Eötvös Loránd University

Faculty of Humanities

SUMMARY OF DOCTORAL THESIS

EDINA ROBIN

TRANSLATION UNIVERSALS IN REVISED TEXTS

Doctoral School of Linguistics

Head: Dr. Vilmos Bárdosi CSc, professor

Translation Studies Doctoral Programme

Head: Dr. Kinga Klaudy DSc, professor

Members of Committe:

Chair: Dr. Janusz Bańczerowski DSc, professor emeritus

Opponents: Dr. Pál Heltai CSc, professor emeritus

Dr. Károly Krisztina PhD, associate professor

Secretary: Dr. Papp Andrea PhD, professor

Members: Dr. Horváth Péter Iván PhD

Dr. Tóth Etelka PhD, college professor

Dr. Seidl-Péch Olívia PhD, senior lecturer

Supervisor:

Dr. Kinga Klaudy DSc, professor

Budapest

2014

1

1. Introduction

One of the core research areas in translation studies seeks to determine the

general linguistic features of translated texts. Several researchers find the

quest for translation universals too ambitious (House 2008), caution against

it (Chesterman 2004), and warn about formulating trivialities (Toury 2004).

However, empirical studies have found evidence for the presence of certain

linguistic features in translated texts (Laviosa 1998, 2009), which are more

common in translation than in original writing, regardless of the systemic

features of the language pair in question and the direction of translation.

These linguistic features include simplification, the avoidance of repetitions,

explicitation, transfer of textual characteristics of the source language, the

unusual distribution of lexical items, conventionality, normalisation, the

lack of target language specific unique items and ‘levelling out’ (Baker

1995, Laviosa 1998, 2009).

Analyses of translation universals, however, often fail to take into

account that the corpora on which the research is based usually consist of

revised translations, which not only exhibit traits of the translators’ strategy

and their transfer operations, but also those of the revisers. This raises the

question how revisers modify the translators’ operations—if they modify

them at all—in the target text. It is also unclear whether the features deemed

to be the result of translation i.e. the linguistic patterns characteristic of

translated texts are in fact universal features unique to translated texts only,

or whether they should be examined in a broader domain of communication.

While analysing translation universals I started to speculate that

revisional modification that are inexplicable, controversial or often deemed

unnecessary might actually be linked to the general linguistic features

described above. Research in translation studies (e.g. Tirkkonen-Condit

2004, Chesterman 2010) suggest that the so called translation universals –

often considered as the distinguishing features of translated texts – primarily

characterise “mediocre” translations. Revisers working with translations and

2

seeking to correct texts by applying global strategies at macro level

(Horváth 2009) while also bearing in mind the norms of the target language

(Mossop 2007, Šunková 2011) might modify translation “anomalies” that

translators might be unaware of. After all, these “anomalies” are not actual

grammatical or spelling mistakes but linguistic features characteristic of the

so-called “third code” (Frawley 1984). Thus, it is worth taking a closer look

at revisers’ work to see whether they influence the dominance of universals.

2. Relevance

At the theoretical level, the results of the study described in the dissertation

can contribute to the analysis of the general characteristics of translated

texts, and also help to pinpoint factors influencing their occurrence (Toury

2004). Studies concerning translation universals, in particular explicitation,

(Pym 2008, Becher 2010, Chesterman 2010, Heltai 2011) increasingly call

for the clarification of the theoretical background behind translation-specific

phenomena. The true nature of these phenomena needs to be established,

since the study of translation universals has practical implications for the

education and professional activities of translators.

The findings might also broaden our understanding of previously

less well-known features of revision, and can contribute to the description

of revisers’ work. I hope that the dissertation will contribute to the literature

about revisers’ activities and serve as a starting point for future research. If

we want revisers to be true professionals doing quality, conscientious work,

they cannot be expected to somehow “pick up” the knowledge necessary for

their profession. Theoretical and empirical research needs to be carried out,

which can then serve as a basis for the training of future revisers.

The practical relevance of the study is twofold: professional

translators and revisers can draw conclusions from the findings concerning

their work, and instructors training future revisers will be able to determine

what to focus on during translation and the revision of translated texts. After

3

all, universals—which can be considered the telltale signs of translation—

primarily characterise “fairly poor” translations, and as such, in theory, can

be eliminated by the conscious improvement of professional competence.

3. Objectives

The aim of the present study was to determine what happens to translation

universals during revision, i.e. whether revisers modify the—presumably—

general linguistic characteristics typical of translations while revising a text.

My research focuses on revision operations, which will be analysed to

determine whether they modify the linguistic features mentioned among

translation universals. I will not seek to ascertain whether translation

universals occur in the texts of the corpus used. As a starting point I take it

as evident that the translation phenomena discussed in the literature are, to

some extent, relevant to the analysed translated texts. Based on the transfer

operations identified during the contrastive text analysis it is possible to

speculate on the presence and dominance of translation universals in the

corpus, these, however, need to be explored in another empirical study.

4. Research questions

In view of the above, my research is primarily concerned with whether

revisers modify the linguistic characteristics typical of translations, the so-

called translation universals, while revising a text. In order to answer this,

additional research question have been formulated, and are listed below:

(1) Are there any statistically measurable differences between draft

translations and revised texts, which could point to the modifications of

translation universals?

(2) Do revisers make modifications to the text in addition to obligatory

corrections? And if they do, what are these modifications?

4

(3) Do revisers perform independent explicitation and implicitation?

(4) Do they change the explicitating and implicitating transfer operations

performed by the translators?

(5) What is the distribution of revisers’ explicitating and implicitating

interventions, and how can the most frequent operations be categorised?

(6) Do revisers modify the level of explicitness in translated texts?

5. Research hypotheses

Translation universals can be considered deviations from target language

norms, since they distinguish translated texts from originals (Baker 1993,

Laviosa 1998). On the other hand, revision can be regarded as conformance

to the norms (Mossop 2007, Šunková 2011). Thus, we might suppose that

revisers—besides checking for equivalence, spelling and grammar—make

modifications in the texts to bring them closer to the target language norms,

thereby reducing the dominance of the linguistic phenomena classified as

translation universals. Based on the research questions, the hypothesis can

be broken down to sub-hypotheses as follows:

(1) There are statistically measurable differences between draft translations

and revised texts, suggesting that translation universals are modified.

(2) Revisers modify translators’ explicitating and implicitating operations,

since the overuse or lack of these might result in the occurrence of

translation universals.

(3) Besides making obligatory corrections, revisers modify translators’

unnecessary transfer operations and perform interventions where the

translator fails to do so.

(4) Besides modifying translators’ operations, revisers perform individual

explicitation and implicitation to optimise the lexical and grammatical

redundancy and explicitness of translated texts.

(5) Revision has its own universal linguistic features.

5

6. The revisional corpus

The revisional corpus contains original English texts, their Hungarian draft

translations and their edited versions. All the analysed texts belong to

contemporary fiction. This genre is characterised by few constraints: its use

of language is not bound by terminology, set phrases and canonical forms

typical of specialised texts, or by peculiarities associated with high

literature. This makes it ideal for analysing general trends. Künzli (2006)

states that in the case of specialised translations, revisers get stuck at the

word level, and disregard text-level problems, which is substantiated by

Horváth’s (2009) research. As translation universals include text-level

phenomena, I needed texts where these are likely to occur.

The texts included in the corpus were selected at random. The date

of publication, however, the genre and the popularity of the Hungarian

edition were taken into account, because I wanted to analyse books that had

been accepted by the readers. The translators and revisers of the texts work

as freelancers, so I could disregard the in-house traditions of the various

publishers. Ten different pairs of translators and revisers worked on the

texts. Only two translators produced more than one translation, but these

were given to different revisers. The texts were provided by the publishers.

7. Research methods

The empirical research conducted for the present dissertation was based on

quantitative and qualitative methods. It combines the advantages of

objective, quantifiable research approaches with focused, in-depth methods,

ensuring validity and reliability. Computer-aided analysis was performed on

the entire revisional corpus. Shifts at text-level were sought to be identified

in the whole corpus. In order to draw general conclusions, the operations

causing the phenomena identifiable at text-level through computer-aided

analysis were also needed to be examined.

6

7.1 Computer-aided analysis

The texts were provided by the publishers in digital format, which made it

possible to subject them to automatic, computer-aided analysis. Since I did

not use annotations int he texts, doing lexicogrammatical analysis was not

feasible, but I was still able to carry out certain statistical calculations. The

computer-aided analysis was aimed at finding the answer to the first

research question described above, that is, whether there are any statistically

measurable differences between draft translations and revised texts, which

could point to modifications of translation universals. The following were

performed on the entire revisional corpus: comparing the length of the texts,

counting the revisional operations, determining the number of sentences and

words, calculating the standardised type/token rate, establishing the unique

vocabulary typical of each text, analysing lexical density, comparing the

lexical profile of the texts, and determining the standard deviation of the

numerical data.

Based on Szirmai’s (2005) suggestions, the analysis was carried

out using version 6.0 of Wordsmith Tools, the Word Count and the Text

Lex Compare function of Lex Tutor. Significance and standard deviation

were calculated using SPSS 14.0, a statistical analysis program. Each

version of a text—the English original, the Hungarian draft translation and

the revised translation—was stored and analysed separately, which enabled

the comparison of the novels and their different versions.

7.2 Contrastive text analysis

During the contrastive, qualitative analysis, I examined twenty sentences

from each version of the ten separate novels. First, I performed contrastive

text analysis on the draft translations and the original source texts to identify

the translator’s explicitating and implicitating operations based on Klaudy’s

7

(1997) typology for transfer operations. Second, following Klaudy’s (1999)

and Englund Dimitrova’s (2005) typology, I grouped the identified transfer

operations into different categories: obligatory rule-based, optional norm-

based and editorial operations. Third, I compared the draft translations to

the revised versions to see how revisers modified the translators’ operations,

and whether they performed any explicitation or implicitation—as well as

the typology of these interventions—independent from the translators’

transfer operations. Fourth, I analysed how the categories of the different

operations performed by the translators and revisers were distributed. Fifth,

I calculated the shifts in the linguistic explicitness of the texts using Makkos

and Robin’s (2011) index of explicitness. Finally, I collated the data and,

supported by significance analysis, interpreted it to determine general

trends. I ensured reliability by using double coding.

8. Summary of results

The aim of my empirical research was to find out whether revisers perform

operations during their work that have the potential to modify the presumed

translation universals. The quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that

revisers carry out operations in the text in addition to correcting translation,

grammatical and spelling mistakes. These additional operations reduce the

dominance of the phenomena classified as translation universals, that is,

they lower the number of text-level “anomalies”.

Computer-aided analysis has shown that the revision process

produces differences between draft translations and revised texts, albeit the

contrast has not proved statistically significant in any of the examined

language variables. Revision can be regarded as tertiary text composition, as

the reviser does not create new text, merely modifies the translation. As a

consequence of the revisers’ work, the length of the texts and the average

length of sentences are generally shortened, while the number of sentences

8

grows. The type/token rate and the lexical density typically increases.

Revised texts have a richer vocabulary and contain more unique words than

translated versions. Furthermore, the ratio of frequent words to all words,

and the distribution of frequent/less frequent words decreases. General

revision trends therefore undermine the dominance of the universals

suggested by Baker (1995), Laviosa (1998) and Tirkonnen-Condit (2004).

Linguistic redundancy, the rate of lexical simplification is reduced.

It was also demonstrated, however, that the revised versions, as

regards their statistical features, resembled each other even more than

translated texts. The data shows levelling out, which supports Baker’s

(1995) earlier hypothesis about this phenomenon in translations. The

translation universal of avoiding repetitions (Toury 1991, Baker 1995) is

further strengthened, not weakened in revised texts. Moreover, revisers, just

like translators, split sentences to facilitate understanding (Fabricius-Hansen

1998). Thus, it can be supposed that some of the language phenomena

previously considered universal to translation are in fact editing strategies,

since editing a text’s redundancy and information content is an integral and

often-used element of both translation and revision (Mossop 2001).

The contrastive analysis of the selected texts revealed which micro-

level operations might contribute to the macro-level differences between the

translated and revised versions. The analysis of the link between translators’

and revisers’ operations confirmed the conclusions of the computer-aided

analysis. Besides checking for equivalence and performing obligatory

corrections in grammar and spelling, revisers first and foremost employ

grammatical and lexical interventions guided by editing strategies to reduce

linguistic redundancy and enrich vocabulary, curbing the dominance of

certain linguistic phenomena that are deemed translation universals, such as

simplification, redundancy and the underrepresentation of unique target

language items. These phenomena may arise from the overuse or lack of

explicitating and implicitating transfer operations of translators.

9

Computer-aided analysis indicated increased deviation from

general revision trends in texts where revisers made a significant amount of

changes. The number and significance of revision operations correlated with

the amount of transfer operations employed by the translators. Revisers

improved the text more where translators had not carried out enough

operations, and reversed the operations where necessary to prevent their

excessive use. While translators primarily employed grammatical transfer

operations, the ratio of grammatical and lexical operations carried out by

revisers varied according to the translators’ operations and the redundancy

of the translated text. Omission was the most frequently implemented

change by revisers in both lexical and grammatical operations. This is

hardly unexpected, as translators make a considerable amount of optional

additions when transferring meaning between languages. Concretisation,

generalisation and addition were also important operations employed by the

revisers. These operations increase the text’s type/token rate and lexical

density, and decrease its grammatical and lexical redundancy. Another

operation facilitating processability apart from splitting sentences is

grammatical transposition, which, however, does not produce statistically

measurable results during computer-aided analysis.

In the texts produced by translators, the majority of grammatical

transfer operations were rule-based or norm-based, while most lexical

transfers were editorial operations. Revisers seem to prefer editorial

operations in both categories. While editing the information content and

redundancy of a text, translators clearly favour explicitation, which proves

Blum-Kulka’s (1986) and Klaudy’s (2001) hypothesis. Revisers, on the

other hand, perform more grammatical implicitation than explicitation. As

far as lexical operations are concerned, revisers prefer explicitation, in

particular concretisation, and overall, they employ more transfer operations

for explicitation. As a result of this, the explicitness of the resulting text

versions was usually increased by both translation and revision.

10

The differences between the data for translated and revised texts

from computer-aided and contrastive analysis may vary from text to text.

Certain variables might produce outliers, or they can even deviate from

general revision trends depending on the peculiarities of the source text, the

quality of translation and individual revision trends. Revisers therefore

differentiate according to the vocabulary and linguistic redundancy of the

given text. They might even go against general revision trends, and increase

redundancy where necessary, limit the avoidance of repetition, decrease the

extent and richness of the vocabulary used, and thus, the information burden

as well. This way, they move these variables closer to the “normal” degree

characteristic of the target language and the style of the source text. The

differences are manifested in the texts’ changes of explicitness, and it can

be stated that the stylistic characteristics and individual drafting features

typical of original texts become more pronounced as a result of revision.

9. Reviewing the hypotheses

Researchers in translation studies warn that translators’ operations using

explicitation or implicitation might develop into a “translators’ disease”

(Levý 1965), which needs to be cured, or lead to “losses” (Blum-Kulka

1986), which need to be made up for. In the translation process this is done

by the reviser, who, besides performing the obligatory corrections, provides

a sort of post-operative pain management or rehabilitation by administering

norm-based and editing interventions. The revisers’ aim is to make the

target language text comprehensible, they improve (Mossop 2001, Martin)

it to make it suitable for the target audience. Since the dominance of

translation universals is linked to the lower quality of the text (Blum-Kulka

1986, Tirkkonen-Condit 2004, Scarpa 2006), I assumed that revisers

employ operations that move the text closer to target language norms and

reduce the dominance of the phenomena classified as translation universals.

This hypothesis can be broken down into several points.

11

9.1 Statistical differences between translated and revised texts

The computer-aided statistical analysis sought to show whether text-level

differences appear between the translated and revised versions as a result of

the reviser’s work. Since researchers of translation universals (Baker 1995,

Laviosa 1998) regard lexical and grammatical redundancy, simplification

and the lack of unique target language elements as general characteristics of

translated texts, and since these phenomena can be linked to a text’s lower

quality (Tirkkonen-Condit 2004, Scarpa 2006, Rabadan et al 2009), I

assumed that revised texts exhibit statistically measurable differences that

point to the reduction of translation universals. The results of the analysis

proved that revisers use operations that reverse the above mentioned trends.

As a result of revision, the length of the texts shortens, the type/token rate

increases, revised texts contain more unique words, and the ratio of frequent

words to all words as well as the distribution of frequent/less frequent words

decreases. Furthermore, the number of sentences grows, while the number

of words drops, which facilitates understanding. Therefore, vocabulary is

enriched (i.e. it shows greater variability), simplification and grammatical

redundancy are restrained. Although the numerical data for the translators’

and revisers’ subcorpora did not demonstrate significant differences—after

all, revision is only tertiary text composition—the results definitely point to

one direction, which is indicative. Based on the above, the first hypothesis

can be considered as confirmed.

9.2 Modifying translators’ operations during revision

Through the contrastive text analysis examining the correlations between

translators’ and revisers’ operations I aimed to find out what operations

revisers employ apart from the obligatory corrections, and whether they

modify the translators’ operations. I hypothesized that revisers modify

12

translators’ explicitating and implicitating operations, since the overuse or

lack of these can result in the occurrence of certain translation universals

(Levý 1965, Pápai 2001). The results of the text analysis show that revisers

do change translators’ operations. They either modify the operations—by

making further explicitation or implicitation—or permanently delete them

from the text, in effect, reversing certain changes. These modifications and

deletions occurred most frequently in texts where the obligatory correction

of translation mistakes was needed or where the translator employed great

quantities of transfer operations producing explicitation or implicitation.

Therefore, on account of the data, the second hypothesis can be regarded as

confirmed as well.

9.3 Deleting unnecessary operations, making up for missing ones

While analysing the operations carried out by translators and revisers,

another hypothesis was formulated stating that besides making obligatory,

rule-based corrections, revisers modify translators’ unnecessary operations

and perform transfer operations in case the translator fails to do so. The

above mentioned modifications and deletions by the revisers primarily

concerned texts where the number of transfer operations producing

explicitation or implicitation was significantly higher than required by the

original text. In these cases, the aim of the revisers with the modification or

deletion of the translators’ operations was—apart from making obligatory

corrections to the translation—to limit linguistic redundancy or to reverse

the translators’ operations producing implicitation. When the translator

made too many additions, the reviser balanced this with omissions, while

ensuring the optimal level of explicitness by concretisation. By contrast,

overuse of omissions were compensated for by additions. Sentences that

had been unnecessarily split, were merged by grammatical contraction,

moving the text closer to the original version. When the translator had not

13

considered the expectations of the recipient, the reviser split sentences to

facilitate understanding. Similarly, norm-based sentence-level elevations

producing grammatical redundancy were compensated for by lowering. So,

the results of the contrastive text analysis confirm the research hypothesis

about revisers curbing unnecessary operations by translators and making up

for missing ones. Thus, revisers’ primary objective is to optimise linguistic

redundancy and the information content of the text.

9.4 Independent interventions

During the contrastive text analysis of translated and revised texts I also

sought to find out whether revisers primarily improve the translations’ use

of language and information content by independent interventions or they

simply modify translators’ operations. I assumed that besides modifying and

deleting translators’ operations, revisers perform individual explicitating

and implicitating interventions guided by editing strategies to optimise the

lexical and grammatical redundancy and linguistic explicitness of translated

texts. The aggregate results of the study indicate that revisers principally

conduct individual operations while checking, correcting and editing texts.

The hypothesis about individual interventions by revisers can therefore be

considered confirmed. However, there are exceptions to the general trend in

revision. In certain cases revisers’ most frequent interventions involved

modification of the translators’ operations. Also, revisers sometimes deleted

the transfer operations that were deemed incorrect or unnecessary, or in

other instances, the number of both modifications and deletions exceeded

the amount of individual interventions. In these texts, however, the number

of modifications and deletions was not higher than usual. The difference

was caused by the low number of individual interventions performed by the

participant revisers.

14

9.5 Universals of revision

On the basis of Horváth’s findings and the studies published about

translation universals I assumed that certain general phenomena might be

observed in revision. The results of the present study contradict Horváth’s

(2009) findings to some extent and suggest that apart from word-level

omissions and additions, sentence-level interventions can be considered

typical revisional interventions. Moreover, since revisers apply global

strategies at macro level when approaching a text, they can “improve” the

whole text by conducting word-level operations. During the computer-aided

analysis it was demonstrated that revised texts, as regards their statistical

features, resembled each other even more than their translated versions, that

is, the research data indicated levelling out. The translation universal of

avoiding repetitions is further strengthened, not weakened in revised texts.

Revisers, just like translators, split sentences to facilitate understanding.

Accordingly, it can be supposed that some language phenomena previously

considered universal translation features are in fact editing strategies, and

editing a text’s information content and linguistic redundancy is part of both

translation and revision (Mossop 2001).

Therefore, in translation studies literature, out of the universal

features deemed typical for translated texts, we should only regard certain

forms of simplification as genuinely translation-related: poor vocabulary—

with the lack of the unique elements characteristic of the target language—,

redundancy and unusual linguistic patterns. On the other hand, editing

encompasses normalisation, the avoidance of repetitions, levelling out, the

push towards better comprehensibility and an increase in the explicitness of

the text. Yet, these trends can also entail risks. The excessive use of some of

these interventions can be “abnormal” (Tirkkonnen-Condit 2004). Revisers

apply global strategies when approaching the texts: when they perceive

explicit saturation (Makkos and Robin 2014), they seek to optimise the text

by limiting redundancy and enriching vocabulary (i.e. increasing the range

15

of words used). The latter phenomenon is perhaps best positioned to lay

claim to the designation “universal of revision”, since the others are part of

both translation and editing.

Both activities, just like written communication in general, are

characterised by risk-aversion, which, according to Pym (2008), is the only

genuine universal in translation. That is why translators and revisers strive

for disambiguation, better comprehensibility and normalisation, almost

obsessively trying to meet recipients’ expectations (Robin 2014a). But

revisers, apart from being risk-averse, are first and foremost optimisers.

They only split sentences when necessary and do not add extensive new

information. What is more, they often employ implicitation and limit

redundancy by omissions. So, they are less prone to the universal of risk-

aversion, which is probably linked to competency: an experienced linguistic

mediator is able to assess that risks and less afraid of losses (Klaudy 1996).

Horváth (2009) also claimed that revision moves the translated text

closer to the target language. This assertion follows logically from the

definition of the reviser and the reviser’s role, which state that revisers

approach their work on the basis of the target language text, and that they

bear in mind the target language norms. This is the main reason why

revisers often find better idiomatic expressions, and enrich the vocabulary

of the text with elements that are typical of the target language. The findings

of the present study also seem to confirm that revisers mostly try to adjust

the texts in line with the expectations of the target language audience, since

they usually make individual interventions. These interventions do not serve

to modify or delete translators’ operations but to adapt the text so as to

satisfy the expectations of target language recipients. Nevertheless, whether

revisers’ text-level interventions do indeed bring the text closer to target

language norms or whether these operations reflect a special revisional

norm, can only be determined by a comparative corpus-based study.

16

Conducting such a study was beyond the objectives of the present

dissertation but my previous research results suggest (Robin 2014b) that, as

regards the type/token rate and lexical density, revision adjusts the text so as

to conform to the norms of the target language, although revised texts

usually do not have as high scores in this respect as originals. But in the

case of avoidance of repetitions, average sentence length and levelling out,

an even stronger force controls these operations than target language norms,

just like in the case of translations. The standard deviation of revised texts’

statistical data is lower than the corresponding values for translated texts

and originals, the effect of levelling out is enhanced, sentences are split and

shortened, and the aggregate ratio of the most frequent words to the less

frequent ones is lower than in texts originally written in Hungarian. This

phenomenon might be explained by the fact that revised translations are

“edited” twice, first during translation and then during revision, while

linguistic mediators try to adjust the text to the presumed expectations of the

recipients. Linguistic mediators follow an editorial norm which does not

necessarily coincide with the norms prevalent in texts originally written in

the target language. This is again a feature characteristic of editing that is

even more conspicuous in revision.

The results of the present research therefore offer no clear answer

as to whether revision has universal linguistic features. During the analysis

of the data I acquired, general revisional trends have been identified, which,

however, only reflect the general linguistic phenomena in translations, since

the number and significance of interventions by revisers is linked to the

amount and significance of transfer operations employed by translators.

Revisers correct mistakes made by translators and try to curb unnecessary

operations, approaching the text at the macro-level. Apart from translators’s

and revisers’ individual trends, the structure of the original text and its

stylistic features, as well as the target language norms, revision is heavily

influenced by the pursuit of optimisation based on differentiation as regards

17

lexical redundancy and the richness of the vocabulary. Revisers perceive

when a target text’s explicitness has reached its saturation point, but this is

currently merely a psychological threshold, as no empirical study has yet

proven when a text’s information burden and grammatical redundancy

become excessive. Therefore, it can be stated with some reservations that

optimisation is one of revision’s general features applied in the case of all

texts and in every revision situation. Yet, in any case, the conclusions drawn

from this dissertation call for further studies in this field.

18

References

Allman, S. 2008. Acknowledging and Establishing the Hierarchy of

Expertise in Translator-Revisor Scenarios as an Aid to the Process of

Revising Translations. Unpublished MA thesis. Birmingham: University

of Birmingham. http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-

artslaw/cels/essays/translationstudiesdiss/AllmanDissertation.pdf

Arthern, P. 1991. Quality by numbers: Assessing revision and translation.

In: Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the Institute of Translation

and Interpreting. London: Aslib, The Association for Information

Management. 85–91.

Baker, M. 1993. Corpus Linguistics and Translation Studies: Implications

and Applications. In: Baker, M., Francis, G., Tognini-Bonelli, E. (eds)

Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair. Amsterdam-

Philadelphia: Benjamins. 233–250.

Baker, M. 1995. Corpora in Translation Studies. An Overview and

Suggestion for Future Research. Target Vol. 7. No. 2. 223–245.

Becher, V. 2010. Abandoning the notion of "translation-inherent"

explicitation. Against a dogma of translation studies. Across Languages

and Cultures Vol. 11. No. 1. 1–28.

Blum-Kulka, S. 1986. Shifts of Cohesion and Coherence in Translation. In:

House, J. Blum-Kulka, S. (eds) Interlingual and Intercultural

Communication. Discourse and Cognitionin Translation and Second

Language Acquisition. Tübingen: Narr. 17–35.

Brunette, L., Gagnon, C., Hine, J. 2005. The GREVIS project: revise or

court calamity. Across Languages and Cultures Vol. 6. No. 1. 29–45.

Chesterman, A. 1993. From ʻIs’ to ʻOught’: Laws, Norms and Strategies in

Translation Studies. Target Vol. 5. No. 1. 1–20.

19

Chesterman, A. 2004. Beyond the Particular. In: Mauranen, A., Kujamaki,

P. (eds) Translation Universals: Do they exist? Amsterdam: Benjamins.

33–49.

Chesterman, A. 2010. Why Study Translation Universals? In: The Digital

Depository of the University of Helsinki.

http://hdl.handle.net/I0138/24319

Cunningham, D. S. 1971. Translation and Editing. Meta Vol. 16. No. 3.

135–152.

Dimitrova, E. B. 2005. Expertise and Explicitation in the Translation

process. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Fabricius-Hansen, C. 1998. Informational Density and Translation, with

specisl reference to German – Norwegian – English. In: Johansson, S.,

Oksefjell, S. (eds) Corpora and Cross-Linguistic Research: Theory,

Method and Case-studies. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Frawley, W. 1984. Translation: literary, linguistic and philosophical

perspectives. Delaware: University of Delaware Press.

Graham, J. D. 1983. Checking, Revision and Editing. In: Picken, C. (ed.)

The Translator’s Handbook. London: Aslib. 99–105.

Heltai, P. 2011. Az explicitáció mint kommunikációs univerzálé. In:

Navracsics, J., Lengyel, Zs. (szerk.) Lexikai folyamatok egy- és

kétnyelvű közegben: pszicholingvisztikai tanulmányok II. Budapest:

Tinta Könyvkiadó. 124–133.

Holmes, J. 1972. The Name and Nature of Translation Studies. 1st. ed:

APPTS Series of the Translation Studies Section, Dept. of General

Literary Studies. Amsterdam: University Press.

Horváth, P. I. 2009. A lektori kompetencia. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis.

Budapest.

Hosington, B. M., Horguelin, P. A. 1980. A Practical Guide to Bilingual

Revision. Montréal: Linguatech.

20

House, J. 2008. Beyond Intervention: Universals in Translation? trans-kom

Vol. 1. No. 1. 6–19. www.trans-kom.eu/bd01nr01/trans-

kom_01_01_02_House_Beyond_Intervention.20080707.pdf

Károly, K. 2002. Az alkalmazott nyelvészeti kutatások néhány alapvető

módszertani kérdéséről. Alkalmazott Nyelvtudomány Vol. 2. No. 1. 77–

87.

Klaudy, K. 1996. Back Translation as a Tool for Detecting Explicitation

Strategies in Translation. In: Klaudy, K., Lambert, J. and Sohár A. (eds.)

Translation Studies in Hungary. Budapest: Scholastica. 99114.

Klaudy, K. 1997. A fordítás elmélete és gyakorlata. Budapest: Scholastica.

Klaudy, K. 1999. Az explicitációs hipotézisről. Fordítástudomány Vol. 2.

No. 1. 5–22.

Klaudy, K. 2001. Az aszimmetria hipotézis. In: Bartha M., Stephanides É.

(szerk.) A nyelv szerepe az információs társadalomban. A X. MANYE

Kongresszus előadásai. Székesfehérvár: KJF. 371–379.

Künzli, A. 2006a. Translation revision – A study of the performance of ten

professional translators revising a technical text. In: Gotti, M., Sarcevic,

S. (eds) Insights into specialized translation. Bern/Frankfurt: Peter

Lang. 195–214.

Künzli, A. 2006b. Teaching and learning translation revision: Some

suggestions based on evidence from a think-aloud protocol study. In:

Garant, M. (ed.) Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning.

Helsinki: Department of Translation Studies Publication III, Helsinki

University. 9–24.

Künzli, A. 2007a. Translation Revision: a study of the performance of ten

professional translators revising a legal text. In: Gambier, Y.,

Shlesinger, M., Stolze, R. (eds) Translation Studies: doubts and

directions. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 115–126.

21

Künzli, A. 2007b. The ethical dimension of translation revision. An

empirical study. The Journal of Specialised Translation No. 8. 42–55.

http://www.jostrans.org

Laviosa, S. 1998. The English Comparable Corpus: A Resource and a

Methodology. In: Bowker, L., Cronin, M., Kenny, D., Pearson, J. (eds.)

Unity in Diversity: Current Trends in Translation Studies. Manchester:

St. Jerome. 101–112.

Laviosa, S. 2009. Universals. In: Baker, M. (ed.) 2009. Encyclopedia of

Translation Studies. London: Routledge. 306–311.

Leuven-Zwart, K. van 1990. Translation and Original. Similarities and

Dissimilarities II. Target Vol. 2. N. 1. 69–95.

Levý, J. 1965. Will Translation Theory be of Use to Translators? In:

Italiaander, R. (ed.) Übersetzen. Vorträge und Beiträge vom

Internationalen Kongress literarischer Übersetzer in Hamburg.

Frankfurt-am-Main: Athenäum. 77–82.

Makkos, A., Robin, E. 2014. Explicitation and Implicitation in Back-

translation. Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning Vol.

5. 151–182.

http://www.cttl.org/uploads/5/2/4/3/5243866/nov_27_complete_cttl_e_2

014.pdf

Martin, T. 2007. Managing risks and resources: a down-to-earth view of

revision. The Journal of Specialised Translation No. 8. 57–63.

http://www.jostrans.org

Mossop, B. 2001. Revising and Editing for Translators. Amsterdam:

Benjamins.

Mossop, B. 2007. Empirical Studies of Revision: what we know and need to

know. The Journal of Specialised Translation No. 8.

http://www.jostrans.org/issue08/art_mossop.php

22

Pápai, V. 2001. Az explicitációs hipotézis vizsgálata angol–magyar és

magyar–magyar párhuzamos korpuszok egybevetésével. Doktori

értekezés. Kézirat. Pécs–Győr: PTE–SZIE.

Pym, A. 2008. On Toury’s laws of how translators translate. In: Pym, A.,

Shlesinger, M., Simeoni, D. Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies.

Investigations in homage to Gidon Toury. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 311–

328.

Rabadan, R., Labrador, B., Ramon, N. 2009. Corpus-based contrastive

analysis and translation universals. A tool for translation quality

assessment. Babel Vol. 55. No. 4. 303–328.

Robin, E. 2014a. Nyelvi babona a fordításokban. XXIV. MANYE

Kongresszus. Kolozsvár, BMTE. (26–28 April 2014.)

Robin, E. 2014b. Lektorált fordítások és eredeti magyar szövegek gépi

összehasonlítása. ANYK Konferencia. Nyelv, kultúra és társadalom.

Budapest: Kodolányi János Főiskola. (3–4 November 2014)

Scarpa, F. 2006. Corpus-based Quality-Assessment of Specialist

Translation: A Study Using Parallel and Comparable Corpora in English

and Italian. In: Gotti, M., Sarcevic, S. (eds) Insights into specialized

translation. Bern/Frankfurt: Peter Lang. 155–172.

Šunková, J. 2011. Revising Translations: Corpus Investigation of Revision

and Self-revision. Unpublished MA thesis. Brno: Masaryk University.

http://is.muni.cz/th/362729/ff_m/?lang=en

Szirmai, M. 2005. Bevezetés a korpusznyelvészetbe. A korpusznyelvészet

alkalmazása az anyanyelv és az idegen nyelv tanulásában és

tanításában. Segédkönyvek a nyelvészet tanulmányozásához XLVI.

Budapest: Tinta.

Tirkkonen-Condit, S. 2004. Unique items – over- or under-represented in

translated language? In: Mauranen, A., Kujamaki, P. (eds) Translation

Universals: Do they exist? Amsterdam: Benjamins. 177–186.

23

Toury, G. 1991. What are Descriptive Studies into Translation Likely to

Yield apart from Isolated Descriptions? In: van Leuven-Zwart, K. M.,

Naaijkens, T. (eds) Translation Studies: The State of the Art.

Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 179–192.

Toury, G. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam:

Benjamins.

Toury, G. 2004. Probabilistic explanations in translation studies. In:

Mauranen, A., Kujamaki, P. (eds) Translation Universals: Do they

exist? Amsterdam: Benjamins. 15–32.

24

Publications and Conference Presentations related to the Research

Publications

Robin, E. 2010. Fordítástudomány 2010. XII. Fordítástudományi

Konferencia és FTT-öregdiák-találkozó. VII. Fordítástudományi PhD-

konferencia. Fordítástudomány Vol. 12. No. 1. 87–92.

Robin, E. 2010. Explicitáció a lektorált fordításokban – az explicitáció mint

szerkesztési művelet. Fordítástudomány Vol. 12. No. 2. 42–66.

Robin, E. 2010. Explicitáció a lektorált fordításokban. Alkalmazott

Nyelvészeti Közlemények Vol. 5. évf. No. 1. 179–190.

Robin, E. 2011. Anthony Pym: Exploring Translation Theories. Recension.

Fordítástudomány Vol. 13. No. 1. 121–128.

Makkos, A., Robin, E. 2011. Explicitáció és implicitáció a fordítói

kompetencia függvényében. In: Váradi T. (ed.) V. Alkalmazott

Nyelvészeti Doktorandusz Konferencia online kötete. Budapest: MTA

Nyelvtudományi Intézet. 94–108.

www.nytud.hu/alknyelvdok11/proceedings11

Robin, E. 2011. Horváth Péter Iván: A szakfordítások lektorálása.

Recension. Fordítástudomány Vol. 13. No. 2. szám.

Makkos, A., Robin E. 2011. Explicitáció és implicitáció a visszafordításban.

Alkalmazott Nyelvtudomány Vol. 11. No. 1–2. 135–150.

Makkos, A., Robin, E. 2012. Fordítói műveletek a kompetencia

függvényében. In: Horváthné Molnár K., Sciacovelli A. (eds) Az

alkalmazott nyelvészet regionális és globális szerepe: alkalmazott

nyelvészeti kutatások az EU magyar elnökség évében. A MANYE

kongresszusok előadásai 8. Budapest–Szombathely–Sopron: NYME.

305–318.

http://www.kjf.hu/manye/2011_szombathely/kotet39_robin_makkos.pdf

25

Robin, E. 2012. Fordítás és újraszerkesztés. Mit tesz a szerkesztő a fordított

szöveggel? Filológia.hu Vol. 3. No. 2. 99–117.

http://www.filologia.hu/images/media/Filologia_2012-2.pdf

Robin, E. 2012. Explicitáció és implicitáció a lektorálásban. In: Váradi T.

(ed.) VI. Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Doktorandusz Konferencia online

kötete. Budapest: MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet. 134–139.

http://www.nytud.hu/alknyelvdok12/proceedings12/robin2012.pdf

Robin, E. 2013. Fordítói és lektori műveletek a fordított szövegekben. In:

Tóth Szergej (ed.) Társadalmi változások – nyelvi változások.

Alkalmazott nyelvészeti kutatások a Kárpát-medencében. A XXII.

MANYE Kongresszus előadásai. Budapest-Szeged: MANYE – Szegedi

Egyetemi Kiadó. 188–198.

Robin, E. 2013. Az explicitáció etikája. In: Klaudy K. (ed.) Fordítás és

tolmácsolás a harmadik évezred elején: 40 éves az ELTE Fordító- és

Tolmácsképző Tanszéke. Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó. 49–64.

Robin, E. 2013. Egyedi nyelvi elemek a fordításban. Sonia Tirkkonnen-

Condit hipotézisének hatása a fordítástudományra. Fordítástudomány

Vol. 15. No. 1. 92–102.

Robin, E. 2014. Mit árulnak el a statisztikák a lektorált fordításokról? In:

Ladányi Mária, Vladár Zsuzsa, Hrenek Éva (eds) Nyelv – társadalom –

kultúra. Interkulturális és multikulturális perspektívák. A XXIII.

MANYE Kongresszus előadásai. Budapest: MANYE – ELTE. 527–534.

Makkos, A., Robin, E. 2014. Explicitation and Implicitation in Back-

translation. Current Trends in Translation Teaching and Learning Vol.

5. 151–182.

http://www.cttl.org/uploads/5/2/4/3/5243866/nov_27_complete_cttl_e_2

014.pdf

Robin, E. 2014. Explicitation and Implicitation in Revised Translations. In:

Proceedings of the 2014 Olomouc Linguistic Colloquium. Olomouc:

Palacký University. (forthcoming)

26

Conference Presentations

Makkos, A., Robin, E. 2011. Explicitáció és implicitáció a fordítói

kompetencia függvényében. Presented at: V. Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti

Doktorandusz Konferencia. Budapest: MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet. (4

February 2011)

Makkos, A., Robin E. 2011. Explicitáció és implicitáció a visszafordításban.

Presented at: VIII. Fordítástudományi PhD-konferencia. Budapest:

ELTE BTK. (7 April 2011)

Makkos, A., Robin, E. 2011. Fordítói műveletek a kompetencia

függvényében. Presented at: XXI. MANYE Kongresszus. Szombathely:

NYME. (30 August 2011)

Robin, E. 2012. Az explicitáció következménye és etikája. Presented at: IX.

Fordítástudományi PhD-konferencia. Budapest: ELTE BTK. (29 March

2012)

Robin, E. 2012. Fordítás és lektorálás. Fordítói explicitáció és implicitáció a

lektorálásban. Presented at: XXII. MANYE Kongresszus. Szeged:

Szegedi Tudományegyetem. (12–14 April 2012)

Robin, E. 2013. Fordítási univerzálék a lektorált szövegekben. Presented at:

VII. Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Doktorandusz Konferencia. Budapest:

MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet. (1 February 2013)

Robin, E. 2013. Mit árulnak el a statisztikák a lektorált fordításoktól?

Presented at: XXIII. MANYE Kongresszus. Budapest, ELTE. (26–28

March 2013)

Robin, E. 2013. Lektori kompetencia a gyakorlatban. Presented at: X.

Fordítástudományi PhD-konferencia. Budapest: ELTE BTK. (18 April

2013)

27

Robin, E. 2014. A lektori kompetencia objektív értékelése. Presented at: XI.

Fordítástudományi PhD-konferencia. Budapest: ELTE BTK. (10 April

2014)

Robin, E. 2014. Nyelvi babona a fordításokban. Presented at: XXIV.

MANYE Kongresszus. Kolozsvár, BMTE. (26–28 April 2014)

Robin, E. 2014. Explicitation and Implicitation in Revised Translations.

Presented at: OLINCO – Olomouc Linguistic Colloquium. Olomouc,

Palacky University. (4–6 June 2014)

Robin, E. 2014. Mi teszi a lektort lektorrá? A lektorképzés kérdései.

Presented at: Fordítók és Tolmácsok Országos Fóruma. Budapest. (28–

29 August 2014)

Robin, E. 2014. Lektorált fordítások és eredeti magyar szövegek gépi

összehasonlítása. Presented at: ANYK Konferencia. Nyelv, kultúra és

társadalom. Budapest: Kodolányi János Főiskola. (3–4 November 2014)