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Part of
Translation in Transition: Human and machine intelligence
Edited by Isabel Lacruz
[American Translators Association Scholarly Monograph Series XX] 2023
► pp. 39–56

Chapter 3
Post-editing and a sustainable future for translators

| Rikkyo University

Many translators and language service providers (LSPs) emphasize a distinction between human translation (HT) and post-editing (PE). As the perceived divide between the two tasks grows, the differing social status of HT and PE becomes more pronounced. This has consequences for professional identity as well as compensation. But are HT and PE substantially different? We examine this question, mainly by reinterpreting previous studies in translation process research. Based on these findings, we argue that HT and PE are not radically different in terms of the skills and effort required to achieve their shared goal of ensuring consistent, quality translations. Therefore, the perception among practitioners and LSPs of PE being easier and of lesser quality than HT may be baseless.

Keywords: human translation, post-editing, machine translation, sustainable translation
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The status quo
    • Use of machine translation in the industry
    • MT usage by LSPs in Japan and other countries
    • ISO 18587: International standards for post-editing
    • Full post-editing
    • Light post-editing
    • Differences by translation production process
    • Post-editing and the future of the translation industry
    • The HT and PE divide
  • Previous research on PE
    • Efficiency
    • Quality
    • Effort and amount of editing
    • Pause analysis
    • The problem of inter-experimental comparison
  • Is there a difference between PE and HT?
    • Post-editing of NMT
    • Relationship between MT error and cognitive load
    • Comprehensive translation and search skills
  • Conclusion: For a sustainable future of translation
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ata.xx.03yam
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