10.6092/issn.1974-4382/18790
application/pdf
1974-4382
18790
en
Christopher Gledhill
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
mediAzioni
translation and revision workflow
The Evolutive Nature of Translation and Teaching Workflow: Textometric Analysis of Multiple Revision Cycles in a Simulated Website Translation Project
Text.Serial.Journal
https://mediazioni.unibo.it/
39
Articles
2023-12-27
2023-12-19
2023-12-27
2023-12-27
A116-A146
M
Christopher Gledhill
2023/12/27
10.6092/issn.1974-4382/18790
A116
Université Paris Cité
1974-4382
translation and revision workflow
en
A146
The Evolutive Nature of Translation and Teaching Workflow: Textometric Analysis of Multiple Revision Cycles in a Simulated Website Translation Project
https://mediazioni.unibo.it/article/download/18790/17365
39
L’IA per la traduzione: verso una nuova progettazione didattica?        mediAzioni 39 (2023)
                                                                              ISSN   1974-4382


       THE EVOLUTIVE NATURE OF TRANSLATION AND
     TEACHING WORKFLOW: TEXTOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF
    MULTIPLE REVISION CYCLES IN A SIMULATED WEBSITE
                 TRANSLATION PROJECT

                        MARIA ZIMINA-POIROT, CHRISTOPHER GLEDHILL
                                  UNIVERSITÉ PARIS CITÉ

maria.zimina-poirot@u-paris.fr, christopher.gledhill@u-paris.fr



Citation: Zimina-Poirot, Maria e Cristopher Gledhill (2023) “The Evolutive Nature of
Translation and Teaching Workflow: Textometric Analysis of Multiple Revision Cycles
in a Simulated Website Translation Project”, in Maria Margherita Mattioda, Alessandra
Molino, Lucia Cinato e Ilaria Cennamo (a cura di) L'intelligenza artificiale per la
traduzione: verso una nuova progettazione didattica?, mediAzioni 39: A116-A146,
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1974-4382/18790, ISSN 1974-4382.



Abstract: In this paper, we explore the practical and theoretical status of revision in the
context of a Masters-level website translation project integrating machine translation
(MT) for teaching purposes. We use textometric analysis to explore the nature of
modifications made at each of the different stages of revision during the lifetime of one
particular project. Computation of characteristic elements and Correspondence Analysis
(CA) reveal regular patterns of linguistic intervention, with significant differences
observed between the initial stages of the project (MT-EN0 generated by SYSTRAN Pure
Neural Machine Translation1 and post-edited MT-EN1) and subsequent revision cycles.
We combine quantitative and qualitative research methods to study characteristic
revision patterns in different project cycles (chronological textual series). While some of
these patterns represent unpredictable “punctual” edits, the majority are “progressive”,
involving modifications that are predictable or gradually built up throughout the
project. More generally, it appears that different types of revision closely mirror the
guidelines that are presented to students during the teaching workflow. This observation
leads us to posit an “evolutive” view of the translation project: just as each webpage in
the project has to undergo several cycles of revision, so each stage of revision needs to
be carefully primed during the preparation of the project with the clients as well as the
students.

Keywords: Chronological textual series; progressive and punctual revisions; simulated
translation project; textometric analysis; translation and revision workflow.


1
   We work with a Pure Neural Server platform deployed at Université Paris Cité:
https://plateformes.u-paris.fr/pure-neural-server-clillac-arp-plateforme-de-traduction-
automatique-sur-serveur-universite/

Copyright © 2023
The text in this work is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.                                       A116
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1. Introduction

In this paper we use a variety of textometric methods to analyse the revisions
made by students during a simulated website translation project. The aim of this
contribution is not only to quantify what types of linguistic revisions are carried
out during the translation workflow, but also to identify at which stages of the
teaching workflow these edits are made. Using both quantitative and qualitative
methods to examine the chronology of revisions (or chronological textual series,
Salem 1988; 1991), we hope to shed light on how the developing skills of our
students interact dynamically with the workflow of the project, as well as with
the evolving macrostructure of the translation course itself.
     The website translation project is part of a Masters-level university course in
French-to-English (FR > EN) translation entitled: Traduction de site web vers
l’anglais (TSA). The project is carried out as part of the International Network of
Simulated Translation Bureaus (INSTB)2. In previous studies we focused on the
impact of Neural Machine Translation (NMT) on various aspects of the TSA
course. For example, we examined the difficulties and opportunities involved in
integrating NMT into a complex pedagogical translation project (Gledhill and
Zimina 2019). We also examined the challenges our students face when learning
how to manage raw MT output (Zimina and Gledhill 2021), as well as how to
reconcile the results of specialised MT with the requirements of institutional style
guides and the recommendations of Plain Language guidelines (Gledhill and
Zimina 2022; Froeliger, Gledhill and Zimina in press).
     In this contribution, we set out to examine a previously unexplored
dimension, namely the evolutive nature of revision within the TSA project. In
particular, we set out to establish correlations between the different types of
linguistic revisions made during the translation project and the different stages
of the teaching workflow. Our aim here is to contribute to the nascent field of
revision studies, in particular the on-going discussion of translation/revision
competencies (TRC, as discussed in Koponen et al. 2021). In this perspective,
there has been much research on procedural aspects of translation/post-
editing/revision within the project workflow, with revision being seen as a
problem-solving exercise which is essentially driven by the need for quality
control: “[revision involves] a complete examination and up-dating of a
translation” (Hernández Morin 2009: 1 [our translation]). Revision has also been
theorised as an autonomous process, in terms of professional, cognitive and
linguistic skillsets. For example, there has been much experimental research
involving keystroke and eye-tracking analysis, as well as data looking at the
different types of resources used by trainee translators, in an attempt to discover
whether the same procedures, skills and resources are used across the translation
project (Goulet et al. 2017; Robert et al. 2017). In the following discussion, we
attempt to expand this research paradigm by using a new set of experimental
tools (textometric analysis) to look at previously unexamined data (cycles of
revision over the lifetime of a translation project).


2
    Details available here: https://www.instb.eu.
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    The following discussion is divided into three parts. In the first section, we
set out briefly some of the particular features of the TSA course, including the
general macrostructure of the course (the teaching workflow). Then, we look at
the central role of technology within the project, setting out how NMT is
integrated into the teaching and translation workflows. In the final sections, we
use textometric analysis to look in detail at the editorial history of a project
running from 2021 to 2022. As we see in the following discussion, there appears
to be a correspondence between the different types of edits made and particular
stages of the project workflow. In particular, we suggest two different revision
types: 1) “progressive” edits, which appear to follow the natural progress of the
project and which often involve modifications which themselves entail further
revisions down the line, and 2) “punctual” edits, one-off modifications, which
appear to react to different task constraints, often corresponding to particular
phases of the project. In the following sections, we examine some of these
evolutive processes in more detail.


2. Salient Features of the TSA course

The main characteristics of the TSA course have been described elsewhere
(Gledhill and Zimina 2019). Here we set out some of main features of the TSA
course that are relevant to the management and processing of linguistic revisions
within the overall project.

2.1. Creating and managing a translation workflow for teaching

Managing a translation project is a complex task that becomes even harder when
it comes to developing a translation project workflow for teaching purposes.
Building a translation / revision workflow for a translation project such as TSA
is a process in constant evolution. It encompasses nearly all facets of training
management: curriculum adjustments, group work and assessment planning,
learner feedback, technology updates, lab facilities, etc. Each year, much
flexibility is expected from project coordinators in order to fine-tune various
practical aspects of teaching.

2.1.1. Project roles

In terms of group work, a characteristic feature of the TSA project is that different
project management roles are assigned to each student (with a single role
sometimes being shared, or the same person having several roles). For example,
here are project roles from the period under study (2021 – 2022):

    •   Contract Writer(s)
    •   Communication Manager(s)
    •   Website Auditor(s)
    •   Task Manager(s)
    •   Translation Resources Auditor(s)
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    •   Technological Resources Coordinator(s)
    •   Translator(s)/Reviser(s): all students
    •   Terminologist(s)
    •   Quality Assurance Editor(s)
    •   Project Editor
    •   Website Administrator

2.2. Data Formats

With respect to data management, the trainee translators involved in the TSA
project deal with several types of content and data formats:

    •   Website pages (html, pdf, etc.)
    •   Project dictionaries (txt, xls)
    •   Translation memories (txt, tmx, sdlxliff), editorial history EN0-EN5 (xlsx, pdf)
    •   Project reporting forms (doc, odt, pdf)

2.3. Tools workflow

We have tried different configurations of CAT technology in relation to our
teaching workflow. The sequence in which each platform or tool is implemented
into the workflow clearly has an impact on the translation project. For example,
RWS Trados Studio is intricately interconnected with SYSTRAN Pure Neural
Server using an API key. It would be interesting to study the cognitive effects of
these tools on revision edits, and to examine how our students appropriate these
tools into their editing practice. However, such questions remain unanswered,
and require further study. It is sufficient for our purposes here to consider the
different types of tools that are presented to students on the project:

    •   Machine Translation Engine: SYSTRAN Pure Neural Server (specialised
        MT with custom resources: project dictionaries, translation memories)
    •   Translation Management System: RWS Trados
    •   Moodle, Google Drive, Excel (project management documentation,
        reporting forms and editorial history).

2.4. Editing and revision within a “Qualitative Translation / Revision
Workflow”: the concept of the Revision Cycle

The “revision cycle” is a critical component of the TSA project (Gledhill and
Zimina 2022). Our trainee translators are expected to deliver quality output after
several complex cycles of post-editing and revision. To this end, students are
provided with a number of documents (notably the English Style Guide published
by the Directorate General for Translation of the EU 2016/2023) and we also
encourage them to build their own Quality Assurance Document (including their
own style guide, inclusive language guide, etc.). In addition, in future iterations
of the course, the MQM standards (https://themqm.org) are planned to be
integrated into the teaching workflow, thus giving students a comprehensive set
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of quality control guidelines regarding project management, linguistic quality
control, etc. In order to characterise our translation project design philosophy,
we use the term “Qualitative Translation/Revision Workflow” (QTRW). QTRW
involves several revision cycles, and each revision cycle (RC) is given a code (i.e.
EN0, EN1, EN2 etc.). Here is a summary of the main cycles in a complete QTRW:

    •   EN0 (machine translation) > EN1 (post-edited translation). Generation of
        specialised machine translation output using custom resources
        (translation memories, terminology, specialised translation engine).
    •   EN1 (post-edited translation) > EN2 (first round of revision). Post-editing
        of all the task segments by the Translator.
    •   EN2 (first round of revision) > EN3 (second round of revision, style guide
        compliance). Revision of the same segments by the Reviser.
    •   EN3 (second round of revision) > EN4 (third round of revision in
        accordance with Editor comments). A further round of revision by
        students in the first instance (sometimes addressing specific editorial
        requests, style guide recommendations etc.).
    •   EN4 (third round of revision) > EN5 (translation delivery, translation quality
        control). Validation of the same segments by the Editor (i.e. the teacher).
    •   Delivery (with potentially more revision cycles, according to customer feedback).

2.5. Managing editorial history

Many features of computer-assisted translation tools and software have been
conceived to facilitate the revision process. However, generating a permanent
editorial “history” of changes made to each segment is not yet a standard feature
of translation technology. As a rule, existing translation/revision logs are not
designed for linguistic analysis and are not designed to produce quantitative data
that can be stored outside the translation system. We suggest that this aspect
reflects an underlying tendency in translation technology design, in which
detailed linguistic analysis of the translation/revision process is seen as of little
immediate relevance to the needs of the translation industry.
     This may be part of a more general tendency to downplay the importance of
language skills in society at large, as noted by commentators such as Hagège
(2012). On this view, skills which are apparently seen as objective and value-
free, such competencies in data management or image manipulation, are
preferred over skills which involve potentially face-threatening decisions
involving language, such as judging whether to re-write an unclear sentence, or
the ability to identify key arguments in relatively long texts (Hagège 2012: 72-
73). Thus, we have observed personally that some students see editing as merely
“error correction”, and they usually delete initial (non-revised) versions or the
initial machine translation that they have generated. Similarly, some students
see revision as a time-consuming obstacle rather than an opportunity for further
learning, and uncritically accept the changes made by their classmates or by their
teachers. As we have previously mentioned, this goes against the philosophy of
the TSA course: we feel that revision should be seen as an opportunity to engage
with the text and to add value to the translation project. More generally, the TSA
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course should be seen as a collaborative project, with revision being the
responsibility of the whole team (Gledhill and Zimina 2019: 63).


3. Textometric Analysis of Translation/Revision Processes

Multilingual textometric analysis is a field of research which brings together
knowledge from several related disciplines such as translation theory, natural
language processing (NLP) and textometrics. It covers a series of methods that
enable the researcher to formally reorganise regularly-occurring textual sequences
and to conduct statistical analysis based on the vocabulary of a corpus of texts
(Salem 1991; Lebart, Salem and Berry 1998; Zimina 2005).
     Abrupt changes that occur in the distribution of a textual unit in different parts
of a corpus may raise questions concerning the identification of other related
textual units (different realisations of the same lemma, related forms at the
semantic level, etc.). Textometric tools (such as iTrameur: https://itrameur.clillac-
arp.univ-paris-diderot.fr) allow the analyst not only to subdivide the text into
tokens, but also to identify other types of textual units on several annotation layers
(repeated segments calculated at the part-of-speech level, cooccurrence relations
with syntactic dependencies, etc.).
     In the following section, we describe a series of experiments that have been
carried out in order to identify characteristic revision patterns in the TSA
translation/revision data by means of textometric browsing (Zimina 2005). This
approach allows the user to navigate among the results produced by different
methods of textometric analysis and the original corpus. As we see below, the
observation of the frequencies and co-occurrences of the textual units in the
translation/revision corpus reveals patterns that are indicative of different types
of discourse that are characteristic of the source text (the FFD website, as described
below).

3.1. The TSA revision corpus

We collected all the revision data from a project conducted by a group of 2nd
Year Master’s students (2021-2022) who translated and revised 49 pages from
the FFD website (the official website of the French Federation of People with
Diabetes: https://www.federationdesdiabetiques.org).

3.1.1. Translating into English and related challenges

We have previously commented on the challenges faced by the students on the
TSA course, the foremost of which being the ability (and confidence) to translate
website content into English (Zimina and Gledhill 2021: 68, 76). It is now
increasingly recognised that an ability to work towards English is a viable core
skill for many L2 (non-native) students of translation (Taviano 2018; Garnier
2020). In parallel, it is also increasingly acknowledged that L1 (“native” or
“national”) varieties of English are less important in distributional terms than
international forms of the language, especially since so much online material,
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including translation memory, is generated by L2 users. This concept is
encapsulated by terms such as Global English or English as a lingua franca (ELF)
(Jenkins 2009; House 2013). But although many academics and industry insiders
recognise the validity of ELF, such a “plural” view of English has not penetrated
public discourse, including institutions such as the Directorate General for
Translation. Thus, the DGT’s English Style Guide still defines the norms of
English in terms of national standards (although it is notable that since the UK’s
withdrawal from the EU, the DGT has replaced “British English” by “Irish/British
English”):

       1.1. Language usage. The language used in English texts should be
       understandable to speakers of Irish/British English (defined in the
       introduction to this guide as the shared standard usage of Ireland and the
       United Kingdom). As a general rule, Irish/British English should be
       preferred, and Americanisms that are liable not to be understood by speakers
       of Irish/British English should be avoided. (EU 2016/2023:7)

Notwithstanding such a “nativist” stance, we generally encourage our students
to adopt an international or neutral variety of English. In this respect, our
students also face a number of complementary linguistic challenges that are
related to the ability to handle the subtleties of English, namely:

     1) the students also have to acquire skills in Plain Language (a requirement of
        most style guides, and the general practice on many Anglophone websites),
     2) the students also have to familiarise themselves with a variety of
        “atypical” discourses and text-types (genres) which they are often
        unfamiliar with (in the L2 or even their L1), especially since the websites
        we are dealing with often adopt ‘militant’ or ‘unorthodox’ discourse styles.

3.1.2. Editorial history

The editorial history of the project consists of the machine translation output
(EN0) and five consecutive revisions (EN1-EN5). Table 1 shows the main
quantitative characteristics of the TSA French/English parallel corpus. The
translation/revision data (EN0-EN5) are aligned with the source web page
segments (FR) at the sentence level.

     Table 1. Quantitative characteristics of the TSA corpus (type/token).
Part                             F token                    F type
FR                               52617                      6301
EN0                              46319                      5468
EN1                              46779                      5522
EN2                              46604                      5499
EN3                              47027                      5492
EN4                              47073                      5496
EN5                              47219                      5486

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3.1.3. Syntactic tagging

This aligned corpus was syntactically tagged using UDPipe 1
(https://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/udpipe/1). The annotated data in the CoNLL format
were then reformatted into an annotated database for iTrameur via a perl script.
     We thus obtained an aligned textometric database with six annotation layers
(form; lemma; category (pos); XPOSTAG for language-specific part-of-speech tag;
underscore if not available; FEATS for list of morphological features; underscore
if not available; DEPREL(HEAD)) for universal dependency relation, cf. Table 2.
The data were partitioned to trace the editorial history (FR, EN0-EN5).

    Table 2. The TSA corpus as a textometric database with six annotation layers.
#num    #Type    #forme     #pos     #leme     #XPOSTAG     #FEATS      #DEPREL(HEAD)

118043 forme     French   PROPN      French      NNP      Number=Sing COMPOUND(118045)
118044 delim               BLANK    BLANK         _            _              _
118045 forme Ministry PROPN Ministry             NNP      Number=Sing    OBL(118039)
118046 delim               BLANK    BLANK         _            _              _
118047 forme       of       ADP        of         IN           _        CASE(118049)
118048 delim               BLANK    BLANK         _            _              _
118049 forme     Health   PROPN      Health      NNP      Number=Sing   NMOD(118045)




3.2 Characteristic elements computation based on POS annotations of
individual tokens

To trace important changes in the revision process across different parts of the
TSA corpus, we calculated characteristic elements on several annotation layers.
Tables 3-4 show a variety of significant variations of text unit distributions across
the entire project (from EN0 to EN5) on the layer #XPOSTAG corresponding to
language-specific part-of-speech tags. The tags used in annotation come from the
Universal Dependencies (UD) project: https://universaldependencies.org. The
main trends in Tables 3-4 can be interpreted as follows:
    FW: “Foreign Words” are significantly underrepresented by the machine
translation (EN0), but become stable during the main revision cycles (EN1-EN4).
They are then overrepresented during the final revision cycle (EN5). As we
suggest below, this is part of a general tendency to re-introduce key foreign items
from the source text. The abrupt increase during the final stages of the revision
process probably represents the work of terminologists (who by this stage have
established a stable glossary for the project).




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    Table 3. Results of characteristic elements computation on XPOSTAGs: Part 1.




    Table 4. Results of characteristic elements computation on XPOSTAGs: Part 2.




    VBG: “Verb gerund-participles” are also significantly underrepresented at
EN0, while their usage stabilises during cycles EN1-EN5. As mentioned below,
there are several explanations for this, mostly relating to phraseological
preferences in the target language.
    NNS: “Plural nouns” are similarly underrepresented at EN0, while they
become more prevalent during cycles EN1-5. Below, we suggest that this can be
explained by a series of terminological expansions and explanations introduced
during the revision process.
    LSB/ RSB: “Left / Right Square Brackets” are underrepresented at EN0, but
then increase in use during cycle EN1 (the first revision cycle). We suggest below
that this modification is part of the standard practice of inserting a “Translator’s
Note”, although the timing here represents changes that are particular to the FFD
project.
    RB: “Adverbs” are underrepresented at EN0 and then become stable during
cycles EN1-EN4. Below, we suggest that this comes from subtle reformulations


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involving the expansion of the verbal group in English across a variety of
different segments.
     In the following sections, we examine each of these special cases in more
detail, giving examples and contexts of use.

3.2.1. Foreign Words

As mentioned above, the category FW (Foreign Words) is underrepresented at
the machine translation stage (EN0, specificity index -11), but then becomes
over-represented towards the end of the revision process (EN5, specificity index
+3). The hypergeometric model used to calculate the specificity index is
described in (Lebart et al. 1998; Lebart and Salem 1994). It identifies statistically
significant elements that occur more frequently in a selected part of the corpus
as compared to the corpus in its entirety. The explanation of the results appears
straightforward: the FFD website contains several references to French addresses,
names of organisations, titles and so on. If proper nouns and “ergonyms”
(organisation-specific terminology) are not recognised by the NMT, they can be
incorrectly rendered as English forms. The DGT English Style Guide gives specific
recommendations on how to represent source language nomenclature (section 5):

      If an official body or a company does not have an English name, treat this
      as proper name and leave it in the original form: Bundesbank, CNRS,
      Médecins Sans Frontières.

There are many instances of “foreign word restoration” in the FFD project. One
interesting example involves a postal address, in which the NMT deals correctly
with items such as the name of the Federation, the street name and the postcode,
but fails to recognise the name for a specific part of the organisation. It is notable
that the original error means that the students have had to reintroduce
capitalisation twice during the revision process:

      FR Fédération Française des Diabétiques, Service relations donateurs, 88 rue
      de la Roquette, CS20013, 75544 Paris cedex 11.
      EN0 French Federation of Diabetics, donor Relations Department, 88 rue
      de la Roquette, CS20013, 75544 Paris cedex 11.
      EN1 French Federation of Diabetics, Donor Relations Department, 88 rue
      de la Roquette, CS20013, 75544 Paris cedex 11.
      EN2 Fédération Française des Diabétiques, Service relations donateurs, 88
      rue de la Roquette, CS20013, 75544 Paris cedex 11.
      EN3-5 Fédération Française des Diabétiques, Service Relations
      Donateurs, 88 rue de la Roquette, CS20013, 75544 Paris cedex 11.

Other occurrences include names which go beyond the scope of the FFD project.
The following segment, for example, is only ever encountered on the website as
a link to an event (États Généraux> General Congress / Assembly) and thus
constitutes an ergonym whose form in French has had to be restored during the
revision process:

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       FR Les États Généraux du Diabète et des Diabétiques
       EN0 The States General of Diabetes and Diabetics
       EN1-5 États Généraux du Diabète et des Diabétiques

3.2.2. Verb Gerund Participles

The tag VBG refers to gerund-participle constructions involving the form being.
The category of “gerund-participle” covers a variety of different verbal
constructions (Huddleston and Pullum 2002), and tends to be used in a wider set
of contexts in English when compared with equivalent verbal structures in
French (Guillemin-Flescher 1981; Gómez-Castejón 2012). Thus, some very
general principles of comparative grammar may explain why the form is strongly
underrepresented at the machine translation stage (EN0) of the project
(specificity index: -7).
    One source of gerund-participle forms involves the translation of non-clausal
structures in French by clausal forms in English, as in the following:

       FR La Fédération Française des Diabétiques est une association régie par la loi du
       1er juillet 1901, fondée le 25 mars 1938, reconnue d''utilité publique le 3
       décembre 1976.
       EN0 The French Federation of Diabetics is an association governed by the
       law of July 1, 1901, founded on March 25, 1938, recognized of public
       utility on December 3, 1976.
       EN1-4 The French Federation of Diabetics is an association governed by the
       law of July 1, 1901, founded on March 25, 1938, recognized as of public
       utility on December 3, 1976.
       EN5 The French Federation of People with Diabetes is an association
       governed by the law of 1 July 1901. It was founded on 25 March 1938 and
       recognised as being of public interest on 3 December 1976.

The explanation for this is phraseological (lexico-grammatical preferences). In
both French and English, the verb reconnu / recognized can introduce an
attributive complement (in French d’utilité publique). However, mental process
verbs in English such as consider and recognise do not license prepositional
phrases for this function, instead preferring a bound clause headed by being. It is
notable that the students partially recognised this pattern (as can be seen in EN1-
4, where the subordinator as erroneously introduced after recognised).
     A similar example involves a fronted clause in French, which is initially
rendered by the NMT by a very marked form in English (a reduced clause, headed
by the ADJ free). During the revision process, this was repaired progressively,
and then replaced by a less marked structure (expanded passive, subordinate
clause) in the final revision:

       FR Ainsi, débarrassés des peurs ou lourdeurs qui nous empêcheraient d'oser et
       d'agir, nous pouvons construire de meilleures réponses à nos propres besoins et à
       ceux de nos parties prenantes.

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      EN0 So, free of the fear or heaviness that would prevent us from daring and
      acting, we can build better responses to our own needs and to those of our
      stakeholders.
      EN1-3 Thus free of the fear and heaviness that would prevent us from daring
      to act, we are able to forge better responses suited to our own needs and to
      those of our stakeholders.
      EN4-5 Without being weighed down by fear that would prevent us from
      daring to act, we are able to forge better responses suited to our own needs
      and to those of our stakeholders.

Finally, another potential source of the VBG tag involves the “resultative
passive”. In this structure, a simple passive can be used to express an on-going
process in French, while the equivalent structure in English should be rendered
by a progressive form. The difference can be seen in the French ATM message
Votre demande est traitée>Your request *is made which should be rendered as
>Your request is being made. Here is a similar example from the FFD project,
made more complex by a change in perspective (lexical verb) and transitivity
(nominalisation of the verb):

      FR Déjà 3500 personnes accompagnées, pourquoi pas vous ?
      EN0 Already 3,500 people followed, why not you?
      EN1-4 Already 3.500 people are being guided, why not you?
      EN5 Already, 3 500 people are receiving guidance, why not you?

3.2.3. Plural Nouns

The presence of the tag NNS (cf. Table 3) indicates that plural nouns are under-
represented at the machine translation (EN0) stage of the project, and then
introduced gradually during the revision process. There are many potential
sources for this. One simple explanation may involve certain very high frequency
keywords that happen to be singular in French but are plural (or have a
superficial plural form) in English. This is certainly the case for the single most
important term on the FFD website diabète / diabetes, which in English can be
used in contexts which are lexically ambiguous (and thus prone to be mis-
tagged), as in the following:

      FR Faites reculer le diabète!
      EN0 Get diabetes back!
      EN1-5 Help us fight diabetes!

A more sophisticated example involves FR ma glycémie>EN my glycaemia, a term
that occurs right across the website, including entire pages devoted to the topic.
In this case, the student team responsible for terminology had found that the
compound term blood sugar is preferred to glycaemia on a number of Anglophone
websites. This corroborates our experience with previous projects, in which
technical terms in FR (which often have Graeco-Latin form) are often replaced
by “plain language” expansions or explanations in EN. In this case, my glycaemia
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was at first rendered as a singular form my blood sugar at the EN1 (post-editing)
stage, but then during subsequent revisions, the translators changed the frame
of reference (moving from the referent to a facet of the referent: here referring
to a variable level), with a subsequent grammatical change (making blood sugar
the modifier of level and introducing a plural form):

       FR Ma glycémie
       EN0 My blood sugar
       EN1-5 My blood sugar levels

In a related example, the NMT appears to have treated glycaemia as a Foreign
Word (or perhaps as a potential typo). In this case, the students correctly decided
to harmonise their translation in line with the rest of the website:

       FR Des substances qui font varier la glycaemia
       EN0 Substances that make glycaemia vary
       EN1-5 Substances that vary blood sugar levels

3.2.4. Left / Right Square Brackets

As mentioned above, the tags LSB / RSB are generally underused during the
post-editing cycle EN1. This result is not surprising, as the use of parentheses
and brackets corresponds to standard practice when introducing extra material
or explanatory notes (metacomments, etc.), as mentioned in the DGT English
Style Guide (section 2):

       When translating, use square brackets to insert translations or explanations
       after names or titles left in the original language.

An example of this can be seen in this (admittedly unusual) example, in which
the student has attempted to repair a poorly-rendered version of the Koran into
English (a topic relevant to Diabetes because of the religious practice of fasting):

       FR La Sourate II verset 183 précise : “Si le jeûne peut altérer de manière
       significative la santé du jeûneur ou lorsque la personne est malade, l'Islam
       l'exempte du jeûne”.
       EN0 Surat II verse 184 states: “If fasting can significantly affect the fast’s
       health or when the person is ill, Islam exempts him from fasting.”
       EN1 Surat II verse 184: “[Fast for] a limited number of days. So whoever
       among you is ill or on a journey [during them] – then an equal number of
       days [are to be made up]. And upon those who are able [to fast, but with
       hardship] – a ransom [as substitute] of feeding a poor person [each
       day]. …”

It is notable that the material included in these reformulations goes beyond the
translation task, including reinterpretation and accompanying commentary on
the original Koranic text (thus going beyond the source text on the French

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website). This type of editing is clearly of a different nature to the other revisions
we have seen do far. We argue below that while most other forms are
“progressive” (in that they involve changes that are relatively predictable and
implemented across various stages of the revision process), this type of “one-off”
or occasional intervention is more likely to be encountered at just one stage of
the process.

3.2.5. Adverbs

The tag RB refers to various adverbial types. Again, the textometric analysis
picks up on the fact that these forms are underrepresented during machine
translation and then become stable during the remaining revision cycles. One
explanation for this may be the tendency for translators to introduce
‘modulation’ in the English text. By ‘modulation’ we are not referring to the term
familiar to many translators (Vinay et Darbelnet 1977), but rather to a subtype
of modality in systemic functional grammar (Matthiessen et al. 2014: 145-146)
which involves the expression of obligation / inclination, on a scale from positive
(commands, declaratives, performatives, etc.) to negative (hedging items,
attenuating adverbials, etc.)3. The following example shows a rather
sophisticated form of this, involving reorientation (change of person, from “I” to
“you”) as well as the introduction of two modal adverbs (“really” and “perhaps”).
We suggest that such changes modify the pragmatic function of the segment,
encouraging the addressee to interpret the clause as a suggestion or a possible
explanation, rather than as a statement of declarative fact:

      FR Je ne suis pas intéressé par l’activité physique.
      EN0 I am not interested in physical activity.
      EN1-4 You are not really into sports.
      EN5 Perhaps you are not really into sports.

It is important to note that the students who came up with this reformulation
used the same technique of reorientation (i.e., moving from first-person to
second person perspective) for many similar segments. This reformulation
therefore corresponds to a deliberate strategy of communication, and forms part
of a long list of similar statements that can be found on one page of the FFD
website. Thus, it may be that this reduplication of the same form may have had
an impact on our characteristic elements results. Although this form of revision
may resemble highly specific “punctual” rather than “progressive” editing, we
see below that there is also a tendency to find adverbials in co-occurrence in a
variety of complex verb group structures, as detailed in the following sections.




3This contrasts with ‘modalisation’, which is concerned with the expression of propositions on a
scale of positive (affirmation) to negative (negation) (Matthiessen et al. 2014: 144).
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3.3 Characteristic elements computation on POS n-grams

In the previous section, we looked at outstanding features which are recognised
by characteristic analysis at different stages of the revision process in the form
of individual items (represented by one particular tag). In this section, we
examine the co-occurrence of two or more tags in sequences, or POS n-grams. In
phraseological terms, this is known as “colligation”: the co-occurrence of one
POS tag with another (e.g., Noun + Verb), or one POS tag with another in a
particular sequence (e.g., Noun ^ Verb, etc). Either configuration may be
indicative a regularly recurring lexico-grammatical pattern. For this analysis, we
use “pos” and “XPOSTAG” annotations (cf. Table 2).
    One particular observation is that verbs of all types are generally
underrepresented in machine translation (specificity index: -2). In general, the
use of verbs then increases through the revision cycles (cf. Figure 1):




            Figure 1. Relative frequencies of VERBS in translation/revision cycles.


    The increased use of verbal forms during the revision stages of the project is
an expected feature when translating from French to English. There are however
several different contexts in which this can occur, and it is interesting to see
which of these are prevalent in the revision process of the TSA project.




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3.3.1. Pronoun + Verb




 Figure 2. Distributional profile of the POS n-gram PRON + VERB in the translation/revision
                                               cycles.


As seen in the previous section, there is a strong tendency for verbs to be
introduced in the English text during revision (cf. Figure 1). There is however a
parallel tendency, which involves the maintenance of Pronoun + Verb in the
original machine translation, followed by the expansion of the verbal group in
later revisions (cf. Figure 2). One explanation for this may lie in the transposition
of predicative nouns from the French source text into clauses in English: for each
new clause in EN, there is a subsequent need to introduce a pronoun subject for
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the verb. The following is a typical but also rather complex example, in that the
English version involves a different verb:

       FR La régularité est importante dans la pratique d'une activité physique.
       EN0 Regularity is important in the practise of physical activity.
       EN5 Regular exercise is important when it comes to physical activity.

Another source for this pattern involves the translation of “performatives”, that
is to say, instructions expressed not in the form of imperatives, but rather by the
first person in French (using “je + verb”, as though the authors of the website
are adopting their readers’ voice). Such examples are often rendered by the first
person at EN0, but are subsequently re-oriented during the revision process,
either towards second-person forms (“you”) or the imperative. The following
selection gives an idea of the range of forms involved:

       FR Je peux joindre les différents services de la Fédération par email et poser mes
       questions via le formulaire de contact.
       EN0 I can reach the different services of the Federation by email and ask
       my questions via the contact form.
       EN4: You can reach the different services of the Federation by email and
       ask your questions via the contact form

       FR Je reste informé, je m'inscris à la newsletter
       EN0 I stay informed, I subscribe to the newsletter
       EN1-2 I stay informed, I subscribe to the newsletter
       EN3-5 Stay informed, subscribe to the newsletter

       FR J'équilibre mon alimentation
       EN0 Balance my diet
       EN4 Eat a balanced diet

Since the imperative in English removes the need to represent the pronoun in
French, the consequent decrease in the relative frequency of PRON tags may
have had an impact on the frequency distribution. We have also noted that there
are differences in the use of interjections (INTJ) in EN0 and EN5, and this may
be associated with the use of please in these contexts, as in this example:

       FR j'appelle le 01 40 09 24 25.
       EN0 I call 01 40 09 24 25.
       EN5 Please call +33 1 40 09 24 25.




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3.3.2. Auxiliary + Adverb + Verb

Another feature of the revised translation is revealed by characteristic changes
in the distribution of the POS pattern AUX + ADV + VERB (“should also follow”
“are now included”). This pattern is underrepresented (specificity index: -3) in
the machine translation output (EN0), but then undergoes a significant increase
in use in the remaining revision cycles (cf. Figure 3).




        Figure 3. Distributional profile of the POS n-gram AUX + ADV + VERB in the
                                  translation/revision cycles.


Given the syntactic preferences of French and English, there are various
explanations for this result. Generally, while adverbial and prepositional phrases
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can be placed freely after lexical verbs in French, this position is highly marked
in English (as shown in Gledhill 2011), a restriction that may account for many
examples of material being moved away from the post-verbal position and placed
elsewhere, as in the following:

       FR Si les activités physiques ou sportives sont recommandées en général pour
       les personnes diabétiques, il faut adapter ses pratiques en fonction de…
       EN0 If physical or sporting activities in general are recommended for
       people with diabetes, you have to adapt your practices according to...
       EN1 Sport and physical activities are usually recommended for people
       with diabetes, but it is necessary to adapt your practices according to your
       condition.

The sequence AUX + ADV + VERB can also occur when a simple verb in French
is replaced by an expanded form in English, as in the case of active-to-passive
reformulations:

       FR Elles relèvent aujourd'hui du secteur hospitalier.
       EN0 They are now in the hospital sector.
       EN1-4 They are now included in the hospital sector.
       EN5 These are now included in the hospital sector.

A more unexpected source for AUX + ADV + VERB can be found in ad hoc
additions. Although most of these examples are unique, they generally involve
the breaking up of the original segment and the addition of new clause. Thus,
the following example involves a short re-statement of (nominalised) advice that
is only expressed indirectly as a pronoun in the source text:

       FR [conseils du médecin] d'adapter son alimentation et ses doses d'insuline en
       fonction de l'activité choisie, etc. Et celles de tout exercice physique en général :
       EN0 [your doctor's advice is] to adapt your diet and your insulin doses
       according to your chosen activity, etc. And those of any physical exercise
       in general:
       EN5 [you should follow you doctor's advice] adapting your diet and your
       insulin doses according to your chosen activity, etc. You should also follow
       the rules of any physical activity in general:

In the following example, the translator has decided to explain the difference
between two sources of medical insurance in the French system. This new
material is expressed as a secondary clause which restates the modal verb first
encountered in the primary clause:

       FR Leurs tarifs diffèrent mais généralement ce sont ceux de médecins
       conventionnés du secteur 1 ou 2.
       EN0 Their rates differ, but generally they are sector 1 or 2 physicians.
       EN1-4 Their rates differ, but they are usually sector 1 or 2 fund doctors.


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      EN5 Their charges will differ. They can be imposed by the French Health
      Insurance (“sector 1” doctors) or can fully depend on the practitioner
      (“sector 2” doctors).

A further example of ad hoc addition involves the division of single segment into
two separate segments. Here a simple French imperative is expanded into a full
clause, with the addition of the subject from the previous text, a modal verb and
textual adjunct (can also):

      FR Mais si vous préférez le cadre d'un club ou d'une salle de sport, pensez aux
      possibilités de paiement en plusieurs fois, voyez si la mairie, une association
      locale ou le centre social ne propose pas la même activité à moindre coût.
      EN0 But if you prefer the setting of a club or a gym, think about the
      possibilities of payment in several times, see if the town hall, a local
      association or the social centre does not offer the same activity at a lower
      cost.
      EN1-5 However, if you prefer practicing within a club or a gym, think
      about the option of paying in several times. Check if the town hall, a local
      association or the community centre offers the same activity at a lower cost.
      EN6 (additional revision cycle, student’s reporting form data) However, if
      you would like to do sports in a club or a gym, consider paying over several
      instalments. You can also check if the town hall, a local association or the
      community canter can offer the same activity at a lower cost.



3.3.3. Noun + Noun

Characteristic elements analysis reveals that the pattern Noun + Noun is
underrepresented at the machine translation stage (EN0, specificity -3) but
stabilises during the rest of the revision process (EN1-5). We interpret this as
evidence for the increased use of pre-modifying nouns and other reformulations
of the nominal group during revision.
      Figures 5 and 6 reveal there is a tendency to translate simple nominals in
French by compound nominals in English in human revision, especially in
contexts where non-technical (“plain”) language is recommended. As mentioned
above in relation to the plural (3.2.3), this statistical trend becomes particularly
prevalent in the FFD website translation project, because of very high frequency
terms such as glycémie, which is regularly translated by blood sugar (level) in the
revised translation (EN1-5).




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Figure 4. Distributional profile of the POS n-gram NOUN + NOUN in the translation/revision
                                               cycles.




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  Figure 5. Distributional profile of NOUNS identified by the COMPOUND dependency in the
                                  translation/revision cycles.




Figure 6. Results of characteristic elements computation for NOUNS identified by COMPOUND
                                    dependency in iTrameur.


    It is interesting to note that this type of reformulation has an impact not only
on the translation of nominals, but also affects forms that are derived from these
nominals. For example, the compound blood level is also used introduced to
translate the adjective glycémique, as in:

      FR: Des études démontrent en effet ses nombreux bienfaits, notamment
      l’amélioration de l’équilibre glycémique.


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       EN 0: Studies show its many benefits, including improved glycaemic
       equilibrium.
       EN 5: Studies show how beneficial it can be, including with improving blood
       sugar balance.

Similarly, compounds such as blood sugar / blood glucose can be further pre-
modified to render terms such asglycémie à jeun> fasting blood sugar or used as a
pre-modifier to translate lecteur de glycémie> blood glucose meter (although in
this case the multi-word compound has been replaced by a multi-morpheme term
at a later stage of revision, as can be seen at EN5):

       FR: Elle se surveille de deux façons : en laboratoire d’analyses médicales : pour
       mesurer sa glycémie à jeun et tous les 3 mois, son hémoglobine glyquée (HbA1c)
       avec un lecteur de glycémie…
       EN0 It monitors itself in two ways: in the laboratory of medical analysis: to
       measure his fasting blood glucose and every 3 months, his blood glucose
       (HbA1c), with a blood glucose meter …
       EN5: It can be monitored in two ways: Laboratory tests: measure your
       fasting blood sugar (FBS) and glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) every three
       months, with a glucometer …

While these examples all involve technical terminology, a further example
demonstrates that the sequence N+N can also emerge in a more discursive
context, this time replacing an adjective by a pre-modifying N:

       FR Au fil de plus de 80 ans d'existence, notre Fédération, reconnue d'utilité
       publique, a su se transformer mais également apporter sa contribution à des
       évolutions décisives.
       EN0 Over more than 80 years of existence, our Federation, recognized as a
       public utility, has been able to transform itself but also to make its
       contribution to decisive developments.
       EN1 In over 80 years of existence, our Federation, recognised under French
       law as a public utility, has undergone constant evolution and has also
       contributed to landmark developments.
       EN5Throughout its 80 years of existence, our Federation has undergone
       constant evolution, contributing to landmark developments, which has led
       it to be recognized under French law as public utility.

Although N+N is clearly associated with technical term formation in English,
other sources for this pattern can also be observed. For instance, complex
nominals in French are regularly formed using a sequence of nouns plus the
preposition de (N + de + N + de). In the machine translation, this can often
result in a “cascade of of’s”. During the subsequent revision process, the students
are encouraged to create more balanced nominals, either using prepositions
other than “of” or by transforming a post-modifier into a pre-modifier in English.
Both techniques can be seen in the following example:


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      FR 100 ans de la découverte de l’insuline
      EN0 100 years of discovery of insulin
      EN1-5 100 years since the discovery of insulin
      EN6 100-year anniversary of insulin discovery

A similar type of revision can be seen at work in the following example, although
here the machine translation has proposed a solution using a specific preposition
(of>for), while the translators prefer a three-element compound:

      FR Concernant les données relatives aux prospects issues d’un fichier loué ou
      échangé, elles ne sont pas conservées au-delà de la durée nécessaire à la
      réalisation de la campagne de collecte de dons pour lesquelles elles ont été
      louées ou échangées.
      EN0 For data concerning prospects from a leased or exchanged file, it shall
      not be kept for longer than is necessary for carrying out the campaign for
      the collection of the donations for which it has been leased or exchanged.
      EN5 Data concerning prospects from a leased or exchanged file shall not be
      kept for longer than the time necessary for the corresponding donation
      collection campaign.


3.4 Editorial history, longitudinal partition, textual time series

3.4.1. Correspondence analysis of the TSA translation / revision

The first quantitative analyses of TSA revision cycles reveal the importance of
phenomena related to text progression. We use Correspondence Analysis (CA) to
further explore chronological progression of translation/revision cycles (Lebart
et al., 1998).
     CA is a multivariate statistical technique that graphically displays a
contingency table by computing the coordinates representing its rows (textual
units in our case) and columns (corpus parts) and their interdependencies. As
one can see from the plot of the CA dimension 1and 2 (cf. Figure 7), there is a
clear serial structure in the revision data (i.e., the so-called “Gutmann effect”:
Lebart et Salem, 1994; Salem 1991). It can be seen here that CA is capturing the
relative chronological order of the revision cycles. Red lines connecting
consecutive corpus parts (revision cycles) have been added to highlight the
outcome provided by the CA. With reference to the dimension 1and 2, we can
see that the text revision progresses from right to left. Moreover, the third
dimension (i.e., the vertical one) is capturing a trend of variation related to
human/machine translation, separating MT output (EN0) from human revisions
(EN1-5).




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                 Figure 7. Correspondence analysis of the TSA revision cycles.



3.4.2. Temporal analysis of small contextual shifts in revision cycles

We notice that the chronological order of the partition gives the TSA revision
data special properties in terms of the chronological textual series (i.e.,
homogeneous periodical series constituted by texts produced in similar
enunciation situations, Salem 1991). In the case of chronological textual series,
the results obtained by textometric methods must be interpreted according to
specific rules. Coefficients calculated on the basis of the distribution of textual
units through the different periods of the corpus make it possible to compare and
explore the revision cycles. We rely on the periodisation metrics provided by
temporal variations of barycenter positions (BT) and von Neumann stability
analysis (VN) (explained in Salem 1988), to explore the revision data (cf. Figure
8). Thus, CA allows us to highlight the elements that change over time due to
the chronological structure of the data. The results calculated by iTrameur are
informative because they enable us to identify small contextual changes that
occur in specific revision cycles. Such successive changes are sometimes difficult
to capture without taking into account the chronological dimension of the corpus
(lexical time).
      In EN4, for example, the form ‘EUR’ replaces the symbol € in compliance
with the English Style Guide (cf. Figure 8).




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     Figure 8. Periodisation metrics provided by the temporal barycentre (TB) / von Neumann
                                        coefficient (VN).


Legend: The ‘BT’ (temporal barycenter, barycentretemporel in French) measures
the distribution of a given unit: we measure where in the partition we have as
many occurrences before as after. The “VN” index measures the differences in
frequency of a unit between the different parts: if the differences are stable, the
unit evolves continuously within the chronology; if the frequency varies greatly
from one part to another, a “coarse” profile with ups and downs is identified.
Finally, the combination of these two indications highlights the parts that evolve
according to the chronology (we sort by “BT” and identify low “VN” to spot
shifting elements that change over time due to the chronological structure of the
data, such as “Perhaps” or “EUR”).


4. Discussion

The patterns observed in the previous sections can be discussed in terms of two
general tendencies:

    1. Progressive revisions: “on-going” or partial modifications which can be
       observed right across the project and can involve several further changes
       as the project progresses (and can thus be seen as potentially stretching
       across one or more revision cycles).
    2. Punctual revisions: “one-off” or isolated modifications which are often
       associated with a very specific part of the project, and can be completed
       (or reversed) in one revision cycle; these can be unpredictable one-off edits


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        (reacting to a specific problem) or edits which are more or less predictable
        (reflecting collective editing decisions, editorial instructions, etc.)

    Within both revision types, it is also possible to distinguish between project-
initial, project-central and project-final revisions.
    Project-initial revisions are implemented at the very beginning of the project
workflow, and can be either progressive or punctual. The clearest example of
project-initial modifications involves Noun ^ Noun compounds, which as we have
seen are introduced in significant numbers very early-on in the project.
    In contrast, project-final revisions tend to involve punctual revisions that are
often introduced as part of the harmonisation process (in terms of the style guide)
or as part of the terminology project (since ergonyms and project terminology
often only emerge at the tail end of the project). The clearest examples of this
include the restoration of Foreign Words (as discussed in section 3.2.1) and punctual
modifications such as the correction of the currency symbol (section 3.4.2).
    Finally, it is interesting to note that project-central revisions (that is to say,
edits which predominate in cycles EN2-3) are not frequent, but they provide some
of the most interesting data. For example, it could be argued that the Pronoun ^
Verb pattern (mentioned above, section 3.3.1) is a project-central progressive
revision, in that many examples of this sequence are removed at stage EN0, but
then re-introduced during later stages, as students learn to replace nominal
predicates with clauses. We also suggest that the pattern AUX ^ ADV ^ VERB is also
a good example of a project-central progressive revision, since this pattern
emerges gradually over the course of cycles EN1-4, reaching a peak at EN3.
However, as discussed above (3.3.2), this pattern involves many different types of
structure, and so cannot be seen as a reaction to a particular editorial decision.

   Table 3. Summary of revision types according to duration (Progressive /
Punctual) and timing (Project-initial / Project-central / Project-final).
                               Project-initial revisions
                               NNS Plural Nouns
                               N + N Noun ^ Noun
                               RB Adverbs (Modal Adverbials)
                               VBG Verbal Gerund-Participles

 Progressive revisions         Project-central revisions
                               AUX + RB + VB Auxiliary ^ Adverb ^ Verb (listed twice)
                               PRON + VERB Pronoun ^ Verb
                               VBG Verbal Gerund-Participles
                               Project-final revisions
                               VBG Verbal Gerund-Participles
                               Project-initial revisions
                               LSB/RSB Left / Right Square Brackets
                               Project-central revisions
 Punctual revisions
                               [No examples found in our dataset].
                               Project-final revisions
                               FW Foreign Words

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5. Conclusion

What lessons can be gleaned from the data we have set out in this paper? As
mentioned in the introduction, we have previously attempted to systematise the
TSA course by creating a model for the translation workflow project as a whole
(the Quality Translation Revision Workflow) and by devising a teaching
workflow built around the core activity of revision. Perhaps the most important
message we infer from the above analysis is that revision data are just as
important to the analysis of a translation as the initial and final stages of the
project. At the very least, this kind of study emphasises just how important it is
to conserve the intermediary stages of a translation project; a feature of the
project workflow that is often underdeveloped within translation platforms.
     From a broader theoretical and empirical perspective, the data set out above
open a number of interesting research perspectives. We would claim that the
patterns of revision identified here are not randomly distributed, but represent a
number of significant regularities of practice. Perhaps the clearest distinction can
be seen between project-initial revisions that are conducted immediately after
machine translation (EN1 onwards), and project-final revisions (at EN4 or later).
Project-initial revisions tend to be “progressive”, in that once made the edits also
often involve further modifications (as can be seen in the iconic example:
glycaemia > blood sugar > blood sugar levels). Examples such as these show very
clearly that some kinds of revision are not one-off modifications, but can involve
a chain of reformulations, many of which being implemented in reaction to other
considerations. For example, it may have been that our students decided to use
“blood sugar” collectively, but the addition of “levels” turned out be a local,
isolated addition. Such revisions clearly represent very complex phenomena
indeed.
     It occurs to us therefore that it is important to establish a typology of
revisions that takes account of their status and function in the chronology of the
project. In this paper, we have made a modest proposal to distinguish in the first
instance between progressive and punctual revisions. The recognition that some
revisions may be “partial” or “on-going” allows us to see the revision process as
truly “evolutive”, that is to say as a developing, accumulative process rather than
as an exercise in “getting it right first time”. Such an approach would certainly
be a reassurance for our students, who are sometimes stressed by the need to
finish a translation / revision cycle, often forgetting that they will (indeed must!)
have another opportunity to improve their text at a later stage. In any case, it
remains to be seen whether such a distinction is truly useful, and it would in any
case be necessary to conduct further analysis (on a much broader data set, for
example). However, the category of “progressive revisions” that we have
identified here (including syntactic reformulations such as adverbial
displacement, the formation of nominal compounds, the preference for clauses
instead of predicative nominals, and so on) may reflect a number of lexico-
grammatical patterns that have already been identified as translation universals
in the literature (Mossop 2014).
     The examples above also show very clearly that certain types of revision can
skew the data very strongly. This may be particularly true of punctual and
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project-final revisions, which tend to be modifications that emerge as part of the
specific editorial problems associated with the project (as we have seen with the
example of Left and Right Square Brackets, which may have been introduced as
an early-stage, one-off “punctual” revision in the translation of the Koran, section
3.2.7).
    In sum, although the data that we have presented in the preceding sections
do at times seem to point in some very different directions, we would claim that
they show at least one thing: that the revision process is “evolutive”, that is to
say, the modifications that can be observed are not random, but involve a
complex interplay of different editing constraints that can be objectively revealed
combining quantitative and qualitative research methods.


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