Translation as a Profession (Benjamins Translation Library)

114 Translation as a Profession– answer any queries by translators on questions of phraseology, e.g. newdirectories available, phraseology standards, language policy decisions, clients’comments, trouble-shooting, etc.At the present time, phraseologists remain weird and wonderful animals, but willprobably come into their own in the near future as clients become more and moredemanding when it comes to using the ‘right’ phraseology.Incidentally, the phraseologist is the expert in controlled or simplified languages.Such languages are designed so that (1) a given term or phrase can onlyhave one meaning and that a given concept can only have one name or designationand (2) a given phrase can only have one meaning and a given meaning canonly be expressed as one phrase.Both the terminologist and the phraseologist are in the business of ‘rationalising’or simplifying language so that ambiguous meaning is reduced or eliminatedaltogether. ‘Rationalised/Controlled French’ and ‘Simplified English’ are two examplesof these kinds of controlled language.5.2.5 Pure translatorIn a task-based organisation, the translator is the person who converts the materialprocessed by the ‘pre-translator’ into the (translated) material that the ‘posttranslator’will proofread and revise. He thus also becomes a specialist operatorin the same way as the terminologist.5.2.6 Post-translator or post-editorThe post-translator is responsible for checking, proof-reading and revising workcarried out by a human translator, while the post-editor works on material translatedby some sort of machine translation engine. Many different job denominationsandjobdefinitionscanbefoundintheprofessionbut the job mainly consistsin proofreading and revision (see below).The tasks carried out by the post-translator and post-editor have now becomea job in their own right, mostly because (a) automatic translation is coming back inforce and, some would say, with a vengeance and (b) translation quality standardsmake it compulsory.Post-translation and post-editing may be distributed even more finely betweenvarious operators with corresponding jobs.5.2.7 Proof-readerThe proof-reader’s function is the same in the translation industry as in publishing,except that he works on translated material. Proof-readers are juniors who dothe material checks and carry out what most often goes by the name of ‘linguisticrevision’ aimed at linguistic correctness.