidal Suñe and Amado Alarcón, 475–506. Tarragona: Universitat Rovira i Virgili.
Rico, Celia. 2012. “A
Flexible Decision Tool for Implementing Post-editing Guidelines.” Localisation
Focus 11 (1): 54–66.
. 2017. “La formación de traductores en traducción automática” [Training translators in machine translation]. Revista
Tradumàtica 151: 75–96.
Rico, Celia, and M. Ariano. 2014. “Defining
Language Dependent Post-editing Rules: The Case of the Language Pair
English-Spanish.” In Post-editing of Machine Translation: Processes
and Applications, edited by Sharon O’Brien, Laura Winther Balling, Michael Carl, Michel Simard and Lucia Specia, 299–322. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Rico, Celia, and Enrique Torrejón. 2012. “Skills
and Profile of the New Role of the Translator as MT Post-editor.” Revista
Tradumàtica 101: 166–178.
Risku, Hanna. 2010. “A
Cognitive Scientific View on Technical Communication and Translation: Do Embodiment and Situatedness Really Make a
Difference?” Target: International Journal of Translation
Studies 22 (1): 94–111.
Rozmyslowicz, Tomasz. 2014. “Machine
Translation: A Problem for Translation Theory.” New Voices in Translation
Studies 111: 145–163. [URL]
Sakamoto, Akiko. 2019. “Why
Do Many Translators Resist Post-editing?: A Sociological Analysis Using Bourdieu’s
Concepts.” JosTrans: Journal of Specialised
Translation 311: 201–216.
Sakamoto, Akiko, and Masura Yamada. 2020. “Social
Groups in Machine Translation Post-editing: A SCOT Analysis.” Translation
Spaces 9 (1): 78–97.
Sakamoto, Akiko, Jonathan Evans, and Olga Torres Hostench. 2018. “Translation
and Disruption.” Revista
Tradumàtica 161: 52–58.
Sánchez-Gijón, Pilar. 2016. “La posedición: hacia una definición competencial del perfil y una descripción multidimensional del
fenómeno” [Post-editing: Towards a competency-based definition of the
profile and a multidimensional description of the phenomenon]. Sendebar: Revista de
Traducción e Interpretación [Sendebar: Journal of translation and
interpreting] 271: 151–162.
Sánchez-Gijón, Pilar, and R. Piqué Huerta, R. 2020. “Conseqüències de la traducció automàtica neuronal sobre les llengües
d’arribada” [Consequences of neural machine translation on target
languages]. Revista
Tradumàtica 181: 1–10.
Screen, Ben. 2019. “What
Effect Does Post-editing Have on the Translation Product from an End-user’s
Perspective?” JosTrans: Journal of Specialised
Translation 311: 133–157.
Silva, Roberto. 2014. “Integrating
Post-Editing MT in a Professional Translation
Workflow.” In Post-editing of Machine Translation: Processes and
Applications, edited by Sharon O’Brien, Laura Winther Balling, Michael Carl, Michel Simard and Lucia Specia, 24–50. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Simianer, Patrick, Sariya Karimova, and Stefan Riezler. 2004. “A
Post-editing Interface for Immediate Adaptation in Statistical Machine
Translation.” In Proceedings of COLING 2016, the 26th International
Conference on Computational Linguistics: System
Demonstrations, 11–16 December, Osaka, Japan, 16–20. [URL]
Toral, Antonio. 2019. “Post-editese:
An Exacerbated Translationese.” In Proceedings of Machine Translation
Summit XVII Volume 1: Research
Track, 19–23 August, Dublin Ireland, edited Mikel Forcada, Andy Way, Barry Haddow, and Rico Sennrich, 273–281. N.p.: European Association for Machine Translation. [URL]
. 2020. “Reassessing
Claims of Human Parity and Super-Human Performance in Machine
Translation.” In 22nd Annual Conference of the European Association
for Machine Translation EAMT, 3–5 November, Lisboa, Portugal, edited by André Martins et al., 185–194. N.p.: European Association for Machine Translation. [URL]
Toral, Antonio, and Andy Way. 2015. “Machine-assisted
Translation of Literary Text: A Case Study.” Translation
Spaces 4 (2): 240–267.
Toral, Antonio, Martijn Wieling and Andy Way. 2018. “Post-editing
Effort of a Novel with Statistical and Neural Machine Translation.” Frontiers in Digital
Humanities 151.
Torrejón Díaz, Enrique, and Celia Rico. 2002. “Controlled
Translation: A New Teaching Scenario Tailor-made for the Translation
Industry.” In Proceedings of the 6th EAMT Workshop: Teaching Machine
Translation, 14–15 November, Manchester UK, 107–116. N.p.: European Association for Machine Translation. [URL]
Torres-Hostench, Olga, Marisa Presas, and Pilar Cid-Leal. 2016. El uso de traducción automática y posedición en las empresas de servicios lingüísticos españolas: Informe de
investigación ProjecTA 2015 [The use of machine translation and post-editing in
Spanish language service companies: ProjecTA research report
2015]. Bellaterra. [URL]
Vasconcellos, Muriel, and Marjorie León. 1987. “SPANAM
and ENGSPAN: Machine Translation in a Combined Language Service at the Pan American Health
Organization.” In Machine Translation Systems: Survey and Selected
Papers, edited by Jonathan Slocum, 187–235. London and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Vieira, Lucas Nunes. 2019. “Post-editing
of Machine Translation.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and
Technology, edited by Minako O’Hagan, 319–336. London: Routledge.
Vieira, Lucas Nunes, Elisa Alonso, and Lindsay Bywood. 2019. “Post-editing
in Practice: Process, product and networks.” JosTrans: Journal of Specialised
Translation 311: 2–13.
Voigt, Rob, and Dan Jurafsky. 2012. “Towards
a Literary Machine Translation: The Role of Referential
Cohesion.” In Proceedings of the NAACL-HLT 2012 Workshop on
Computational Linguistics for
Literature, 8 June, Montréal, Canada, edited by David Elson, Anna Kazantseva, Rada Mihalcea, and Stan Szpakowicz, 18–25. Stroudsburg PA: Association for Computational Linguistics. [URL]
Way, Andy. 2013. “Traditional
and Emerging Use-cases for Machine Translation.” In Proceedings of
Translating and the
Computer 351, 28–29 November, London UK. [URL]