The translator–reviser relationship in specialised translation: Insights from an interview study

2.1The translator–reviser relationship in the literature

The relationship between translators and revisers is tackled in revision handbooks, revision competence models, works from practitioners, as well as empirical studies, mainly in the field of literary translation.

As for handbooks, Horguelin and Pharand (2009)Horguelin, Paul A., and Michelle Pharand 2009 Pratique de la révision [Revision practices]. 4th ed. Montréal: Linguatech. devote an entire chapter to the subject. This attention to the social dimension is logical since didactic revision has a key role in the book. ‘Didactic revision’ consists of making suggestions and corrections to the draft translation in order to improve the translator’s skills. In this type of revision, the reviser is encouraged to explain the changes to the translator, as learning is enhanced when the rationale behind the changes is made clear to the translator (see Horguelin and Pharand 2009Horguelin, Paul A., and Michelle Pharand 2009 Pratique de la révision [Revision practices]. 4th ed. Montréal: Linguatech., 3–4, 41–43; and in English, Brunette 2000Brunette, Louise 2000 “Towards a Terminology for Translation Quality Assessment.” The Translator 6 (2): 169–182. , 170–171). In addition, Horguelin and Pharand (2009Horguelin, Paul A., and Michelle Pharand 2009 Pratique de la révision [Revision practices]. 4th ed. Montréal: Linguatech., 80–81) list the qualities that a reviser must have to do a good job: judgement, sociability, respect of others, modesty, and patience. Under sociability, they include the ability to show empathy and diplomacy. In his handbook, Mossop (2020Mossop, Brian 2020 Revising and Editing for Translators. 4th ed. Abingdon: Routledge., 198–203) addresses the relationships between translators and revisers and gives advice to revisers. He argues that translators and revisers are not competing to determine who translates better. In addition, revisers should bear in mind that the translator is a ‘qualified writer’ who knows more about the text. They have to accept approaches to translation and stylistic choices that are different from their own and should be able to justify the vast majority of changes, keeping in mind that ‘it sounds better my way’ is not a valid justification. Mossop adds that changes based on personal preferences are detrimental to relationships. According to him, being able to explain changes is a way of earning respect from revisees, as is acknowledging one’s mistakes.

Three existing revision competence models put considerable weight on skills related to the translator–reviser relationship. In the first model (Künzli 2006bKünzli, Alexander 2006b “Teaching and Learning Translation Revision: Some Suggestions Based on Evidence from a Think-Aloud Protocol Study.” In Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning, edited by Mark Garant, 9–23. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press.), interpersonal competence is one of three key competences, along with strategic competence and professional and instrumental competence. In the second model (Hansen 2008Hansen, Gyde 2008 “The Speck in Your Brother’s Eye — the Beam in Your Own: Quality Management in Translation and Revision.” In Efforts and Models in Interpreting and Translation Research: A Tribute to Daniel Gile, edited by Gyde Hansen, Andrew Chesterman, and Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast, 255–280. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ), the two competences specific to revision, as opposed to translation, relate to developing a positive relationship with the translator: the ability to show fairness and tolerance, and the ability to explain the changes made to the translation. The third model (Robert, Remael, and Ureel 2017Robert, Isabelle S., Aline Remael, and Jim J. J. Ureel 2017 “Towards a Model of Translation Revision Competence.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 11 (1): 1–19. ), based on the first two, features an interpersonal sub-competence as well as psycho-physiological components, which in addition to an ability to show fairness and tolerance, as proposed by Hansen (2008)Hansen, Gyde 2008 “The Speck in Your Brother’s Eye — the Beam in Your Own: Quality Management in Translation and Revision.” In Efforts and Models in Interpreting and Translation Research: A Tribute to Daniel Gile, edited by Gyde Hansen, Andrew Chesterman, and Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast, 255–280. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , also include more general attitudes like patience or respect for others.

Practitioners who have written on revision have called on both of the actors involved to communicate: Graham (1989Graham, John D. 1989 “Checking, Revision and Editing.” In The Translator’s Handbook, edited by Catriona Picken, 59–70. London: Aslib., 64) recommends organising discussions between the translator and reviser after revision and considers tact and diplomacy as fundamental qualities for the reviser when communicating with the translator. Oueillet Simard (1984Oueillet Simard, Josée 1984 “Les secrets de la révision [The secrets of revision].” Circuit 5: 3–7., 7) argues that dialogue is essential, especially with young translators; Rochard (2009Rochard, Michel 2009 “Traduction et organisations internationales: Sortir de la bulle? [Translation and international organisations: Breaking out of the bubble?]” Traduire [Translation] 220: 5–13. , 9) advocates giving feedback to the translator as often as possible; and Ko (2011Ko, Leong 2011 “Translation Checking: A View from the Translation Market.” Perspectives 19 (2): 123–134. , 133) considers it important in general for translators and revisers to be able to communicate. This is not always the case; for example, Nord (2018Nord, Britta 2018 “Die Übersetzungsrevision — ein Werkstattbericht [Translation revision — A workshop report].” trans-kom 11 (1): 138–150., 145–146) describes a personal revision situation where communication between herself and the translators was impossible — a configuration she finds counterproductive.

Advice about translator–reviser communication may originate in revision’s potential for conflict, something that is frequently mentioned in the literature. Künzli (2006bKünzli, Alexander 2006b “Teaching and Learning Translation Revision: Some Suggestions Based on Evidence from a Think-Aloud Protocol Study.” In Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning, edited by Mark Garant, 9–23. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press., 15) draws from an experiment to argue that revision is often characterised by conflict, while Solum (2017Solum, Kristina 2017 “(Im)Politeness between Copy-Editors and Translators: Working from Different Islands?” FLEKS — Scandinavian Journal of Intercultural Theory and Practice 4 (1). , 14–15) collects stories of conflicts in interviews with literary translators and revisers in the context of revision projects that are nonetheless going rather well. More specifically, the literature shows that superfluous changes (Künzli 2006aKünzli, Alexander 2006a “Die Loyalitätsbeziehungen der Übersetzungsrevisorin [Loyalty in the relationships of the translation reviser].” In Übersetzen — Translating — Traduire: Towards a ‘Social Turn’?, edited by Michaela Wolf, 89–98. Münster: LIT Verlag., 96; Hansen 2008Hansen, Gyde 2008 “The Speck in Your Brother’s Eye — the Beam in Your Own: Quality Management in Translation and Revision.” In Efforts and Models in Interpreting and Translation Research: A Tribute to Daniel Gile, edited by Gyde Hansen, Andrew Chesterman, and Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast, 255–280. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 270) or a lack of guidelines, such as in the form of a revision brief (Yousif 2009Yousif, Elias 2009 “Revision of Institutional Documents: In Search of a Road Map.” Turjuman 18 (2): 11–32., 12), can generate conflict.

Interactions between translators and revisers have been studied empirically, initially through questions in surveys (Scocchera 2015aScocchera, Giovanna 2015a La revisione nella traduzione editoriale dall’inglese all’italiano tra ricerca accademica, professione e formazione: stato dell’arte e prospettive future [Revision in editorial translation from English to Italian in academic research, the profession and training: State of the art and future prospects]. PhD thesis. Università di Bologna.; Schnierer 2019Schnierer, Madeleine 2019 Qualitätssicherung: Die Praxis der Übersetzungsrevision im Zusammenhang mit EN 15038 und ISO 17100 [Quality assurance: The practice of translation revision in connection with EN 15038 and ISO 17100]. Berlin: Frank & Timme. ). In her study of translation agencies in Austria, Schnierer (2019Schnierer, Madeleine 2019 Qualitätssicherung: Die Praxis der Übersetzungsrevision im Zusammenhang mit EN 15038 und ISO 17100 [Quality assurance: The practice of translation revision in connection with EN 15038 and ISO 17100]. Berlin: Frank & Timme. , 201–205) shows that interaction between actors is the norm: eighteen out of thirty-one agencies surveyed (58%) stated that there is always some contact between revisers and translators, while twenty-four out of thirty-one (77%) mentioned that translators often or always get some feedback. In her study of literary translation in Italy, Scocchera (2015aScocchera, Giovanna 2015a La revisione nella traduzione editoriale dall’inglese all’italiano tra ricerca accademica, professione e formazione: stato dell’arte e prospettive future [Revision in editorial translation from English to Italian in academic research, the profession and training: State of the art and future prospects]. PhD thesis. Università di Bologna., 131–133, 182–188) reports that twenty-eight out of fifty-five translators (51%) insert comments or set up a file for the editor or reviser, notably in order to explain a choice, justify a deviation from the original text, or point out an error in the source text; almost all revisers write comments (22/25, or 88%), with a small majority for the translator (if not, for the editor), mainly to explain revision choices; fourteen out of twenty-five revisers (56%) sometimes or always communicate with the translator during revision.

Still in the field of literary translation, there have also been studies that address comments inserted in a translation and the different steps in a translation project. Scocchera (2015b)Scocchera, Giovanna 2015b “Computer-Based Collaborative Revision as a Virtual Lab of Editorial/Literary Translation Genetics.” Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series: Themes in Translation Studies 14: 168–199. illustrates what a genetic approach to revision might look like. Using a revision task she was entrusted with, she gives examples of potential traces of the revision process (comments, corrections proposed by the reviser, and modifications by the translator). Solum (2017)Solum, Kristina 2017 “(Im)Politeness between Copy-Editors and Translators: Working from Different Islands?” FLEKS — Scandinavian Journal of Intercultural Theory and Practice 4 (1). analyses comments written by revisers. In her study, comments are mainly used to explain a change or suggest a change instead of modifying the translation in the body of the text with or without explanation. They are also used to respond to a translator’s comment and to praise a translation choice or discuss a topic relating to the text (rather than the revision). Feinauer and Lourens (2017Feinauer, Ilse, and Amanda Lourens 2017 “The Loyalty of the Literary Reviser: Author, Source Text, Target Text or Reader?” Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 53: 97–118. , 2021) study three translation projects, observing that they involve different steps and actors (including translator, reviser, editor, and source text author). In their first study, they analyse the comments inserted by the different actors to highlight that, in almost half the cases, the comments signal loyalty to the target language, followed by loyalty to the source text (Feinauer and Lourens 2017Feinauer, Ilse, and Amanda Lourens 2017 “The Loyalty of the Literary Reviser: Author, Source Text, Target Text or Reader?” Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 53: 97–118. ). In their second study, they identify six types of revision, which they distinguish according to the person who intervenes in the text and the (non)use of the source text: translator-revision, author-revision, reviser-revision, source-text-informed editor-revision, unilingual editor-revision, and proofreader-revision (Feinauer and Lourens 2021Feinauer, Ilse, and Amanda Lourens 2021 “Another Look at Revision in Literary Translation.” In Translation Revision and Post-Editing: Industry Practices and Cognitive Processes, edited by Maarit Koponen, Brian Mossop, Isabelle S. Robert, and Giovanna Scocchera, 165–183. Abingdon: Routledge.). In the very specific context of non-lucrative literary translation, Marin-Lacarta and Vargas-Urpi (2019)Marin-Lacarta, Maialen, and Mireia Vargas-Urpi 2019 “Translators Revising Translators: A Fruitful Alliance.” Perspectives 27 (3): 404–418. show that the different revision and checking stages after translation give rise to much communication and extensive collaboration between the actors. To sum up, the translator–reviser relationship is deemed important in the literature, not least because revision holds the potential for conflict.

2.2The presence of others during the revision process and its impact on the revised translation

A relationship is not restricted to communication between the people involved, but also includes opinions, attitudes, and affects. In a process-product analysis, Künzli (2006aKünzli, Alexander 2006a “Die Loyalitätsbeziehungen der Übersetzungsrevisorin [Loyalty in the relationships of the translation reviser].” In Übersetzen — Translating — Traduire: Towards a ‘Social Turn’?, edited by Michaela Wolf, 89–98. Münster: LIT Verlag., 2007bKünzli, Alexander 2007b “The Ethical Dimension of Translation Revision: An Empirical Study.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 8: 42–56. ) analyses how revisers feel about their loyalty to the source text author, the client, the translator, and themselves. He shows that revisers sometimes have to make a trade-off between the desire to do a good job and the need to be cost-effective.

Different authors have considered the translator–reviser relationship as a collaboration (Rochard 2004Rochard, Michel 2004 “Le réviseur: Achille ou Mentor? [The reviser: Achilles or mentor?]” Traduire [Translation] 203: 59–69.; Prioux and Rochard 2007Prioux, René, and Michel Rochard 2007 “Économie de la révision dans une organisation internationale: Le cas de l’OCDE [Economy of revision in an international organisation: The case of the OECD].” The Journal of Specialised Translation 8: 21–41.; Korhonen and Hirvonen 2021Korhonen, Annamari, and Maija Hirvonen 2021 “Joint Creative Process in Translation: Socially Distributed Cognition in Two Production Contexts.” Cognitive Linguistic Studies 8 (2): 251–276. ; Korhonen 2022Korhonen, Annamari 2022 “When and How to Revise? Building a Cognitive Dyad of Translator and Reviser through Workflow Adjustment.” Translation, Cognition & Behavior 5 (2): 165–186. ). Rochard (2004Rochard, Michel 2004 “Le réviseur: Achille ou Mentor? [The reviser: Achilles or mentor?]” Traduire [Translation] 203: 59–69., 59–60, 68) and Prioux and Rochard (2007Prioux, René, and Michel Rochard 2007 “Économie de la révision dans une organisation internationale: Le cas de l’OCDE [Economy of revision in an international organisation: The case of the OECD].” The Journal of Specialised Translation 8: 21–41., 39, 41 note 4) use the metaphor of enquiry, as developed by the American philosopher, psychologist, and educationalist Dewey (1910)Dewey, John 1910 How We Think. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. . According to Rochard (2004Rochard, Michel 2004 “Le réviseur: Achille ou Mentor? [The reviser: Achilles or mentor?]” Traduire [Translation] 203: 59–69., 59–60), translation is like an enquiry, in that translators are faced with a problem (translating the text). To solve this, they gather clues and formulate hypotheses and test them against reality until they arrive at the solution that seems most reliable. The reviser, on the other hand, takes up the investigation where the translator left off and finishes it (Rochard 2004Rochard, Michel 2004 “Le réviseur: Achille ou Mentor? [The reviser: Achilles or mentor?]” Traduire [Translation] 203: 59–69., 60, 68; Prioux and Rochard 2007Prioux, René, and Michel Rochard 2007 “Économie de la révision dans une organisation internationale: Le cas de l’OCDE [Economy of revision in an international organisation: The case of the OECD].” The Journal of Specialised Translation 8: 21–41., 39). Korhonen and Hirvonen (2021)Korhonen, Annamari, and Maija Hirvonen 2021 “Joint Creative Process in Translation: Socially Distributed Cognition in Two Production Contexts.” Cognitive Linguistic Studies 8 (2): 251–276. view translation as a creative process during which the translator and the reviser collaborate to produce a translation. In their analysis, which is inspired by the socially distributed cognition approach (see Perry 1999Perry, Mark 1999 “The Application of Individually and Socially Distributed Cognition in Workplace Studies: Two Peas in a Pod?” Proceedings of European Conference on Cognitive Science 1999, Siena (Italy): 87–92.), Korhonen and Hirvonen (2021)Korhonen, Annamari, and Maija Hirvonen 2021 “Joint Creative Process in Translation: Socially Distributed Cognition in Two Production Contexts.” Cognitive Linguistic Studies 8 (2): 251–276. consider the draft translation as an artefact, which is a cognitive resource, as well as a medium of communication for translator and reviser. More generally, they show that revisers do not work in ‘cognitive isolation’ (270), even when there is no direct contact between the translator and the reviser. Furthermore, Korhonen (2022)Korhonen, Annamari 2022 “When and How to Revise? Building a Cognitive Dyad of Translator and Reviser through Workflow Adjustment.” Translation, Cognition & Behavior 5 (2): 165–186. shows that the cognitive effort that the reviser makes depends on factors such as the genre of the text, the translator’s competence and experience, and the client’s needs and requirements.

The collaboration that has been described impacts the text. In a revised translation, it is impossible to know how much of the text has been revised when we look at the final result (Jakobsen 2019Jakobsen, Arnt Lykke 2019 “Moving Translation, Revision, and Post-Editing Boundaries.” In Moving Boundaries in Translation Studies, edited by Helle V. Dam, Matilde Nisbeth Brøgger, and Karen Korning Zethsen, 64–80. Abingdon: Routledge., 65). Therefore, a revised translation can be considered as having multiple authorship. To put it in Bisiada’s (2018bBisiada, Mario 2018b “The Editor’s Invisibility.” Target 30 (2): 288–309. , 305) words, translation is “a multi-agent activity” (i.e., an activity in which both the translator and the reviser are involved). The topic of multi-authorship raises the question of who makes the decisions, a question that has been addressed in the field of literary translation by Zlatnar Moe and Žigon (2020)Zlatnar Moe, Marija, and Tanja Žigon 2020 “Said, Spoke, Spluttered, Spouted: The Role of Text Editors in Stylistic Shifts in Translated Children’s Literature.” In Children’s Literature in Translation: Texts and Contexts, edited by Jan Van Coillie and Jack McMartin, 125–140. Leuven: Leuven University Press. and Zlatnar Moe, Južnič, and Žigon (2021)Zlatnar Moe, Marija, Tamara Mikolič Južnič, and Tanja Žigon 2021 “Who Determines the Final Version? The Roles of Translators, Language Revisers and Editors in the Publishing of a Literary Translation.” Across Languages and Cultures 22 (1): 14–44. . Zlatnar Moe and Žigon (2020)Zlatnar Moe, Marija, and Tanja Žigon 2020 “Said, Spoke, Spluttered, Spouted: The Role of Text Editors in Stylistic Shifts in Translated Children’s Literature.” In Children’s Literature in Translation: Texts and Contexts, edited by Jan Van Coillie and Jack McMartin, 125–140. Leuven: Leuven University Press. first showed that translators normally have the final say, but do not always choose to do so. Zlatnar Moe, Južnič, and Žigon (2021)Zlatnar Moe, Marija, Tamara Mikolič Južnič, and Tanja Žigon 2021 “Who Determines the Final Version? The Roles of Translators, Language Revisers and Editors in the Publishing of a Literary Translation.” Across Languages and Cultures 22 (1): 14–44. adopted a broader view of the relationships between translators, revisers, and editors (people who supervise a translation project), pointing out that revisers generally have the least influential position, while translators, who hold the copyright to the translated text, often carry a great deal of authority. Editors, for their part, appear to have significant power but have little influence in practice, especially since they do not always master the source language. They can also leave the final choices to the translators. Siponkoski (2013)Siponkoski, Nestori 2013 “Translators as Negotiators: A Case Study on the Editing Process Related to Contemporary Finnish Translation of Shakespeare.” New Voices in Translation Studies 9: 20–37. and Solum (2018)Solum, Kristina 2018 “The Tacit Influence of the Copy-Editor in Literary Translation.” Perspectives 26 (4): 543–559. examine what happens to revisional changes (rejection, acceptance, acceptance with amendments) as a way of shedding light on relationships in a context where the translator has the final say. Siponkoski (2013)Siponkoski, Nestori 2013 “Translators as Negotiators: A Case Study on the Editing Process Related to Contemporary Finnish Translation of Shakespeare.” New Voices in Translation Studies 9: 20–37. shows that the two translators who were well-established as translators of Shakespeare’s works were more likely to reject suggestions than the two translators who were translating Shakespeare for the first time; the latter rejected very few suggestions. By contrast, Solum (2018)Solum, Kristina 2018 “The Tacit Influence of the Copy-Editor in Literary Translation.” Perspectives 26 (4): 543–559. points out that the translators accepted most of the revisers’ suggestions (87%), with no significant difference between the less and more experienced groups of translators.

The work reviewed in this sub-section shows that translators and revisers maintain a relationship, even when there is no direct communication between them, because they work together to produce a translated text. The study reported in Section 3 was carried out as part of a PhD focusing on the relationship between translators and revisers (Riondel 2023Riondel, Aurélien 2023 Le grand écart de la révision: Étude par entretien des politiques de révision et des relations traducteurs-réviseurs [The great revision divide: An interview study on revision policies and translator-reviser relationships]. PhD thesis. University of Geneva. https://​archive​-ouverte​.unige​.ch​/unige:170057).

3.1A qualitative study on practices and perceptions

In order to investigate the topic in depth, I opted for qualitative research, “a means for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem” (Creswell 2009Creswell, John W. 2009 Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage., 4). In this approach, context is paramount, because a phenomenon can only be fully understood and interpreted if analysed in context (Becker 1998Becker, Howard S. 1998 Tricks of the Trade: How to Think about Your Research While You’re Doing It. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. , 75–83). This is why the study addressed not only the translator–reviser relationship, but also revision as a whole (management, practices, and perception). For these two topics, both practices and perceptions were included: practices and perceptions of (a) the translator–reviser relationship and (b) revision at large. The rationale for this choice was that practices and perceptions inform the reality and are interrelated: perceptions both drive practices and are shaped by them (Abric 2011aAbric, Jean-Claude 2011a “Les représentations sociales: Aspects théoriques [Social representations: Theoretical aspects].” In Pratiques sociales et représentations [Social practices and representations], edited by Jean-Claude Abric, 15–46. Paris: PUF., 17–18, 24) and provide information on the meaning that practices have for the agents (Olivier de Sardan 2008Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre 2008 La rigueur du qualitatif: Les contraintes empiriques de l’interprétation socio-anthropologique [The rigour of qualitative research: The empirical constraints of socio-anthropological interpretation]. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-Bruylant., 321).

To do so, I conducted an interview study in Switzerland. Interviews are well known as a research method for studying perceptions, attitudes, and motivations, and are traditionally combined with observations to study practices (Olivier de Sardan 2008Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre 2008 La rigueur du qualitatif: Les contraintes empiriques de l’interprétation socio-anthropologique [The rigour of qualitative research: The empirical constraints of socio-anthropological interpretation]. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-Bruylant.; Maxwell 2013Maxwell, Joseph A. 2013 Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage.), but interviews can be used for researching practices too (Blanchet and Gotman 2007Blanchet, Alain, and Anne Gotman 2007 L’entretien [Interviewing]. 2nd ed. Paris: Armand Colin.; Rubin and Rubin 2012Rubin, Herbert J., and Irene S. Rubin 2012 Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage.; Kaufmann 2016Kaufmann, Jean-Claude 2016 L’entretien compréhensif [The understanding interview]. 4th ed. Paris: Armand Colin. ). For that purpose, two conditions must be met, according to Kaufmann (2016Kaufmann, Jean-Claude 2016 L’entretien compréhensif [The understanding interview]. 4th ed. Paris: Armand Colin. , 71–72): (a) gathering different points of view and comparing them, and (b) making sure that there are no major distortions due to the position of the people involved (researcher and participants).

During data production, I tried to include as much diversity as possible, an important aspect for validity in qualitative research (Becker 1998Becker, Howard S. 1998 Tricks of the Trade: How to Think about Your Research While You’re Doing It. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ; Blanchet and Gotman 2007Blanchet, Alain, and Anne Gotman 2007 L’entretien [Interviewing]. 2nd ed. Paris: Armand Colin.; Saldaña 2011Saldaña, Johnny 2011 Fundamentals of Qualitative Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.; Flick 2018Flick, Uwe 2018 Managing Quality in Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage. ). Diversity related both to the choice of translation departments and to the selection of participants within teams in order to gather as many different points of view as possible. The study followed mainly an inductive path (on induction, see Brinkmann and Kvale 2018Brinkmann, Svend, and Steinar Kvale 2018 Doing Interviews. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage. , 118–119; Gibbs 2018Gibbs, Graham 2018 Analyzing Qualitative Data. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage. , 6–7). A preparatory stage took place before the actual interviews (Internet research, informal talks, and six exploratory interviews). This stage was useful to prepare the data production, especially by informing the interview guides. The data already produced were then used to gradually adapt the interview guides, define missing profiles, and detect patterns in the data. This emergent design is typical for qualitative studies, where the stages of a research project are not linear but rather iterative and cyclical (Ravitch and Mittenfelner Carl 2016Ravitch, Sharon M., and Nicole Mittenfelner Carl 2016 Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, and Methodological. Los Angeles: Sage.). The research project, however, was not only guided by inductivity: my understanding of the topic was shaped by the literature and my prior knowledge, which stems from my education and professional experience. After graduating in Specialised Translation, I did a five-month internship at the Swiss Confederation as a German to French translator, then worked as a freelancer before going back to academia to complete a PhD. Therefore, I had direct experience of the object of study, since I had been both a revisee and, to a lesser extent, a reviser. More generally, I belonged to the group studied, like other ‘practisearchers’, to use a term coined by Gile (1994)Gile, Daniel 1994 “Opening up in Interpretation Studies.” In Translation Studies: An Interdiscipline, edited by Klaus Kaindl, Franz Pöchhacker, and Mary Snell-Hornby, 149–158. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. . In order to avoid over-simplification, it is worth remembering that we are often insiders and outsiders at the same time, because (a) identities are multiple and evolutive, and (b) groups are not homogenous (Griffith 1998Griffith, Alison I. 1998 “Insider / Outsider: Epistemological Privilege and Mothering Work.” Human Studies 21: 361–376. ). A sentence by a French anthropologist about ethnology ‘at home’ encapsulates my relationship to the field rather well: “The culture in which [the researcher] has chosen to work is neither entirely his own nor completely unfamiliar, just as for his informants the researcher is neither truly familiar nor entirely a stranger” (Zonabend 1985Zonabend, Françoise 1985 “Du texte au prétexte: La monographie dans le domaine européen [From text to pretext: Monographs in the European domain].” Études rurales 97 (1): 33–38. , 37; my translation). Indeed, I felt both familiar with most experiences described in interviews and distant with regards to the daily life of the participants, since my professional routine did not focus on translation anymore, but on research and teaching.

I engaged reflexively with the production and analysis of data, as reflexivity is an important means of validity in qualitative research (Altheide and Johnson 2011Altheide, David L., and John M. Johnson 2011 “Reflections on Interpretive Adequacy in Qualitative Research.” In The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, 581–594. Los Angeles: Sage.; Ravitch and Mittenfelner Carl 2016Ravitch, Sharon M., and Nicole Mittenfelner Carl 2016 Qualitative Research: Bridging the Conceptual, Theoretical, and Methodological. Los Angeles: Sage.). First, I assessed my position critically: I realised my opinion of the Swiss Confederation was rather positive, based on my enjoyable experience as an intern and freelancer; I had no particular preconception towards private companies with in-house translators; and I had quite a negative attitude towards international organisations and translation agencies, the former because they tend to underestimate junior translators and the latter because they are known for their low rates and short deadlines. Then, I took field notes throughout the research project to reflect on how the data were produced and how my position was changing along the research journey. I never felt any ‘split loyalties’ (Koskinen 2008Koskinen, Kaisa 2008 Translating Institutions: An Ethnographic Study of EU Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome., 9), except on one occasion, maybe because I chose to study departments with which I had not worked and to meet participants whom I did not know beforehand.

3.2Forty-five ‘responsive interviews’

The dataset is made up of forty-five in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted in eleven settings belonging to two categories (institutional and private), each featuring two types of contexts: in the institutional sector, the Swiss Confederation and the international organisations in the Geneva region; in the private market, companies with in-house translators and the language industry (translation agencies and freelancers). The forty-five interviews can be broken down as follows: twenty-eight translator-revisers, ten department heads, four translators who do not revise, two project managers, and one proofreader (see Table 1). The forty-two translators were translators into French (n = 30), German (n = 8), and Italian (n = 4). The meetings took place between March 2019 and February 2021, were held in French (n = 41) and German (n = 4), and lasted on average 1h13 min.

Interviews were conducted according to the concept of ‘responsive interviewing’ (Rubin and Rubin 2012Rubin, Herbert J., and Irene S. Rubin 2012 Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage.),22.A more detailed description of the method can be found in Rubin and Rubin (2012Rubin, Herbert J., and Irene S. Rubin 2012 Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage., xv–xvi, 7, 10, 36). an approach to in-depth interviewing in which interviewees are considered to be ‘conversational partners’ and interviewers adapt to the conversation (i.e., they listen then respond to what interviewees say). Rubin and Rubin (2012Rubin, Herbert J., and Irene S. Rubin 2012 Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage., 36–37) call on interviewers to involve themselves in the conversation in order to build reciprocity. In ‘responsive interviewing’, the researcher — participant relationship is characterised by mutual respect and trust (36, 92). Respect means, among other things, that the tone of the interview is friendly, supportive, and gentle (36–37) and that the interviewer does not exercise pressure to get an answer to a question (88). As for trust, it notably implies that what is said in interviews is considered true for the interviewees (7). Interviews addressed the professional backgrounds and tasks of the interviewees, revision management, revision methods, attitudes to revision, communication around revision, and relationships with colleagues. Meetings were mainly organised at the participants’ regular workplace to minimise inconvenience for the participants. This choice also originated in the wish to make the participants feel as comfortable as possible and to give me a sense of the participants’ working environment. After each meeting, I took notes on how the interview had gone, highlighting any strong ideas, surprising elements, or puzzling features.

Interviews are socially constructed interactions (Blanchet and Gotman 2007Blanchet, Alain, and Anne Gotman 2007 L’entretien [Interviewing]. 2nd ed. Paris: Armand Colin.; Gonthier 2011Gonthier, Frédéric 2011 “Conduire un entretien: Les quatre temps [Conducting interviews: The four stages].” In Enquêtes qualitatives, enquêtes quantitatives [Qualitative inquiries, quantitative inquiries], edited by Pierre Bréchon, 47–64. Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. ). The effect of social expectations during interviews are traditionally described as ‘social desirability bias’ and ‘social conformity bias’, which refer respectively to the wish of the interviewee to present a positive self-image and to show that they belong to a standard, socially accepted situation (Gonthier 2011Gonthier, Frédéric 2011 “Conduire un entretien: Les quatre temps [Conducting interviews: The four stages].” In Enquêtes qualitatives, enquêtes quantitatives [Qualitative inquiries, quantitative inquiries], edited by Pierre Bréchon, 47–64. Grenoble: Presses universitaires de Grenoble. , 51). In this particular study, social pressure can go either way: participants may want to emphasise the importance of revision and stress the care with which translations are produced, just as they may want to minimise revision and highlight an efficient work organisation. In the interviews, the discourse of the participants sometimes deviated from social expectations, with interviewees expressing criticism about their workplace, evoking unpleasant experiences with colleagues, or describing practices that might be considered controversial, like monolingual revision or very limited recourse to the source text in bilingual revision. The social constraints on interviewees may have been mitigated by the fact that I was younger, less experienced, and earning less money than most of the participants. This may have counterbalanced the fact that I came from a university, an institution with some prestige and authoritative power.

3.3A thematic analysis driven by the ‘template analysis’ method

As generally recommended, data analysis began during data production (Maxwell 2013Maxwell, Joseph A. 2013 Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage., 104; Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014Miles, Matthew B., A. Michael Huberman, and Johnny Saldaña 2014 Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage., 70; Brinkmann and Kvale 2018Brinkmann, Svend, and Steinar Kvale 2018 Doing Interviews. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage. , 136; Gibbs 2018Gibbs, Graham 2018 Analyzing Qualitative Data. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage. , 4). In order to become familiar with the material and start the analysis, I progressively transcribed the interviews (verbatim) and summarised them (in the form of a list of the main points of the meeting in a length of one to three A4 pages). During the stage especially dedicated to data analysis, I did two full rounds of coding with QDA Miner Lite,33.Available at https://​provalisresearch​.com​/products​/qualitative​-data​-analysis​-software​/free​ware/. Accessed on May 30, 2024. free software that features the main functionalities of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS; i.e., writing memos, coding, and retrieving coded interview excerpts). I carried out a thematic analysis inspired by the template analysis method (King 2004King, Nigel 2004 “Using Templates in the Thematic Analysis of Text.” In Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, edited by Catherine Cassell and Gillian Symon, 256–270. Los Angeles: Sage. , 2012King, Nigel 2012 “Doing Template Analysis.” In Qualitative Organizational Research: Core Methods and Current Challenges, edited by Gillian Symon and Catherine Cassell, 426–450. Los Angeles: Sage. ). This technique provides a balance of deduction and induction, since the coding starts with a preliminary list of codes (deduction), while the codebook evolves along with the coding (induction). The method also includes other characteristics: it is compatible with different epistemological stances; it has mainly been used for interview data; and it is especially relevant to contrast the opinions of different kinds of staff (King 2004King, Nigel 2004 “Using Templates in the Thematic Analysis of Text.” In Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research, edited by Catherine Cassell and Gillian Symon, 256–270. Los Angeles: Sage. , 2012King, Nigel 2012 “Doing Template Analysis.” In Qualitative Organizational Research: Core Methods and Current Challenges, edited by Gillian Symon and Catherine Cassell, 426–450. Los Angeles: Sage. ).

3.4Accuracy and lies in interviews

Using interview data to study practices calls for a brief discussion on accuracy in interviews. The relation between interview data and reality and truth is a broad topic that goes far beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say here that lies are quite rare in interviews, at least according to authoritative interview handbooks (Rubin and Rubin 2012Rubin, Herbert J., and Irene S. Rubin 2012 Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage., 38–39, 66–67; Kaufmann 2016Kaufmann, Jean-Claude 2016 L’entretien compréhensif [The understanding interview]. 4th ed. Paris: Armand Colin. , 63, 66). In a nonconfrontational interview, participants are seldom in a situation where they have to take the risk of lying (it is very unpleasant to be caught in a lie) and can easily say something general if they want to elude a specific question (Rubin and Rubin 2012Rubin, Herbert J., and Irene S. Rubin 2012 Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage., 38–39, 66–67). This does not mean that everything that is said during the interview is true: participants’ statements may be erroneous or false, but these are usually stories they tell themselves and in which they sincerely believe (Kaufmann 2016Kaufmann, Jean-Claude 2016 L’entretien compréhensif [The understanding interview]. 4th ed. Paris: Armand Colin. , 67). Furthermore, people may believe in two contradictory things that are equally true for them (Rubin and Rubin 2012Rubin, Herbert J., and Irene S. Rubin 2012 Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage., 67). More generally, participants’ words are true in the sense that they correspond to the truth of their perception. With regard to individual practices, I did not question what participants told me during the interview as long as the message was explicit, non-contradictory, and plausible, since qualitative interviewing implies a partnership based on mutual trust. As for work organisation and revision policies (i.e., collective practices), the research process allowed me to cross-check information, since the topics that were discussed generally featured in more than one interview.

3.5Description of the contexts studied

Four translation departments were studied in depth and make up the cases of this article as well as the PhD on which it is based. Here, I refer to cases as defined by Dumez (2015Dumez, Hervé 2015 “What Is a Case, and What Is a Case Study?” BMS: Bulletin of Sociological Methodology 127: 43–57. , 45–53). In Dumez’s approach, a case is complex and can be defined theoretically, empirically, or both, and size is not a relevant definition criterion. A case is part of a larger whole and is composed of smaller elements (which may themselves be proper cases), and there are always other cases of the same rank. However, not everything is a case: as Stake (2005Stake, Robert E. 2005 “Qualitative Case Studies.” In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, 443–466. Los Angeles: Sage., 444) notes, a case must be sufficiently specified and delimited. The first case is located in the Swiss Confederation, which employs more than 400 translators working in about thirty teams (Pini 2017Pini, Verio 2017 Anche in italiano! 100 anni di lingua italiana nella cultura politica svizzera [Also in Italian! 100 years of Italian language in Swiss political culture]. Bern/Bellinzona: Cancelleria federale/Casagrande., 218–219). It is a medium-sized French translation department and six of its staff members were interviewed. The department has two specificities: (a) team members revise texts produced by other teams within the institution and (b) in-house translated texts are revised orally (see below and Allain 2010Allain, Jean-François 2010 “Repenser la révision: Défense et illustration de la relecture croisée [Rethinking revision: In defence of and an illustration of cross-reading].” Traduire 223: 114–120. ). The second case is another medium-sized French translation department in the same institution, where nine interviews were conducted. The third case is a large French translation department located in an international organisation based in Geneva, where eleven translators and revisers and a proofreader were interviewed. In this sector, ‘translator’ and ‘reviser’ are two distinct positions: ‘translators’ do not revise, but their output is revised; conversely, ‘revisers’ revise texts from ‘translators’ but their own output is not revised (self-revised translators; see Mossop 2020Mossop, Brian 2020 Revising and Editing for Translators. 4th ed. Abingdon: Routledge., 190). The fourth case is a small German (and French) translation department in a private company operating in the field of finance, where four of the five staff members were interviewed.

The dataset is not limited to cases. It also includes settings that have been studied in less detail. In the Swiss Confederation, five interviews were organised with heads of other departments (mainly Italian speaking) to put the two cases in that institution into perspective. In the private sector, four interviews were conducted in the medium-sized translation department of a bank (mainly English and German) with various specificities, including translation and revision into L2 and L3, much localisation, editing of original texts, and an agile approach to project management (on this approach, see Dunne 2011Dunne, Keiran J. 2011 “From Vicious to Virtuous Cycle: Customer-Focused Translation Quality Management Using ISO 9001 Principles and Agile Methodologies.” In Translation and Localization Project Management, edited by Keiran J. Dunne and Elena S. Dunne, 153–187. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 162–168). This fifth team cannot be considered as a proper case, as it is too different from the other four to provide sufficient cross-unit comparability (Saldanha and O’Brien 2013Saldanha, Gabriela, and Sharon O’Brien 2013 Research Methodologies in Translation Studies. Abingdon: Routledge., 212). The differences were not anticipated and only became apparent during the meetings. This shows that it is sometimes only possible to characterise the cases studied once the study has been completed (Dumez 2015Dumez, Hervé 2015 “What Is a Case, and What Is a Case Study?” BMS: Bulletin of Sociological Methodology 127: 43–57. , 50). Finally, I conducted five interviews in the language industry with people who did not know each other. I met a project manager in one agency (Agency 1), and, in another agency, a project manager and the only staff member who translates and revises (in a team of around ten people; Agency 2). I also interviewed two freelancers who regularly work with agencies (not the ones mentioned above). In the dataset as a whole, interviews with revisers working in a team are comparable as are interviews with heads of departments, regardless of whether they were conducted in a case or not.

The study received ethical approval from the Ethical Review Board of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting of the University of Geneva (approval No. 10). All participants signed an information and consent form. The form described how research and data would be managed and specified that participants could ask not to be recorded and could withdraw from the study afterwards, which none of them opted to do. The next section addresses the findings of the study related to the translator–reviser relationship.

4.1Communication around revision

This section describes the communication that takes place between translators and revisers before, during, and after revision in the contexts studied. The results deal mainly with collective practices, which were discussed in more than one interview to help increase certainty by cross-checking sources.

In all the cases included in this study, revision gives rise to much interaction. In the first department of the Swiss Confederation that was studied in detail, revision is carried out orally, using a procedure known as ‘cross-reading’ (relecture croisée; Allain 2010Allain, Jean-François 2010 “Repenser la révision: Défense et illustration de la relecture croisée [Rethinking revision: In defence of and an illustration of cross-reading].” Traduire 223: 114–120. ) or ‘concordance rereading’ (revisión de concordancia; Parra Galiano 2005Parra Galiano, Silvia 2005 La revisión de traducciones en la Traductología: Aproximación a la práctica de la revisión en el ámbito profesional mediante el estudio de casos y propuestas de investigación [Translation revision in Translation Studies: An approach to professional revision practices through case studies and research proposals]. PhD thesis. Universidad de Granada., 22), which I prefer to call ‘oral revision’. In oral revision, the translator reads the translation to the reviser, who simultaneously reads the original text (see the most comprehensive analysis to date by Allain [2010]Allain, Jean-François 2010 “Repenser la révision: Défense et illustration de la relecture croisée [Rethinking revision: In defence of and an illustration of cross-reading].” Traduire 223: 114–120. , a translation department manager who introduced the technique to his team, as well as Riondel [2024b]Riondel, Aurélien 2024b “Why is the Quality of Revision So Low? Attempts to Explain and Tackle the Situation.” Perspectives: 1–15. ).44.The technique is also briefly mentioned by Drugan (2013Drugan, Joanna 2013 Quality in Professional Translation: Assessment and Improvement. London: Bloomsbury., 128, 130–131) and Mossop (2020Mossop, Brian 2020 Revising and Editing for Translators. 4th ed. Abingdon: Routledge., 202). According to the interviews conducted, oral revision is practiced as follows in the team studied: when the reviser has a question or a suggestion, the translator stops reading and the two professionals exchange their views. Communication thus takes place during the revision itself. In addition, the justification of changes may have a more prominent role than in other revision methods, because revisers have to explain to their colleague why they want to modify the translation. In the department studied, oral revision is highly appreciated: the technique is approved of by the six professionals met in this context. The greatest advantage put forward in the interviews is that it allows the revision process to go relatively quickly, while also providing the opportunity to discuss a point when necessary.

In all other departments of the study, revision is carried out the traditional way (i.e., in writing). In the second department of the Swiss Confederation that was studied, communication is extensive both before and after revision. Before revision, the translator may write comments in the margins of the text, highlight passages where there are doubts, or provide information to the reviser — orally or in writing — when transmitting the text to them. After revision, the translator and the reviser usually have a short discussion to finalise the text. In the international organisation studied, translators are expected to write numerous comments in the margins. They are required to use comments to indicate the references they have consulted (documents or terminological database), highlight any previously translated texts that have been reproduced verbatim or paraphrased, and detail aspects that have been discussed with an experienced colleague. Comments may also be used to justify a particular translation, explain a choice that is not intelligible as such, or express doubts. After revision, revisers fill out an evaluation sheet and may insert revision comments in the file or provide oral feedback to the translator. In the case of the in-house department of the financial company, communication takes place mainly through comments, at both the translation and revision stages. However, if the translator has questions or does not agree with the changes made in revision, they will talk to the reviser.

The above examples come from translation teams in the institutional sector (three departments) or the private sector (one department). The study also deals with professional contexts in which revision does not take place between team members, as the dataset includes two freelancers and two translation agencies which do not translate or revise at all (Agency 1) or only exceptionally (Agency 2): they only do project management and entrust the translation and revision to freelancers or another agency. In Agency 1, translators and revisers know who is in charge of the other task and can communicate directly. In Agency 2, translators can write comments for revisers. The two freelancers who were interviewed also mentioned that the translator generally has the opportunity to comment on some aspects of the translation. Results relating to this specific situation are limited and further investigation would be required to describe the whole language industry sector with any degree of certainty. That being said, in the contexts studied with freelance translator–revisers, there is also some translator–reviser communication, although to a lesser extent than within translation teams. There is of course far less communication than during the oral revision process or if a discussion takes place after revision. Nevertheless, comments offer an opportunity to pass on important information. In the next section, I leave the question of communication aside and look at the emotional and conflictual dimensions of revision.

4.2Being revised: A highly annoying and potentially conflictual activity

During the interviews, the participants associated being revised with two major perceptions, one positive and one negative: it provides a feeling of security, but it is also annoying. This section addresses the feeling of annoyance that may stem from revision, one of the most significant results of the study, starting with its implications for individuals and continuing with its impact on relationships.

The feeling of annoyance that revision can trigger, ranging from mild to strong, was often mentioned during the interviews and took different forms. Some participants expressed their personal feelings, others spoke of the experience of colleagues, while still others commented on revision in general. Four participants said that being revised felt very annoying, while three others described it as unpleasant or even unsettling. Four other translators reported being upset by stylistic changes. If we move away from the feelings voiced by participants and look at opinions expressed in interviews, four interviewees said that revision is simply annoying per se, to varying degrees. Finally, eleven other participants mentioned either that revision could be (very) unpleasant or possibly offensive under certain circumstances, or that it could cause tension or conflict in a team. Even if these opinions were very prevalent, the participants were not unanimous about the annoyance of revision. Two participants — the one with the least translation experience (1.5 years) and one of the department heads with the most experience — explicitly said that they did not mind being revised. It is worth noting that the feeling of annoyance resulting from revision was rarely raised directly in interviews. Therefore, not every interviewee expressed their view on the subject.

The first example illustrates a situation where a mild feeling of annoyance resulted from being revised. Example (1) comes from an interview with a professional with eight years of experience working in the second case in the Swiss Confederation, a department where revision is well accepted globally compared with the other cases studied.

This comment shows that the translator’s ego might be at stake when revision takes place, as they submit their work to the appraisal of their colleague. Here, receiving corrections is described as something unpleasant, yet tolerable. During the interviews, some participants also shifted the focus to the revised text (rather than revision in general). They stressed that on-screen revision has a stronger effect than revision on paper, notably because changes are more visible: they generally appear in red and some edits imply a greater degree of change on screen than on paper, such as switching around two words (i.e., on screen, a word is crossed out and another added, while on paper an arrow suffices to highlight the change). Example (2) comes from a department head at the Swiss Confederation who has considerable experience. She used strong language to describe the experience of receiving a revised text.

Compared to Example (1), this is a broader point of view, since the participant speaks about revision in general and not about her own feelings, and the opinion is more pronounced: being revised is no longer just unpleasant, it is considered an attack. In this quote, revision is described as an intrinsically violent act. It is worth noting that the participant refers to a situation where the revised text is sent without oral explanation; in her opinion, the situation is different when the text can be discussed.

The interviews conducted highlight that being revised can induce several emotions, including anger, aggrievement, or discouragement, which are illustrated below. In the interviews, anger was mentioned in a general manner at times and more specifically at others when talking about stylistic corrections, which can cause particular irritation. Aggrievement stems from the fact that changes made in a text feel like a negative assessment of one’s work, which can result in a little “wounded pride,” in the words of one participant ((des gens qui) se sentent touchés […] dans leur amour-propre). The dataset provides hints that the aggrievement resulting from revision may make it harder to accept corrections and suggestions. A translator working in the international organisation said that their disapproval of a revised text could be explained as much by the inadequacy of the changes as by aggrievement. A head of department at the Swiss Confederation said that some colleagues barely admit to their mistakes and described their behaviour as “bad faith” (mauvaise foi).

As for discouragement, it is illustrated by Example (3), which is drawn from an interview with a translator with eight years of translation experience working in a department where revisions are extensive.

A colleague of this participant also said that he feels some discouragement when faced with extensive revisions and added that this feeling can influence future translations. In his opinion, knowing that a text is going to be heavily reworked takes away the desire to do one’s best. Discouragement seems to be particularly present during the first years of practice, according to the interviews conducted. This could be explained by two reasons. First, the intensity of the discouragement could be due to a greater number of changes in the draft translations of beginners, which might be of poorer quality than texts produced by more experienced translators. Second, discouragement may arise because the emotions provoked by the revision process are new. In this respect, several accounts show that the annoyance felt when being revised is exacerbated in the first years of practice. Among them are the two translators referred to above. These participants, who are still young but have some translation experience (8 and 6 years), explained how it feels to be revised during the first years of professional practice. The first said: “In the beginning, the first couple of years, when you see all the red marks, you just feel like crying.”88.Original French: “Au début, les deux premières années, quand on voit tout rouge, on a juste envie de pleurer.” The second said that young people find it hard to put the importance of revision into perspective and take it very much to heart. He added that translators have to get used to receiving criticism if they want to stay in the profession. This echoes Mossop’s (2020Mossop, Brian 2020 Revising and Editing for Translators. 4th ed. Abingdon: Routledge., 202) comment that “new translators must get over [the inability to accept correction] if they are to succeed.”

The study provides indications that the process of getting used to being revised is common, but not systematic. On the one hand, none of the participants working in the team of translators said that they could not stand being revised, nor did they mention a colleague who could not handle it. On the other, examples of translators who do not tolerate being revised were raised during the meetings (two freelancers and one employee of another department), and one freelancer who took part in the study could be described as being very sensitive to revision. This translator, who is periodically revised but not on a daily basis, said several times during the interview that she does not like being revised. She also mentioned revision experiences that she found very hurtful, adding that she had to force herself to look at revised texts, because it was so unpleasant for her.

On an interpersonal level, revision can provoke conflict, which can be triggered by the feelings of aggrievement or anger mentioned above. In three of the four cases and six of the seven subsequent contexts, the participants referred to conflicts. Interviewees mentioned conflicts, even in contexts where revision was positively perceived overall, as in the second case in the Swiss Confederation. In this department, the head recounted a conflict he had had with a temporary translator, and two team members reported having conflicts in a former position.

Even if conflicts were widespread among the contexts studied, they mainly seem to be occasional or related to a specific person (although they seem to be habitual in one of the four cases examined in depth). One explanation may be the good work atmosphere in the majority of the contexts analysed, a point often raised by the participants during the interviews. In Section 4.3 I will describe one way of alleviating feelings of aggrievement and diminishing the risk of conflict: providing explanations for the changes made.

4.3The critical influence of post-revision communication

This section describes how explanations provided for the changes made can impact the perception of being revised, as expressed in the interviews. Based on the findings, post-revision communication may take different forms (e.g., comments, discussions, emails) and fulfil different functions (e.g., providing information or justification, asking a question, giving praise, emphasising an issue, or assessing the quality of the translation). In this section, I analyse one type of communication: the explanation of changes made, in comments or orally, because it is the most common in the dataset and it is linked to how being revised is perceived.

The analysis of the data shows that providing explanations for the changes made can have two effects: it can help the translator improve and it can be a mark of respect. To state the obvious, an explanation aims at making the rationale behind a change clear. As such, it takes revision out of the realm of arbitrariness. In this respect, it is worth noting that revision not only aims at ensuring the quality of the text but also has a didactic dimension, helping revisees improve their skills (Prioux and Rochard 2007Prioux, René, and Michel Rochard 2007 “Économie de la révision dans une organisation internationale: Le cas de l’OCDE [Economy of revision in an international organisation: The case of the OECD].” The Journal of Specialised Translation 8: 21–41.; Horguelin and Pharand 2009Horguelin, Paul A., and Michelle Pharand 2009 Pratique de la révision [Revision practices]. 4th ed. Montréal: Linguatech.; Mossop 2020Mossop, Brian 2020 Revising and Editing for Translators. 4th ed. Abingdon: Routledge.). Nevertheless, understanding what was wrong in the draft translation is a precondition for learning. According to the interviews, this is only partly possible by examining the changes made, mostly depends on the kinds of problems that were solved, and sometimes an explanation is necessary. As a consequence, providing explanations helps translators develop their skills. As one of the participants said, “if you simply make revisions without explaining what you’ve done,” the translator will simply take note of it then “forget it straight away because it won’t sink in.”99.Original French: “Si vous faites simplement des révisions sans expliquer ce que vous avez fait […] le traducteur va l’oublier aussi sec parce que ce n’est pas quelque chose qui aura été imprimé.”

Explanations not only help translators develop their skills, but also fulfil a communicative function and can have a social effect. During the interviews, one of the participants pointed out that he tries to provide an explanation for changes that are not obvious, to show the translator that he takes his task seriously and avoid giving the impression that he is simply telling the translator what to do. In his view, explaining the changes he implemented in the draft translation is a mark of respect to the translator.

Due to the two effects described, explaining the changes implemented in the draft translation can greatly influence how the revised text is perceived by the translator. Depending on the situation, explanations can either minimise or increase the feeling of annoyance. These two situations are analysed below.

The first situation, which was the one most frequently reported in the interviews, arises when the tone is appropriate. Two participants in the study even argued that the effect produced by a revised translation does not depend on the number or nature of the changes made, but on how the situation is presented. The first participant works at the Swiss Confederation. Example (4) is taken from a section of the interview where she commented on how she perceives being revised.

The second participant works for the international organisation in the third case. He referred to a colleague who changes texts dramatically but takes a lot of time to explain her work. Combined with the fact that this reviser is “incredibly kind” (elle est d’une gentillesse extrême), he felt that “you can’t take it badly” (on ne peut pas mal le prendre). He also added that he learns a lot from these discussions.

The second situation (i.e., the reinforcement of bad feelings) is less prevalent in the dataset and happens when explanations are clumsy or even rude. During the interviews, participants referred to instances where explanations increased their feeling of irritation. For example, they complained about the use of exclamation marks and irony in comments (irony is also reported as being deplored by translators in Solum [2017Solum, Kristina 2017 “(Im)Politeness between Copy-Editors and Translators: Working from Different Islands?” FLEKS — Scandinavian Journal of Intercultural Theory and Practice 4 (1). , 14]). Overall, the findings suggest that explaining changes can reduce or even eliminate the perceived violence of revision when it is done well, but may reinforce negative feelings when it is presented inappropriately.