Exploring a two-way street: revisers’ and translators’ attitudes and expectations about each other in biomedical translation

Santos Ângelo Salgado Valdez, S.; Vandepitte, S.; Koponen, M.; Mossop, B.; Robert, I.S.; Scocchera, G.

doi:doi:10.4324/9781003096962-12

Revisers’ practices, as well as translators’ decision-making are based on their attitudes towards and expectations about what the community expects from their work. It is relevant not only to understand what are the attitudes and expectations of revisers, but also to compare those attitudes and expectations with what translators believe revisers expect of them. Since such types of beliefs are still understudied from a descriptive-oriented perspective in particular in scientific-technical contexts, this chapter adopts survey methodology to report on the attitudes and expectations of professional revisers and translators in English to European Portuguese biomedical translation. It analyses data elicited from a questionnaire to 71 professionals, and identifies attitudes and expectations of revisers about the competence and working practices of translators, and translators’ attitudes and expectations about revisers, describing revision and translation process expectations or, in...Show moreRevisers’ practices, as well as translators’ decision-making are based on their attitudes towards and expectations about what the community expects from their work. It is relevant not only to understand what are the attitudes and expectations of revisers, but also to compare those attitudes and expectations with what translators believe revisers expect of them. Since such types of beliefs are still understudied from a descriptive-oriented perspective in particular in scientific-technical contexts, this chapter adopts survey methodology to report on the attitudes and expectations of professional revisers and translators in English to European Portuguese biomedical translation. It analyses data elicited from a questionnaire to 71 professionals, and identifies attitudes and expectations of revisers about the competence and working practices of translators, and translators’ attitudes and expectations about revisers, describing revision and translation process expectations or, in other words, how the translator is expected to perform his/her work according to the reviser, and vice versa. Results show that while revisers mainly express negative attitudes and expectations about translators, referring to superficial self-revision practices and lack of communication, translators believe that quality is subjective, and that revisers mostly introduce preferential changes in their revisions. These findings contribute to creating a fuller picture of the relationship between revisers and translators, and enable us to better understand the practices in place in professional biomedical revision and translation
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Exploring a two-way street: revisers’ and translators’ attitudes and expectations about each other in biomedical translation